What does Tribe teach about spiritual growth?
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 spiritual growth starts with an honest picture of what growth actually costs. Brian Hunter has returned to this theme across multiple series, and the consistent answer is that real growth requires death, not a tidy adjustment to an existing life, but the death of old mindsets, old patterns, and old ways of relating to God. Brian uses the image of a wineskin to make this concrete: a stone jar or clay pot costs nothing to produce, but a wineskin requires an animal to die. The vessel that holds new wine is only ever made through death, and Brian says that is not accidental. As he put it plainly, "a new wineskin will cost you."
The teaching pushes especially hard against the assumption that being close to church is the same as growing. Brian has been deliberate about pointing the warning not at obvious outsiders but at people who already believe, people who are adding Jesus to an existing life rather than surrendering the old one. The series on new wine walked through John 8 to show what happens when someone holds too tightly to old ways: room in the heart for what God is doing begins to contract, and the wineskin that cannot stretch will eventually split, taking both the old and the new with it. Brian described the danger in plain terms: "If you hold so tightly to old ways that there is no room in your heart for a new move of God in your life, you are in jeopardy of even losing the sweetness of what he did in the past."
The flip side of that warning is where the teaching on growth lands its hope. Anything that is brought to God and crucified will not stay dead. Brian has been consistent that the cost of a new wineskin is real but not final, because on the other side of death there is new capacity, new wine, and a life that looks less like what a person was building before and more like who God is making them into. Alongside that, the series on Psalm 19 pressed into what God's word does when it is actually planted deep: it revives the whole person, not just the spiritual dimension, and it grows what Brian called a great reward in the life where it takes root.
Taught from Luke 5:33-39 · Matthew 9:14-17 · John 8:31-47 · Mark 10:17-28 · Psalm 19:7-14
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 9:27
27 but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- June 1, 2025 The Great Reward A Jackson Hole pastor leads his congregation through Psalm 19, exploring what happens when God's word is buried deep in the heart rather than just read from a page.
- December 9, 2024 A Warning About New Wine Brian Hunter warns that clinging to old mindsets when God pours out something new risks losing both the old and the new. A sermon on John 8 and wineskins.
- December 8, 2024 Warnings About New Wine Jesus warns that clinging to old mindsets blocks what God is doing now. This sermon explores what it costs to receive something new from him.
- November 24, 2024 It's Gonna Cost You A sermon on why following Jesus costs more than adding him to your life, told through the story of a rich young ruler and a blind beggar named Bartimaeus.
- November 18, 2024 New Wineskin, New Capacity Brian Hunter walks through John 3 and the story of Nicodemus to ask one pointed question: what is the condition of your wineskin, and is there room for what God is pouring out?
- November 17, 2024 New Wine Deeper Explained A Tribe Church sermon on Jesus's teaching about new wine and wineskins, exploring what it means to stay open to the Holy Spirit's work in your life.
Mentioned along the way
- February 25, 2024 Transformation (Do You Love Me) A young man's rock-bottom moment in Texas led to a real encounter with Jesus. This sermon explores what genuine transformation looks like and what it costs.