My Spiritual Growth

Lent is for the training of disciples

Lent is more important to your discipleship than you think. Its origins are about 1800 years ago in the Egyptian desert where they would baptise new disciples at Easter. Each disciple would go through 40 days of serious prayer and preparation as they approached their public declaration of faith and their renunciation of any other way other than the way of Jesus.

Rev Mark Bishop

Lent in a Bag

Pilgrims journeying together…. Throughout the forty days of Lent, we remember the time Jesus spent in the wilderness. Each week, we will be taking time to reflect upon what might sustain us when we find ourselves in a “ wilderness.” Perhaps not literally, but in terms of facing empty, bleak or difficult times in our own lives. Perhaps something that happens at work, school or at home and we know that somehow we will have to get through it. We will have to “ walk through the wilderness”. “ Lent in a Bag” helps us to consider what we need to journey through that wilderness as pilgrims together.

Rev Wendy Bray

HOW TO USE MAKING DISCIPLES IN LENT

Lent can be an amazing opportunity to take stock and invest in to our discipleship and spiritual formation with honesty and reality.

Cris Rogers

3 creative ways to disciple kids this Christmas.

Christmas is a great season for taking up the opportunity to disciple the kids in your life. Here are 3 creative ways to disciple your kids this Christmas.

Cris Rogers and Dan Scott

Big and small disciples together

Thoughts on Children’s Discipleship

Dan Scott

So how do we disciple children? Is the classroom the best way to help them fall in love with Jesus? Can we be doing more to share Jesus in the day to day as fellow disciples and as parents?

DISCIPLESHIP IS FOR ALL AND NOT THE FEW

For many with disabilities, seeing where they fit into the big story of the Bible is hard, especially when they can barely see where they fit into the church.

Kay Morgan-Gurr

There is a group of people for whom discipleship is difficult to access, or there is nothing for them to access in the first place.

Is our school system destroying our discipleship?

Is our present church system is killing discipleship?

Cris Rogers

Ken Robinson would strongly state, and I would agree, that at present the school system is fundamentally about training university professors. Essentially everybody is being equipped to be an academic until they choose to opt out. The same could be said by the way we do discipleship. Sermons are often academic monologues. We are taught one way so we therefore teach this way. We tend to use the sermon to train people to be theologians and not disciples. 

Creating a culture of growth and change

To change direction or an activity of the church we may need to change the very culture of the whole body.

Lars Meilandt Hansen

Creating a church culture of growth and change is a challenging one. We can struggle to change the direction of the church community, we can find resistance where we don’t expect. To change direction or an activity of the church we may need to change the very culture of the whole body.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Going back to the old ways of making disciples - apprenticeship is discipleship, discipleship is about apprenticeship.

Cris Rogers

Our higher education model is having a detrimental effect upon how we do discipleship. So much of how the church does discipleship is modelled on a failing school system. I don’t say that to offend any teachers, but I am trying to shake up the church.

Additional Needs & Discipleship

Why and how to disciple children with additional needs?

Lynnette Peckett

Should discipling children with additional needs be a priority for the church?

Three Simple Rules

3 Simple Rules For Building A Healthy Dating Church Culture

André Adefope

I meet lots of people who say dating in their Christian community can be a bit of a nightmare...

Singleness Part 1

What The Bible Actually Says About Singleness

André Adefope

In this two-part article, we will explore two important biblical teachings surrounding singleness.

Singleness Part 2

What The Bible Actually Says About Singleness

André Adefope

In the second of this two-part article, we will continue to explore the biblical teachings surrounding singleness.

Catalysis

Jason Gardner

How did the early church make disciples? What can a church implement to activate discipleship in its churches.

Making Disciples with Dementia

The Challenge of a Dementia Friendly Church

Lynette Skutt

In this second blog, on making disciples of older people. I want to focus on the subject of dementia and discipleship.

Ministry and Mission with Older People

Lynette Skutt

In recent times the issues and challenges of ageing, seem to resonate in every news headline.

Discipleship in later life

Martin Young

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus when we spend our newly retired energy in looking after our own very elderly parents and at the same time serve our children in parenting grandchildren, or as we live an isolated existence in a care home?

Milennials

Creating a church culture that disciples millennials (without trying to disciple millennials)

Sarah Futcher Mcdonald

This January I turned 28 (hurray). In Church of England Clergy terms this makes me a foetus and the youngest Rev in my area by 10 years.