The Church of England has just published a new discipleship resource, roughly 2 millennia after Jesus made discipleship the top priority for his followers after his resurrection. This is, apparently, the first discipleship course ever commissioned by the bishops of the CofE. It's a recognition, perhaps, that the standard Anglican practices of attending worship and hearing the same 3-year cycle of readings repeatedly preached doesn't do the job of making disciples.
I've ordered the introductory pack and it'll be interesting to see what approaches it uses. Having something which both forms and informs is vital - I've experienced 'discipleship' courses which fill the head with knowledge and assume the heart will follow.
Here's an overview of the 8 sections of the course, there's some good quality people involved, and it looks to be booklet based (rather than presentation or DVD based). That's a plus in places without the computer literacy or hardware, but a minus in other ways. There are some audio and video files to go with the sessions, which hopefully come on a DVD with the booklets.. More when my parcel arrives! In the meantime there are some pdf sample sessions. I do like the way the session is set up, good mixture of input, reflection, discussion and spiritual exercises.
I've ordered my copy, too, David. Have heard good things about it from a group that has been testing it out. It would be good to compare notes once we've both had a chance to browse.
ReplyDeleteI have to decide if we will be officially promoting it as a suitable resource for rural parishes; so I hope it IS good!