Brian Fisher and his team at "Soil and Roots" dig into realities around deep discipleship, essential for sharing life in community. Here we highlight themes of particular application.
Apr 19, 2026
by Toby Mommsen
Why this? Why now?
The theme of our NCN international gathering in September this year is “The Shape of Love: God’s Intention for Shared Life in Community.” If we believe God intends us to share life deeply with other believers, then we have to ask what actually forms that kind of love. It doesn’t happen just by living near each other—it requires deep discipleship. Without that, each of us and our communities can settle into surface-level harmony rather than real transformation.
This is where the emphasis we’re seeing from Soil & Roots is worth our attention—especially their focus on intentional, relational discipleship and on becoming apprentices of Jesus. They’re naming something essential: love takes shape over time as we practice the way of Jesus together, with honesty, commitment, and openness to change. If we want communities that truly reflect God’s love, we have to take formation just as seriously as shared life.
Soil & Roots helps form and support small groups of people called “Greenhouses” who gather regularly to become more like Jesus, restoring the New Testament model of community-based spiritual formation.
Samplings from the work of Soil and Roots follow.
Brian and the team identify four primary problems of the average Western church experience: the Formation Gap, the Discipleship Dilemma, the Great Omission, the Forgotten Kingdom. Here’s a summary in Podcast #26 with a transcript.
We’ve concluded that we best become more like Jesus in small, organic communities that often look and function differently from some modern church experiences.
Podcast hosts Brian Fisher, Kyle Moody, Tim Boswell
Tim Boswell in Podcast #113 about “deep communities”:
“The majority of people acknowledge that these problems exist: the great omission, the over-emphasis on conversion, the lack of truly deep spiritual formation and discipleship at a systematic level. If we can agree that these kinds of deep, small, formative communities that we’re discussing do not really exist in the traditional Western institutional systems and the majority of our local churches, we might expect for there to be a huge wave of people pursuing this kind of small, intentional deep communities outside of their institutional church bodies. But it seems that for most, that’s a bridge too far…”
“What in the World is Deep Discipleship?” is a free eBook you’ll find near the bottom of the Soil and Roots homepage.
“Both our normal human experiences and the picture of the New Testament church reveal that human beings are best formed in intentional gatherings that feature five key elements: time, habit, community, intimacy, and instruction.”
Who needs a Greenhouse?
Soil and Roots forms and supports specific deep disciple groups we call “Greenhouses.” They intentionally embody all five elements: time, habit, community, intimacy, and instruction.
Greenhouses are not for everyone. As you might expect, some followers of Jesus are thriving and growing in the first three stages of spiritual formation, and those are well-covered and practiced in many local churches.
Greenhouses are best for people who have hit or are hitting the Wall. We have come to a point where Jesus invites us into our stories, into our hearts, and into some of the lingering doubts that have been lying underneath the surface in the deep end of the faith. Like Job, Peter, Sarah, Hannah, and many other Biblical characters, we find ourselves asking: Can God really be trusted? Is He faithful to His promises?
Brian joins a Nurturing Communities Zoom
We invited Brian Fisher to join NCN’s first quarterly Zoom of 2026: “Where do you Start? ICC Basics. The group was energized with Brian’s short presentation: a lively Q&A session followed. Here’s a sampling:
May 2, 2026 is the next NCN quarterly Zoom in this series.
Brian spent his early career in various executive roles in both for-profit companies and non-profit Christian ministries. He has spoken around the country on issues such as cultural engagement, media, bioethics, and apologetics, and is the author of four previous books and various published articles. He is also a Colson Fellow, and is the primary host of the Soil & Roots podcast. Here’s his Substack.
Brian lives with his wife, Jessica, in the Dallas area, and they have two young adult sons.
Connecting
A lively friendship is growing between our network and the Soil and Roots team. You may reach Brian Fisher via email here, and NCN leadership team here.
