Like this proverb, in Christian terms it takes a church (or Christian community) to grow a disciple. This is something we have been exploring for some time at MBC, and now we are at a practical stage of encouraging and equipping one another in being disciples together.
We have listened to groups and have formed a plan.
We believe that balanced Christian living involves relationship with God, being in community with others and taking action in the wider world. As Micah 6:8 puts in: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (NRSV)
Then in church we believe that we do not live as Christians in isolation. So, we practice and grow in these three disciplines in community – it unfolds in relationship.
This autumn we have provided a tool kit of questions to help every home group reflect on what makes a healthy group. Alongside that we will be running five fortnightly sessions (on Tuesday evenings) to give insights and opportunity for discussion on how to be disciples and what are healthy practices for groups or individuals. These sessions will begin after the school half term. They are for anyone who would like to explore their own discipleship and look to refresh or begin to be involved in group life in church.
Through the autumn some new groups will be forming. At the end of this process we are planning in January 2018 to relaunch existing groups and offer new discipleship across the church.
We believe that being a disciple is a calling on all of us to be shared with others. The whole of MBC seeks to raise disciples. As the Sukuma (Tanzania) proverb says “One knee does not bring up a child” and in the Swahili (East and Central Africa) proverb “One hand does not nurse a child.”
So for us being and growing disciples belongs in families, friendship groups and home groups – it is our shared joy and responsibility.
Look out for more on this in our Sunday sermons, home groups, new groups and through the five sessions coming up at the end of October.
Graham Brownlee, September 2017