What does Tribe teach about self worth?
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 self-worth starts with a single, grounding claim: the creator alone gets to define his creation. Brian walked the congregation through Judges 6, where God greets Gideon as a mighty man of valor while Gideon is hiding in a winepress, convinced he is the least person from the weakest clan. Brian's point was not that Gideon's self-assessment was entirely wrong, but that God was operating at a higher level of truth, the way the law of aerodynamics overrides gravity without canceling it. Your own label of yourself, or the culture's label, does not have final authority. As Brian put it, "Only the creator has the authority to define his creation."
That principle has teeth in both directions. Using Isaiah 29:16, Brian pressed the idea that just as clay does not get to tell the potter what it is, a person does not get to write their own name on the bottom of the shoe when someone else's name is already there. He was equally direct about why pride resists this: if God is the maker, then his creation is answerable to him, and that accountability is exactly what self-defined identity is trying to escape. The congregation was led through a guided confession, speaking true identities out loud together, with passages like 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 8:37, and Ephesians 1:4-5 giving the language for what those true identities actually are.
This teaching sits inside a broader series on gifts and calling. The working image is a tool: God gives the gift, but the person holding it has to keep it sharp. Before any of that work can happen, though, a person has to know who they are. Brian says, "God gives us the tool, but whose job is it to keep that tool sharp? Our job." That responsibility only makes sense when it rests on a settled identity, one spoken over you by the One who made you, not assembled from what you have managed to accomplish.
Taught from Judges 6:11-16 · Isaiah 29:16 · 2 Corinthians 5:17 · Ephesians 1:4-5 · Romans 8:37
“Only the creator has the authority to define his creation.”
From Identity
The passage taught · 1 John 3:1
1 See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- May 18, 2026 Identity Brian Hunter walks through Judges 6 to show how God named Gideon a mighty warrior before he had done anything, and what that means for how we see ourselves.
- May 17, 2026 Mighty Man of Valor Brian Hunter walks through Judges 6 to show how God named Gideon a mighty warrior before he had done anything, and what that means for how we see ourselves.