A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God offers churches more than material for a book study; it provides a framework for forming believers who hunger for God, practice His presence, surrender their whole lives, and mature in worshipful obedience. An effective discipleship program based on the book should therefore move beyond transferring information. Its purpose should be transformation: helping people know biblical truth, encounter God personally, practice faithful habits, and serve others in Christian community.
Begin With a Clear Discipleship Vision
Before selecting leaders or creating lessons, define the program’s desired outcome. A suitable vision might be:
To form Christ-centered disciples who pursue God through Scripture, prayer, surrender, worship, fellowship, and obedient service.
This vision reflects Tozer’s emphasis on direct communion with God while keeping discipleship grounded in the church’s biblical mission. Participants should finish the program with more than an appreciation for Tozer’s writing. They should demonstrate growing love for God, deeper engagement with Scripture, stronger relationships within the church, and greater faithfulness in everyday life.
Establish four core outcomes:
Biblical understanding: Participants interpret Tozer’s themes through Scripture.
Spiritual formation: Participants develop sustainable practices of prayer, worship, and attentiveness to God.
Relational growth: Participants learn through honest, accountable Christian community.
Missional obedience: Participants express spiritual maturity through service, generosity, reconciliation, and witness.
Build the Program on Scripture
Although The Pursuit of God is the primary companion text, Scripture must remain the program’s authority. Every session should begin and end with the Bible, using Tozer’s insights to illuminate—not replace—biblical teaching.
Helpful passages include:
Psalm 42:1–2 and Psalm 63:1–8 on longing for God
John 15:1–11 on abiding in Christ
Philippians 3:7–14 on knowing and pursuing Christ
Romans 12:1–2 on surrender and transformation
Hebrews 10:19–25 on drawing near together
Colossians 3:1–17 on Christ-centered living
James 1:22–25 on obedient response to truth
Leaders should also explain that Tozer writes devotionally and prophetically. Some of his statements are deliberately forceful, so participants need space to examine them carefully in context and compare them with the full counsel of Scripture.
Organize a Ten-Week Learning Journey
Because The Pursuit of God contains ten chapters, a ten-week format provides a natural structure. Each week can pair one chapter with a central practice and a concrete response.
Week 1: Awakening Holy Desire
Explore the hunger for God and distinguish pursuing God Himself from merely pursuing religious knowledge or activity. Invite participants to write a personal prayer expressing where they long to grow.
Week 2: Releasing Spiritual Possessions
Discuss attachment, surrender, and trust. Ask participants to identify something—such as status, comfort, control, money, or approval—that competes for their deepest allegiance.
Week 3: Removing Barriers to Intimacy
Examine sin, self-protection, pride, and distraction as obstacles to communion with God. Incorporate guided confession and assurance of forgiveness rooted in the gospel.
Week 4: Recognizing God’s Presence
Teach participants to cultivate attentiveness to God without relying solely on emotion. Practice silence, meditation on Scripture, and brief prayers of awareness throughout the day.
Week 5: Encountering God Through His World
Consider how creation displays God’s glory while avoiding confusion between the Creator and creation. Encourage a prayer walk shaped by Psalm 19 or Psalm 104.
Week 6: Learning to Hear Through Scripture
Explore how God speaks authoritatively through His written Word. Teach a simple method of reading, observing, interpreting, praying, and applying a biblical passage.
Week 7: Developing Spiritual Perception
Discuss how believers mature in discernment through Scripture, prayer, obedience, wisdom, and Christian community. Use realistic scenarios to practice distinguishing conviction, preference, impulse, and wise counsel.
Week 8: Restoring a Right View of God
Invite participants to examine how their assumptions about God shape their worship and behavior. Focus on biblical attributes such as holiness, love, wisdom, justice, faithfulness, and mercy.
Week 9: Embracing Meekness and Rest
Contrast Christlike meekness with passivity or weakness. Address the exhaustion created by comparison, defensiveness, and self-promotion, and invite participants to rest in their identity in Christ.
Week 10: Making All of Life Sacred
Conclude by exploring how work, family, study, rest, service, and ordinary responsibilities can be offered to God as worship. Each participant should create a personal rule of life for the next 90 days.
Use a Repeatable Session Format
Consistency helps participants feel secure and keeps meetings from becoming unstructured discussions. A 75- to 90-minute session might include:
Welcome and check-in — 10 minutes: Share one spiritual encouragement and one challenge.
Opening prayer and Scripture — 10 minutes: Read the primary passage slowly, possibly more than once.
Teaching — 15 minutes: Introduce the week’s biblical theme and clarify Tozer’s main argument.
Guided discussion — 25 minutes: Use open-ended questions that connect belief with experience.
Spiritual practice — 15 minutes: Engage in prayer, silence, confession, meditation, or worship.
Application and accountability — 10 minutes: Choose one realistic action for the coming week.
Closing prayer — 5 minutes: Pray in pairs or as a group for grace to obey.
Avoid allowing the teaching segment to dominate. Tozer’s subject is experiential knowledge of God, so participants need opportunities to respond, practice, and reflect.
Ask Questions That Lead to Transformation
Good questions do more than test reading comprehension. They help participants identify desires, beliefs, resistance, and next steps. Leaders might ask:
What does this chapter reveal about God?
Which claim is most encouraging or challenging, and why?
