One of my mentors often liked to ask a couple of simple questions when we were together: first, “What is the Christian life?” and second, “What is the church?” At first glance, those feel like beginner questions. Of course we know what a Christian is and what church is about. 

But how many of our assumptions about our life in Christ together look more like being a twenty-first century North American more than an apprentice of Jesus in the here and now of our lives? To what degree are we letting the way of Jesus transform our expectations, our values and our pursuits into a very different way from the culture that surrounds us? 

John Mark is a teacher and writer from Topanga Canyon in Southern California. For nearly two decades, he was the founding pastor at Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon where he spent many years working out discipleship to Jesus in the post-Christian West, organized their community around a simple idea: practicing the Way of Jesus together.

In 2021, after leading a five-year initiative around spiritual formation called “Practicing the Way,” John Mark stepped away from his pastoral role to create simple, beautiful formation resources for church communities around the world.

Today, John Mark is developing new practices, courses, and podcasts for Practicing the Way and serves as a teacher in residence at Vintage Church LA with his wife and their three kids. 

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