Rooted

Rooted will be starting Tuesday, January 13th, 2026 at 7pm in Friendship Hall. Please sign up on the bulletin board outside the kitchen. There is a requested $25 donation to cover the cost of materials.  Checks can be made out to Ridley Park Presbyterian Church. You may bring your donation to the first meeting or place it in the Large Rooted envelope located in the church office. There are scholarships available if needed. See Tom Horne for any questions.

WHAT IS ROOTED?

Rooted is a 10-week experiential study with three large group sessions, 10 small group meetings, 45 daily devotionals, and three experiences. The focus rests on three themes: Connecting with God, Connecting with the Church, and Connecting with Your Purpose. “People don’t grow in classrooms. People grow in experiences. They grow in relationship with each other. To motivate them, we have to put them in high risk environments. This is what we found in Rooted,” Kenton reported.
While Rooted is a Bible study, it is experiential in nature, meaning that the Bible, the relationships with others, and experiences work together to transform lives. The groups utilize “The Seven Rhythms of Rooted” which include Daily Devotion, Prayer, Freedom from Strongholds, Serving the Community, Sacrificial Generosity, Sharing Your Story, and Celebration.
The integration of study, prayer, experiences, and relationships accelerates life change because the participants are doing what they’re learning while they are learning it. “There are thousands of discipleship programs in North America, and I think I studied all of them,” Shelly Juskiewicz, Community Life Pastor, Mariners Church, says. “What I found is they all pretty much have the same content. What makes Rooted different is that it’s based on experiential learning rather than a lecture or leader teaching each week. Life transformation comes more through experiences than through knowledge. Teaching comes in and goes out and very little of it stays. But if you can share an experience together and do something, it changes people.”
The three large group gatherings include a Vision Night, a Money Talk, and a Celebration all led by the senior pastor. The Celebration typically includes a meal, worship, individuals declaring their faith, water baptism, and a commissioning.
The 10 small group meetings focus on the topics: Who is God?, How does God Speak to Us?, Where is God in the Midst of Suffering?, There is an Enemy, How Can I Make the Most of My Life (2 meetings), Why and How Should I Tell Others?, and Why is the Church Important? The topics are further explored in five daily devotionals per week, which are essential to the impact on the individual.
The three experiences are a prayer experience, a serve experience, and breaking strongholds.The two-hour prayer experience in the third week of Rooted is the watershed moment for most Rooted participants. Those who participate in the guided prayer session based on their The Lord’s Prayer, The Armor of God (Ephesians 6), or another Scripture passage, will continue on to finish the rest of Rooted and receive the full benefit. On average, 10 percent of participants drop out prior to the prayer experience. “The end goal of the prayer experience is to help them hear God’s voice in their lives,” according to Matt Olthoff, Network Development Pastor for the Rooted Network.
The serve experience gives each group the opportunity to serve the poor in their communities. The focus, however, is not based on the act of service. Rather, the participants are encouraged to listen to God’s voice while they are in the process of serving the poor. “You want to encourage everyone to experience God while they are serving, then debrief these experiences afterward. The debrief involves crystallizing next steps based on what God spoke to them,” said Olthoff.
Breaking strongholds in week five starts with a discussion on spiritual warfare, then the group is divided by gender into two groups. “Strongholds are areas of sin in our lives where our flesh and Satan work together to create destructive patterns that are sometimes hard to see. We have the authority and power of the Holy Spirit to break free from these influences.” If group members feel they have a stronghold, they confess the pattern of sin in their lives and choose to replace it with a new character quality they want to adopt. This is the beginning of a process that the Holy Spirit works in the life of the individuals. In some cases, group members may be referred for professional counseling.
These three experiences are both powerful and profound in the growth of the group members. Rooted focuses beyond the information the Bible provides on discipleship, but moves group members toward living out what God directs them to do.