The Radical Challenge

As you participate in The Radical Challenge over the next five weeks, use this page as a resource to aid in your experience. Below is a dropdown for each week of the challenge, with more information and a few ideas for completing it. Use the suggestions to spark ideas for yourself as you step up your faith.

 

Download The Guide

   

What is The Radical Challenge?

For five weeks, you’re going to live at a temporary extreme to build rhythms that can sustain your soul. Each week, there are three parts to the challenge:

  • Daily Challenges
  • Weekly Scripture Memorization
  • Weekly Challenge

*Download the guide for all of the details and to track your progress.

 

Daily Challenges 

As you complete the daily challenges over the next 35 days, here are a few resources that will help along the way. 

 

☑️ READ SCRIPTURE

One of the most helpful resources we’ve found for making the most of reading the Bible is The Bible Project. Below are links to videos on Mark, Romans, and Galatians as you read through those books of the Bible. We've included timestamps for the sections you are reading each day. 

 

☑️ SCRIPTURE MEMORIZATION 

Memorizing scripture can be a difficult habit, but it doesn’t have to be. The key is finding a system that works for you. If you’re not sure where to start, consider trying one of these ideas.

  1. Write your verse of the week on a card and review it every morning while brushing your teeth.
  2. Record yourself reciting the verse aloud and then listen to that recording on your drive.
  3. Write the verse on a sticky note and place it on your fridge, mirror, or computer, and then have a rhythm of reciting it out loud each time you see it.  

Memorizing scripture pulls us closer to God’s words. 

In the moments when the chatterbox of your mind goes off, you have scripture to combat it.

If you are talking to someone who is skeptical of Christianity, you can refer to scripture. When life and society get crazy, you have scripture to help ground yourself. It may be challenging, but it’s worth the work.

 

☑️ PRAYER

Most people pray at some point in their lives. Many of us agree that it’s important, yet few of us know if we are doing it well. We’re not alone.  

After watching Jesus pray in front of people, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. At Mosaic, we have tools designed to help you get the most out of prayer. Below are a few resources we suggest:

How to Have a Quiet Time from the 24/7 Prayer Movement

Midweek Prayer

The Prayer Course

 

☑️ SILENT WALK

Slowing down and experiencing silence are not practices that most of us are accustomed to. If you are struggling with the challenge of silence, check out the Solitude Practice from Practicing the Way.

Weekly Challenges

Each week of The Radical Challenge, you must complete a weekly challenge. Whatever you choose to do for each challenge, do it with joy! 

Distraction is one of the greatest threats to spiritual health in the modern world. 

The biblical word for this practice is consecration. It’s the practice of surrendering something in our daily lives in order to connect with God.

As you consider what to sacrifice, think about habits that slow down your faith. Things like the language we use, the sins we struggle with, and the ways we try to escape how we feel can all be good things to give up. These habits put the “brakes” on our faith and should be cut out as we continue to live as Ordinary Radicals.

Other habits may not apply the “brakes” as much as they leave our faith stuck in “neutral.” Scrolling on social media, playing games on our phones, or watching late-night TV may not be problems in themselves, but they don’t advance our faith.

As you pick something to abstain from over the next 35 days, take stock of your life and habits. Make an intentional decision to give up a habit that doesn’t move your faith forward and instead invest that time connecting with God and people.

“Love is the hallmark of Jesus’ followers, but what does it look like? [At times], it means offering hidden acts of service to those right in front of us, allowing ourselves to be interrupted by unexpected needs, and overlapping our lives with those on the margins.” - Practicing the Way

Below is a list of some practical ways you can serve people well. Allow them to stir ideas within you, and then go serve others.

9 Practical Ways to Serve People

  1. Make a meal for someone in the neighborhood
  2. Offer to babysit for a family member
  3. Pack Blessing Bags for people in your area without a home
  4. Serve with an Impact partner (for a list of Mosaic’s Impact Partners, check out mosaicchristian.org/impact)
  5. Offer to shovel snow or clean a neighbor’s yard
  6. Meet a need for a teacher and send a card of encouragement with it
  7. Write 5 cards of encouragement 
  8. Volunteer at a local soup kitchen or the Maryland Food Bank
  9. Create your own way to serve someone in your life

 

For early Christians, fasting was a regular practice that helped them pursue God and strengthen their reliance on Him. Today, we're much more likely to hear about fasting from a fitness perspective than a faith perspective. However, fasting is one of the best tools we have to deepen our dependence on God and increase our connection with him. Oftentimes, we see fasting connected with prayer. The first one increases our hunger for God, and the second satisfies it.

In this challenge, we are going to practice fasting as a way to deny ourselves something we want now (food) and experience something much greater in the long term (a deeper connection with God). 

 

Set a Goal

Take a look at your week and pick a day to practice fasting.

Avoid days with long workouts and big meetings. Decide on a length of time to fast and pray as you prepare. We suggest 24 hours.

 

Be Wise

Drink plenty of water and ask God to increase your dependence on him as you give up the practical need for food. If you are someone who has struggled with food disorders in your past or present, be wise by setting a shorter goal and talking about your struggles with a trusted friend. Do not just attempt to add this practice without considering your struggle.

We are aware that some people may have medical issues or concerns that keep them from fasting. If this is you, please check in with your doctor before participating in this challenge.

 

Connect to Jesus

For over a thousand years, fasting was one of the central practices of the way of Jesus.

It was common practice for apprentices of Jesus to fast twice a week until sundown on Wednesdays and Fridays, as well as during the 40 days of Lent. Similar to essential spiritual disciplines like prayer, reading Scripture, or attending church on Sunday, fasting was simply one of the things practicing Christians did.

After all, Jesus began his life's work with 40 days of fasting, a practice he continued throughout his lifetime, and he said, "Follow me."

"Fasting is one of the most essential and powerful of all the practices of Jesus and one of the best ways we have to integrate our entire person, including our body, around God. But remember, the ultimate aim of fasting is to get in touch with our hunger for God. Hunger is the state of wanting or needing something you do not have. When we fast, we awaken our body and soul to its deep yearning for life with the Father." From Practicing The Way by John Mark Comer

This night is heart over hype. 

Yes, we are planning on a packed house, music from the band, and a teaching from Jonathan. But more than the hype of a fun lobby and powerful music, this night will stretch your practice of worship and guide you to the power and presence of God. What does God want to do in your life? If you want to answer that question, you need a break from your routine and space to have a personal encounter with God.  

 

GET THE DETAILS

Much of our world is consumed with building a platform. Throughout the Bible, God is consumed with building pillars in his church. These pillars are men and women dedicated to building a life of faith that can support the world around them. 

Pillars of faith have two key markers: attention and intention. Living with attention means setting our focus on God and on what he wants for our lives and our world. Throughout this challenge, you have abstained, served, fasted, and worshipped. All of those choices help you focus on God. Living with intention requires that we formulate the plans for our lives to align with the Bible and with what God calls us to do.

The Holy Spirit challenge demands that we give God both our attention and intention. Over the next week, pray each day that God would prompt you through his Spirit to see opportunities to follow him and choose to intentionally say “yes” when you feel prompted. A simple filter to use is: Does it line up with Scripture, and does it bless other people? If so, do it!

For more on this from Jonathan, check out Episode 9 of The Last 5% Podcast starting at 37:45.

 

The Last 5% 

In this episode, Jonathan Moynihan and Ryan Blaylock give a sneak peek at Mosaic's upcoming series, Ordinary Radicals, and outline what it will take to participate in The Radical Challenge.

Share Your Story!

As you participate in The Radical Challenge, we’d love to hear from you about your experience. 

 

Radical Challenge Stories