Groups & Cohorts
Book Club: Practicing The Way
A Four Week Online Discussion Group on John Mark Comer’s 2024 book, Practicing The Way
Dates: May 6 – 31
90-minute Zoom Discussion Meetings on Thursdays at 6 PM. Meetings will be recorded, so you can watch back at any time!
Cost: Pay What You Can!
About The Book
It’s not enough to slow down and simplify our lives; we need to live with a greater level of intentionality in our apprenticeship to Jesus.
The first followers of Jesus developed a Rule of Life, a set of habits and practices based on the life of Jesus himself, that put God at the center of their lives. They made space for God to do what they could not — form them into people who are like their rabbi, Jesus.
Practicing the Way is a vision for the future that has been shaped by the wisdom of the past — a time when to be a Christian meant to apprentice under Jesus in living. As an introduction to spiritual formation, it’s accessible to beginners and lifelong followers of Jesus. It’s also the culmination of many years of learning, thinking, working, and teaching on spiritual formation, and my manifesto for the future of the church in the post-Christian West.
This book is an invitation to apprenticeship to Jesus and a guide for a more embodied faith. Through practices like Sabbath, prayer, solitude, and other everyday rhythms from the life of Jesus, we can open deeper and deeper layers of our souls to Jesus to heal and transform.
The future is ancient.
It’s practicing the Way.
About The Author
John Mark Comer is a teacher and writer from Topanga Canyon in LA. 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, and organized his 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,” he stepped away from this role to create simple, beautiful formation resources for church communities around the world. Today, he’s developing new practices, courses, and podcasts for Practicing the Way and serving as a teacher in residence at Vintage Church LA with his wife T and three kids.
He’s also the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including Practicing the Way, the bestselling The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, and others. He
What You’ll Get
From This Group
As a member, you’ll get a few great benefits from being here:
Weekly Discussion: Once a week, we will gather together online to discuss the weeks reading.
You never miss out. As long as you are a part of our community, you can access all the resources, collective learning and conversation, online gathering recordings, and content.
Meet new people. Your fellow members are as motivated as you are to dive into what we’re exploring.
Get results. As you dive into the book and meet the community here, you’re on a path of formation. While it’s not necessarily easy, the transformation we’ll get together matters.
Get To Know Your Guide
Zachary Bryant is the co-founder of Eremos and a spiritual director, life coach, and teacher of the Way of Jesus in Nashville, TN. He completed his Master’s of Divinity at Lipscomb University in 2019 and two years of training in spiritual direction from the Institute for Christian Spirituality in Nashville in 2021. He became a Board-Certified Christian Mental Health Coach in 2021 and completed a third year of spiritual direction training in offering the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola in 2023.
The Eremos Spiritual Formation Cohort
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?”
-Jesus (Matt. 11:28 MSG)
More and more people seem to be answering “yes” to these questions while sharing stories of feeling “stuck” in their spiritual journey. There’s a noticeable disconnect between the experience of abundant life that we read about in the Bible and the quality of life most Christians live today. In our culture, following Jesus has become more about survival until we “die and go to heaven” than grace, adventure, and genuine, noticeable, life-giving change. If the only option is such a “get-out-of-Hell-free card,” it’s no wonder many Christians are questioning the point of following Jesus.
Simply put, the kind of faith that merely focuses on believing that God exists, accepting Jesus as your personal savior, going to Church, reading your Bible, trying your best to be a good person, and waiting to die to go to heaven is no longer working for most people.
The good news, however, is that while this could lead us to conclude that the way of Jesus does not work, there is another path to explore. Yes, there is another way of following Jesus that leads to abundant life!
Experiencing this fullness of life requires deep connections to God, ourselves, and others. While we greatly desire such connections, we also fear the risks inherent in the vulnerability required. As a result, we can develop barriers that keep us from the fullness of life God desires for us.
For this purpose, we have created the EREMOS Spiritual Formation Cohort!
What is the Spiritual Formation Cohort?
The EREMOS Spiritual Formation cohort immerses participants into a lifestyle at home in the love of God. The ten-month experience helps participants establish a rhythm of experiencing God in solitude, community, and way of life with more awareness of God’s loving presence in all things.
This cohort might be for you if…
You desire to experience more of God
You desire to better know yourself
You are feeling stuck in your faith journey.
