What does Tribe teach about purpose in life?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on purpose in life starts not with self-discovery but with self-surrender. Brian Hunter opened the series "Jesus Would Get Canceled For That" by sitting the congregation with the actual words of Jesus in Luke 9: anyone who wants to follow him must take up their cross daily and follow him. The cultural moment makes that harder to hear, Brian argued, because society has pushed God so far to the margins that the self has filled the space. As he put it, "We've pushed God so far into the margins that we have created this God shaped vacuum in the human heart." Self-help, self-fulfillment, and self-expression become the replacement religion, and every person in the room, not just those outside the church, is susceptible to putting themselves on the throne of their own heart.
The congregation pushed further into what it actually looks like to lay down your life: ceasing to be the center of your own universe, giving up the right to hold a grudge, surrendering worry, relinquishing the right to care what other people think. Brian pointed to a woman who told a friend that tarot card reading was dangerous, something she would have stayed quiet about before Christ, as a picture of what purposeful living under Jesus costs. The exchange, though, is not a loss. Brian says, "When you exchange your life for Jesus and you lay down your life and you relinquish the right to happiness, it gets exchanged for joy."
In an earlier message in the "Work Smarter, Not Harder" series, Brian also drew a careful line between identity and calling, treating them as two distinct questions that many people collapse into one. Working through Gideon's story in Judges 6, he showed that a calling always has a direction built into it and that the power in it comes from obedience to something you did not choose for yourself. God assigns the calling; the person moves toward it. That movement, one congregation member named Bethany observed, is where the power actually lives.
Taught from Luke 9:18-27 · Philippians 3:3-11 · Judges 6:11-16 · 1 Corinthians 9:16 · Acts 26:16-18
“If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.”
From Losing Your Life to Find It
The passage taught · Luke 9:18-27
18 As he was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and he asked them, “Who do the multitudes say that I am?”
19 They answered, “‘John the Baptizer,’ but others say, ‘Elijah,’ and others, that one of the old prophets is risen again.”
20 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”
21 But he warned them, and commanded them to tell this to no one,
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- August 16, 2026 Losing Your Life to Find It Jesus said to gain your life you must lose it. Brian Hunter explores what it really means to lay down your rights and exchange self-rule for something far better.
- May 24, 2026 Your Calling: The Clue of the Callus A Wyoming pastor walks through Judges 6 and other Bible stories to help listeners discover their God-given calling and tell it apart from identity, gifts, and job.