7^th September 2017

“Putting in place a strong discipleship programme, with a particular view to developing our congregations’ understanding of their faith and ability to talk about it.”

That was the main subject at our Joint PCC meeting this week, and it was interesting one. Whilst defining a term like ‘discipleship’ succinctly is nearly impossible, for the purpose of our discussions and planning we took it to mean, broadly learning about the Christian faith. The hope was expressed that this learning would not only be an intellectual enterprise, but that a deeper understanding of faith would have a transformative effect upon people’s lives, and help them bring their faith into the everyday every day.

After a broad-ranging discussion in which we reviewed our existing provision, we have laid out a rough plan to define the times and sorts of events we will be putting on through 2018. We thought it important that what was offered was varied in style, purpose, and content – taking in elements of teaching, discussion, topical matters, as well as scripture, and also providing time and space to have fun together.

Briefly, the agreed upon calendar runs: Mid January, into early February, a four week course themed around fresh starts and new ideas (possibly exploring ‘mindfulness’ in the Christian tradition); the annual Lent course in the weeks running up to Easter; monthly walks in April, May, June, and July; a topical interest group for four weeks in May/June; and an Alpha course beginning in September; and the Advent Suppers again in the weeks running up to Christmas.

We were aiming to set the overall picture, rather than the details last night, so firm plans for each event are still to be worked out. If you would like to be involved in that planning, then please do be in touch.

We also talked about provision for the younger members of our churches, and thought we would like to try, rather than running an entirely separate programme, to encourage them to engage with the above along with, or beside, the adults. This is part of a wider pattern of emerging thinking about trying to make our whole church life one that belongs to, and is accessible to, all its members.

There are one or two things we discussed, or have done in the past, that haven’t made it into the calendar, but we were very aware that we have limited resources. To complement our offering, it was reflected we should also make better use of the offerings of other churches, lectures, and events locally. To enable people to do so we will need to improve our awareness and communication of what those events are. To help with this, there will soon be a ‘Discipleship’ page added to our website www.theunitedbenefice.org

Thank you for your support as we seek to develop and grow our church,

God bless you,

The Revd. Paul Harford

Vicar of the United Benefice of Bishop Thornton, Burnt Yates, Markington, Ripley, and South Stainley