Where does Scripture support, clarify, or qualify the chapter’s message?
What attachment or habit may be hindering your pursuit of God?
What would obedient response look like this week?
How can the group support you without becoming intrusive?
How might this truth affect your relationships, work, finances, or service?
Leaders should resist supplying immediate answers. Silence can give participants time to think honestly, while thoughtful follow-up questions can move discussion from abstraction to application.
Recruit and Equip Mature Leaders
Select facilitators for spiritual maturity, humility, biblical soundness, listening ability, and dependability—not merely charisma or teaching skill. Each leader should read the entire book before the program begins and receive training in:
Facilitating rather than monopolizing discussion
Handling disagreement graciously
Recognizing pastoral-care concerns
Maintaining appropriate confidentiality
Responding to spiritual abuse, trauma, or mental-health disclosures
Keeping Scripture central
Encouraging accountability without manipulation
Create a leader guide containing weekly objectives, key passages, theological cautions, discussion prompts, practices, and referral procedures. Leaders should also meet briefly each week to pray, review participation, and address emerging needs.
Make the Program Accessible to the Whole Church
A healthy discipleship pathway should account for different ages, reading abilities, schedules, cultural backgrounds, and stages of faith. Provide both print and digital materials where legally available, and offer concise chapter summaries for participants who struggle with Tozer’s older vocabulary. Explain unfamiliar expressions rather than assuming everyone understands them.
Churches may also provide:
Large-print resources
Childcare or family-friendly scheduling
Online participation for homebound members
Groups for young adults, parents, seniors, or new believers
Mentoring for those who need additional support
Translated materials when available and properly licensed
The goal is not to lower expectations but to remove unnecessary barriers to participation.
Connect Personal Devotion With Christian Community
Tozer strongly emphasizes personal encounter with God, but a church program should ensure that private devotion does not become isolated spirituality. Biblical discipleship includes worship, fellowship, sacraments or ordinances, pastoral oversight, mutual care, and mission.
Pair each participant with a prayer partner, and encourage brief weekly contact outside the group. Invite participants to attend corporate worship consistently and choose one practical act of service during the course. Possible projects include supporting a local food ministry, visiting isolated members, assisting families in need, or serving the surrounding neighborhood.
This outward movement is essential. Genuine pursuit of God should produce love, humility, justice, mercy, reconciliation, and service—not spiritual self-absorption.
Measure Fruit Without Reducing Growth to Numbers
Attendance and completion rates are useful, but they cannot fully measure spiritual formation. Evaluate the program using both quantitative and qualitative indicators.
Consider tracking:
Enrollment, weekly attendance, and completion
Participation in worship, small groups, and service
Frequency of Scripture reading and prayer
Growth in theological understanding
Reports of reconciliation, generosity, or obedient action
Continued involvement 90 days after the program
Use confidential surveys at the beginning, midpoint, conclusion, and three-month follow-up. Ask participants what practices they adopted, what obstacles remain, and how their understanding of God has changed. Avoid exaggerated claims or pressuring people to disclose deeply personal experiences. The church’s role is to cultivate faithfully; spiritual growth ultimately depends on God’s grace.
Guard Against Common Pitfalls
Several mistakes can weaken an otherwise promising program:
Treating Tozer as infallible: Honor his contribution while testing every idea by Scripture.
Equating emotional intensity with maturity: Deep feeling can be valuable, but enduring fruit includes obedience and character.
Promoting individualism: Keep pursuit of God connected to the life and mission of the church.
Creating guilt-driven practices: Spiritual disciplines are means of grace, not methods for earning God’s acceptance.
Neglecting the gospel: Surrender should flow from God’s saving grace in Christ, not fear or self-improvement.
Ignoring participants’ limitations: Adjust practices wisely for disability, caregiving responsibilities, trauma, illness, and demanding work.
Ending without follow-up: Provide a clear next step so momentum is not lost.
Create a Continuing Discipleship Pathway
The final week should open a door rather than mark an abrupt ending. Offer participants several next steps, such as joining an ongoing small group, entering a mentoring relationship, serving in a ministry, or completing a follow-up course on Scripture, prayer, Christian doctrine, or mission.
A 90-day rule of life can help sustain growth. It might include:
Daily Scripture reading and prayer
A weekly Sabbath practice
Weekly corporate worship
Regular contact with a prayer partner
Monthly service or generosity
A monthly review of spiritual health
One intentional step toward reconciliation or witness
Ask participants to keep the plan realistic. A modest pattern practiced consistently will usually be more formative than an ambitious plan abandoned after two weeks.
Pursue God as a Church, Not Merely as Individuals
A discipleship program based on The Pursuit of God will be most effective when its themes shape the wider congregation. Pastors can reinforce them through preaching, worship leaders can select songs emphasizing God’s character, and ministry teams can model prayerful dependence and humble service.
The ultimate goal is not to produce experts on Tozer. It is to cultivate a church whose members increasingly treasure God, abide in Christ, walk by the Spirit, love one another, and serve their neighbors. When biblical teaching, spiritual practice, honest community, and obedient mission remain united, The Pursuit of God can become a fruitful catalyst for lasting congregational renewal.
Source: Tozer, A. W. The Pursuit of God. Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1948. (Chicago style; publication details may vary by edition.)