LET ME TELL YOU A STORY -

Hey there, I’m Luke, and in order to tell you the story of The New Adam Project I have to tell you a bit of my story - because each stage in my journey played a significant role in the formation of TNAP. Let me share four of the most important:

1. FORMED IN COMMUNITY - I had a life-changing experience of studying the Bible in deep community in university. In a unique, intensive one-year program, I learned, studied, laughed, worshiped, traveled, and ate together day after day after day with the same group of about 20 people. This was deeply formative for my head, my heart, and my hands - so much that by the end I could not envision myself doing anything with my life other than guiding Christians through similar intentional, learning experiences.

2. WHOLE-LIFE MODEL - But then in graduate school I hit a stage of deep burnout and crisis, due to stress and imbalance. My body reacted suddenly through stress-induced shingles across my forehead, threatening my vision, and I landed in the hospital. It was scary and painful, but because of it I found a mentor who would change my life. See, I learned from Wes’ unique whole-life mentoring approach just how intricately interconnected the different dimensions of our lives are, and just how damaging imbalance or neglect in one area can be to us as whole people. Eventually, much like the experience of snaking through a narrow mountain pass and suddenly seeing the full valley below open up before you, I gained a vision of what becoming fully-alive looked like, and this whole-life model became foundational for my thinking and teaching.

3. DIGITAL POTENTIAL - Next, after PhD studies in New Zealand (another story for another time), I landed a job teaching Bible and theology at a big university in the USA. My students were all primarily online, which was not my ideal at first, but I learned to absolutely love it! And I gained two major insights from this part of the journey that set the path for TNAP. (1) Over the years, I taught thousands of Christian students from around the world that were hungry and wanting to go further and deeper with the kind of community and learning they experienced in class, but I had nowhere specific to point them. So I became aware of a very real need. (2) Despite my initial pessimism, I became convinced just how valuable and useful digital, online platforms could be for this kind of theological inquiry and shared journeying.

4. TIME TO LAUNCH - Then, after nearly six years in Arizona, we moved our family to New England to join a young church plant in a largely unchurched context. That church plant is now a young toddler church and it is my joy to serve as the discipleship director to support its growth. This opportunity has allowed me to further develop and hone this whole-life discipleship model within a vibrant church family that is seeking to intentionally follow Jesus together. At the same time, this new chapter initiated the launch of The New Adam Project in order to offer these formative, whole-life discipleship resources and community experiences to a broader audience, both online and in person - through retreats in the rugged and beautiful setting of Maine.