Our Story

When we emailed our local vocational school that we wanted to learn from them about helping people follow Jesus, we didn’t expect their reply to be, “Come on over! We’ll give you a tour.”

But that’s how we found ourselves in a carpentry classroom with a row of birdhouses lining the back wall. The instructor explained this is how his students are tested. He had started their last unit by showing the class a birdhouse. Over the next couple weeks they learned the tools and practiced the skills they would need to build a birdhouse of their own. The test is performing the task that they’ve been preparing for; building a birdhouse. But the point of the birdhouse is actually the skills and tools that the class can now use to build all kinds of things.

No one would go into a carpentry class and say to a new student, “Here’s what a birdhouse looks like, now you build it.” And yet, this happens all the time in church. Every Sunday, churches get together and look at Jesus, then say, “Go home and do the same!”

The problem is that the Christian life is more like building a birdhouse than passing a test.

Which is why we’ve designed OptIN to be a trade school for Christian formation. Each OptIN unit focuses on a different aspect of Christian living—prayer, telling stories, worship, being the church. Participants and families practice skills and get familiar with tools that let this practice come alive.