I joined the pastoral staff of Central Bible Church (formerly Pantego Bible Church) in August of 1998 after serving as Vice President for Student Life and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC Canada for twelve years. I desired to return to church ministry, and my wife Ruth, son Zach, and I were attracted to this church by its intentional strategy for disciple-making, which included among other things, a mission focused on spiritual transformation and the 31 Core Competencies—10 Core Beliefs, 10 Core Practices, and 11 Core Virtues.
For these past 24 years I have had the pleasure of employing the 31 Core Competencies through my weekly writing of The Scrolls and teaching of Community Group Bible Study at Central Bible Church. Many of you reading this devotional have been encouraged by the Competencies through your own personal use of The Scrolls or through your children’s engagement with them on Sunday mornings. The Core Competencies have served us well as a church in our mission of “making God known by making disciples who are changed by God to change their world.” Here are three specific ways the Competencies have been a helpful tool for disciple-making at Central Bible Church.
First, the Competencies serve as a description of mission accomplishment. It’s one thing to have a mission. It’s quite another to have a clear vision of what its fulfillment looks like. The Core Competencies provide this vision and an implicit strategy for attaining it. The strategy assumes that a growing comprehension of the 10 Core Beliefs coupled with an increasingly frequent, more consistent engagement in the 10 Core Practices is used by the Holy Spirit to develop the 11 Core Virtues, the benchmarks of a maturing disciple of Christ (Galatians 5:22-23).
Second, the Competencies serve as a curriculum for mission accomplishment. It follows that if these doctrines, disciplines, and character qualities picture mission fulfillment, then they ought to be taught. In the beginning, they served as a lectionary of sorts. Sermons were developed around the Competencies. That pattern was adjusted after a few years and replaced by matching a particular Core Competency to the biblical text chosen.
Third, the Competencies give people a common language to use to discuss Christian theology and spiritual formation. As such, they serve as a biblical theology of spiritual formation intended to increase the biblical and theological literacy of Christ’s disciples.
As you work through the 31 Core Competencies in this devotional, I pray you will gain not only a greater understanding of them, but also a deeper appreciation for how they help form us into more fully developed followers of Christ.
Tom Bulick, PhD
March 2022