More About GrowthWorks

Our journey

Since we first launched GrowthWorks as a video-only, DVD based, small group course several years ago, about 10,000 people have been through the course. This has given us a great amount of feedback. Overwhelmingly this feedback has been positive, about life-change in both individuals and churches.

We got comments from individuals, like, “GrowthWorks has been the most challenging and rewarding Bible study series that I’ve ever undertaken. I feel like the scales have been lifted from my eyes and I now know how to live the victorious Christian life.”

Other comments were from church leaders, where GrowthWorks was used church-wide: “GrowthWorks has changed the culture of our church. Throughout the last ten weeks the greeting has been, ‘Have you watched GrowthWorks this week? What did you get out of it?’ It really has changed the thinking and conversation of this church.”

Mixed in with the many testimonials was the occasional constructive criticism, and it was always the same thing: “This is life-changing truth and we want to discuss it, but our whole group time is taken up with watching the videos.” We realised that in a home group, as much is learned from hearing one another’s successes and failures and thoughts about the principle being taught, as is learned from the teaching itself.

People wanted to get into each other’s lives about these truths!

A new approach

So we decided to completely redo the course as a book + discussion + video supplement. John had full manuscripts from his video teaching and thought it would be simple to turn those into a book. But as he began, he realised that constructing a message for teaching is very different from writing a book for reading. He rewrote the content from the ground up as a book. The principles and process of growth are the same, but written for reading.

The team worked with John to insert ‘interactive boxes’ throughout each chapter. These boxes have a question at the top that forces the reader to interact the truth being taught with their own lives. They then jot down their thoughts in the box. It is too easy to simply acknowledge truth and enjoy its communication without confronting its implications for my life! These interactive boxes are quite personal and become almost like a journal of how God is speaking into the reader’s life through GrowthWorks. Each person then brings their book/journal with them to the group meeting and has really meaningful things to share and pray about in group time.

Leaders’ edition

We also created a leaders’ edition of the GrowthWorks book. This version contains the whole book, plus lots of additional content for leaders, giving them guidance and ideas for leading each week’s topic. In addition, the leaders’ edition comes packaged with a DVD.

We wanted to create something that would kick off the discussion time in the group by hitting the big point of the chapter that week, and would also be very engaging and capture people’s imagination. So the DVD content each week is short (5 to 10 minutes) and is semi-dramatic. John is talking about the principle, but always in an environment that illustrates the point. He may be digging a hole in the back yard, or sitting on the side of a pool his kids are swimming in, or walking on the beach, or hooking up a new receiver to his television, or strolling through an orchard. In each case, what is happening around John has a bearing on what he is saying.

PLEASE NOTE that although GrowthWorks can be purchased at Christian bookstores, THE LEADERS’ EDITION CAN ONLY BE PURCHASED FROM OUR ONLINE STORE.

Learning methods

So a group going through GrowthWorks together will interact with the life lessons four times with four different learning methods:

  1. They will read the chapter
  2. They will write in the interactive boxes
  3. They will watch the semi-dramatic video
  4. They will discuss the chapter together and learn from one another’s experiences

Going solo with GrowthWorks

The added benefit of putting GrowthWorks into a book format is that people can read it on their own, apart from the group setting. Many people are not in small groups, and many others may be in a group that does not want to do GrowthWorks. Or someone may have heard about GrowthWorks and want to check it out on their own before introducing it to their group.

Also, having the content in a book, it can be underlined, re-read, quoted, and shared more easily.

International

Working from a book also makes it much easier to translate and use GrowthWorks internationally. The book is already translated into Spanish, complete with Spanish videos, and translations into Ukrainian, Russian and Latvian are in the works.

A number of people have expressed a desire to purchase the first version of GrowthWorks (no books, just the video teaching of the full content). For those who want to sit back and enjoy John North teaching GrowthWorks, along with Mark McCrindle’s how-to sessions on the spiritual disciplines, we have decided to continue selling the video-only version at a reduced price while supplies last.

Is GrowthWorks for your church or small group? Order a copy and find out why so many have been blessed!