Useful to GodThe Christian is made useful to God by being conformed to Christ.
A theologically integrated pathway built around eight characteristics that mark a Christ-patterned life. Eight parts of serious biblical and theological study, each ordered toward obedience. Rigorous theology and genuine formation, held together.
What usefulness is
“A vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house.”2 Timothy 2:21
Usefulness to God is not a function of talent, training, or platform. Neither is it a matter of private sincerity. The vessel does not make itself valuable. It is made fit for use. God is God, and we are not. A life becomes useful to God as it is conformed to Christ and set apart for His purposes.
Study and formation, held together
Most formation resources fail in one of two directions.
Deliver theological content and assume that knowing more about God will produce a life patterned after Him. It does not. Knowledge without discipleship is dangerous, and the Church has ample record of learned people who never learned to obey.
Pursue formation while neglecting rigorous study. Sincerity drifts, untethered from the word that is meant to govern it, and the life it forms bends toward its own preferences.
Useful to God refuses both. Every characteristic is grounded in sustained biblical and theological work and carried through to concrete obedience. The study is demanding by design, because theology done rightly is formative. Formation is the frame. Theological depth is its substance. Held together, they produce what neither produces alone: a Christian competent to teach and lead, and being conformed to Christ.
The eight characteristics
Seven from Torrey. One for this age.R. A. Torrey identified seven marks in the life of D. L. Moody, the uneducated shoe salesman God used to reach more than a hundred million people. Moody is the illustration, not the point. These characteristics describe facets of Christ’s own life, and every Christian is called to exhibit them.
- ISurrenderedSetting aside ambition, security, and control, and entrusting them to God.
- IIPrayerfulAligning our desires with God's will rather than bending God toward ours.
- IIIStudiousSubmitting to God's word to be governed by it, reading against ourselves.
- IVHumbleReceiving every gift as given, and pointing beyond ourselves to Christ.
- VFree from the Love of MoneyHolding wealth as a tool for the mission, refusing it as a god.
- VIConsumed with Passion for the LostSetting aside our rights and preferences so that some might be saved.
- VIIImbued with Power from on HighDepending on the Holy Spirit for the work rather than our own strength.
- VIIIUndistractedRefusing the stories and idols that pull our attention away from Christ.
The assessment
A diagnostic across all eight characteristics.
The pathway opens with a structured self-examination, drawn from the same biblical and theological commitments that govern the pathway itself. It is not a test to pass. It returns a reading across the eight: where a life is already positioned well, and where the work remains.
From that reading, the participant chooses a starting point. The pathway orders itself to the person, rather than ordering the person to a fixed sequence. Honest results require honest answers. The instrument holds a mirror to a life. It does not assign a score.
Who it is for
Pitched at a graduate level. Open to any Christian willing to do the work.
Ordination is not a prerequisite. What the pathway requires is seriousness: a readiness to study Scripture and theology with rigor, and to submit what is learned to obedience. Pastors and elders will find formation suited to those who lead. Lay Christians prepared to study at depth will find the same. The standard does not change between them.
Start a cohort
Formation matures within the body of Christ, under teaching and among others doing the same work.
Starting a cohort gives a leader the full pathway to take a group through: the biblical and theological study, the resist, hear, and do disciplines, and the means to see where each member stands across all eight parts. The leader supplies teaching and presence. The pathway supplies the structure and the depth.
A pastor forming a congregation, an elder training leaders, a teacher leading a class, or a lay leader gathering a group can each start a cohort and bring others through.
“The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him.”
Position yourself to be used.
Useful to God comes from the D. L. Moody Center and the work of its president, Dr. James Spencer, a biblical scholar and the author of Useful to God, Christian Resistance, and Serpents and Doves. The framework is Torrey’s, drawn from a life the Church has examined for more than a century. The pathway puts it to disciplined use.
Useful to GodA ministry of the D. L. Moody Center