You are looking for a truly safe space to explore what you believe and share struggles of life and faith with others
You desire to experience God’s healing presence
What is the structure?
Participants will journey together within a group throughout this 10-month experience (August 2023 – May 2024).
The cohort will gather for an opening weekend retreat and then two-hour small group meetings approximately once a month.
The opening retreat in September and closing retreat in May will include contemplative exercises, communal sharing, and learning about spiritual formation.
Participants will create a rule of life that helps them develop spiritual habits and a rhythm for engaging in spiritual disciplines in solitude and community throughout the year.
Participants will receive individual spiritual direction once per month.
Participants will interact with one another consistently through a private online community space.
Participants will read, reflect on, and discuss selected materials on spiritual formation.
What will we experience?
Growth in self-awareness, God-awareness, and experiential knowledge of God’s love for self and others.
Healing from past wounds.
New spiritual practices that help us say yes to God’s loving presence in our lives on a regular basis.
A safe community to explore life with God together.
Cohort Facilitators
Zachary Bryant
Lead Facilitator
Zach is the Co-Founder of EREMOS and a spiritual director, life coach, and teacher of the Way of Jesus in Nashville, TN. Over the past twelve years, he has worked with multiple churches and non-profits in various teaching and pastoral roles. He completed his Master’s of Divinity at Lipscomb University in 2019 and, subsequently, two years of training in spiritual direction from the Institute for Christian Spirituality. He completed a third year of spiritual direction training in offering the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola in 2023. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, weight training, music, comic book movies, and spending quality time with his wife, Kayla, and their labradoodle.
MaryAnn Green
Co-Facilitator
MaryAnn has a passion for sitting with others, hearing their stories, and companioning them while looking and listening together for the Spirit of God’s presence in their lives. She considers it an honor and privilege to witness how the Trinity speaks uniquely to each of His children. MaryAnn gratefully received a Spiritual Direction certification through Lipscomb University’s Institute of Christian Spirituality. She has married her high school sweetheart, Daniel, for 26 years and has been given three wonderful and inspiring children. She worked as a nurse in Women’s Health for eight years before staying home with my children. MaryAnn and Daniel have two needy yet beloved dogs who remind them daily of the Lord’s faithfulness, and she deeply enjoys reading, walking, or hiking in nature, music, yoga, and great conversations.
Julianna Tate Zoch
Co-Facilitator
Julianna Tate Zoch is a Spiritual Director and founder of Wondering Company, a faith community for wonderers.
Combining her personal experience of 7 years wrestling with faith, her formal training through a Masters of Divinity degree, and her training as a Spiritual Director, she creates space for wonder so others don’t feel alone in their faith experience.
She is also a wife, daughter, sister to four amazing women, a barista, baker, chronic hobby-abandoner, and more.
Opening Dates
Opening Online Gathering: August 24th, 6-8 PM
Opening In-Person Retreat in Culleoka, TN: September 15th-17th
Financial Cost
The financial cost of this cohort is $120 a month for ten months. A $50 fee is due with your application, which is refundable until August 16th, 2023.
Instructions to set up your ten $120/month payments will be sent to you two weeks prior to the start of the opening retreat on August 24th. Your first month will be prorated from your $50 depost.
Applications are Closed for 2023-2024
Book Club: The Road Away From God
The Road Away From God
Dates: May 8 – June 2
Cost: Pay What you Can!
This is a Four Week Online Discussion Group on Jonathan Martin’s 2022 book, The Road Away From God
In The Road Away from God, Jonathan Martin reimagines Luke’s story of two disillusioned disciples walking the Emmaus road away from the holy city where they had watched their hope die a gruesome death right before their eyes. With compassion born from his own experience, Martin reveals that the resurrected Christ is profoundly present with us–even as walk away.
This is a book to help you feel seen in your spiritual journey and all its complexities . . . and to find resurrection where you least expect it.
Jonathan Martin is a writer, poet, and speaker who has undergone his own experience of finding God on the underside of life. Wherever he goes, his message is always the same: no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done, God is at work to bring beauty out of your brokenness. He has a ThM from Duke University and MA from The Pentecostal Theological Seminary. Currently he lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he serves as pastor of The Table and host of The Zeitcast.