Emmaus City Church in Worcester, Mass., is in its second round of Surge School, an eight-month discipleship and spiritual transformation program that empowers people of all stages of Christian faith to seek shalom in every area of their lives.
Emmaus City, led by commissioned pastor Mike Sullivan, was planted 10 years ago by Pleasant Street Christian Reformed Church in Whitinsville, Mass. Sullivan learned about Surge School in Phoenix, Ariz., and wanted to see the program implemented in Worcester. Emmaus City and Living Word Church, a Pentecostal congregation that Emmaus City rents space from, helped to launch the program with First Baptist Church-Holden in 2022. That year they had 30+ participants across the three congregations. In the 2024 session they have 30+ participants across five congregations.
“We are a beautiful collection of people,” Sullivan said of the different ethnic, cultural, and denominational makeup of the Surge groups. Small groups, called “Surge Tables,” get together weekly to go through a four-part curriculum covering Gospel Story, Gospel Formation, Missional Church, and Missional Vocation. For each module they read a different book: The True Story of the Whole World by Michael W. Goheen and Craig G. Bartholomew, The Deeply Formed Life by Rich Villodas, The Symphony of Mission by Michael W. Goheen and Jim Mullins, and Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller with Katherine Leary Alsdorf.
Besides the book learning, participants aim each week to practice one of what they call “B.L.E.S.S. rhythms”—to Bless someone, Listen to someone, Eat a meal with others, Speak the gospel, or Set aside a day for Sabbath. “(Surge School) is a holistic approach that looks at how the story of God shapes us, and what that means for how we live and work in our communities,” Sullivan said. Being together and sharing stories with one another allows people in the group to bring Christ into every part of their lives—even the hardest parts.
The model fits with the Emmaus City Church’s other practices, including how church participants each are placed in a City Group, “a community of people who together share and show the life Jesus gives with others in the everyday stuff of life.” Twice a month the groups join in corporate worship in a Sabbath Gathering.
Emmaus City Church plans to host Surge School every other year so as not to burn out the volunteers who lead the program. There are now Surge Schools in Massachusetts, New York City, Petaluma, Calif., and in Surrey, B.C., with 150 people participating across these schools in 2024. Participants said that Surge School has changed how they view God, as well as how they believe God sees them. One man, after hearing the gospel from a Surge participant, asked, “Why don’t all churches talk about (the gospel) that way?”
Editor's note: This story was updated Oct. 15 to clarify the number of participants in the Worcester Surge School (the originally published number was for all North American participants); to specify the three contributing churches in 2022; and to clarify the frequency of practicing the B.L.E.S.S. rhythms.