Getting Started on MKDSCPLS

Fifteen minutes, and you will know your way around

This is the shortest thing on the platform, and the only one about the platform itself. Everything else here is about following Jesus. By the end of this page you will have written a note, answered a question, marked something complete, and chosen where you are going next — which is most of what you will ever do here.

One: the reason any of this exists

¹⁶Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.Colossians 3:16 · NIV

Not a platform verse. The reason a church bothers with any of this is that the word of Christ would live in people richly, and that they would teach and encourage one another. The software is scaffolding. It is worth fifteen minutes to learn the scaffolding, and not a minute more.

Two: write something down

Most of what you read here will have a box like this underneath it. It is your notebook, kept with the session so that when you come back in six weeks you can see what you thought the first time.

A year from now, what would you like to be different about your walk with God? One sentence is plenty.

Three: answer something

Some sessions check whether an idea landed. There is no score and no pass mark — it is there so you notice what you skimmed.

Four: where things are

The menu on the left is the whole product. You will use four of them.

• My Learning — what you are part way through. Start here every time.
• Browse Courses — everything available to you, courses and reading plans.
• Groups — the people you are doing this with, and what your group is studying.
• Biblical Identity, Spiritual Gifts and DNA Story — how you are wired. Take the two assessments when you have twenty-five minutes; everything the platform suggests to you gets better afterwards.

Five: choose where you are going

This is the part that matters. Nobody is going to assign you a theology — you pick. Three journeys, each a handful of courses in order:

• Foundations — who Jesus is, who you now are, and how to live it. Start here if you are new to following Jesus, or want the ground under your feet again.
• Theological Foundations — what the church has believed and why. For the person who keeps asking "but how do we know that?"
• Worldview & Culture — thinking Christianly about work, media, politics and the public square.

Or if a whole journey is too much to commit to today, one course:

• How to Study the Bible — five sessions. The most useful thing on this platform.
• Your Story: Your Testimony & the Gospel — four sessions, and you end with something you can actually say to someone.
• Connecting with God — five sessions on prayer, when prayer is hard.

Open Browse Courses and pick one. That is the whole of it — you are oriented.

“Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice.” Philippians 4:9