Growing Deeper helps faith development in congregations
Click here to visit the Growing Deeper page
A special task force in the Missouri Conference has been working on developing a resource to help congregations improve their discipleship processes. This resource is now available on the Missouri Conference website on a new page called Growing Deeper.
There has been a lot of conversation in the Missouri Conference recently among local churches and people involved in the Healthy Church Initiative regarding the need many churches have to improve their discipleship process. The Missouri Conference Core Practices team pulled together a special task force made up of leaders with diverse ministry backgrounds. On the task force are Rob Mehner, Mark Statler, Margie Briggs, Yolanda Villa, Lori Lampert, Deborah LeMoine, Sherry Habben and Chris Dumas.
“The world is changing, church has changed and the discipleship process is not as natural for us as it once was,” Dumas said. “We’re doing this to try to help churches know how to help people along. There are too many new Christians out there who are saying, ‘I’ve joined the church, now what do I do?’”
Relying heavily on the congregation attending a one-hour Sunday School program that occurs before or after worship hasn’t worked for many congregations for more than a generation, but new processes often did not develop to replace programs that had become less effective than they once were. Programs like Disciple Bible Study have been effective, but are too often offered only sporadically, leading a discipleship process that lack continuity.
The Growing Deeper page offers spiritual assessment tools, outlines of effective discipleship process, and reviews of books related to the changing task of spiritual formation. There are also links to resources from the General Board of Discipleship. Future plans include adding videos from learning events as they occur around the Conference.
Growing Deeper aims to offer help for disciple-making at all ages, from children through older adults. Many churches have effective Sunday schools, vacation Bible schools, before and after school programs and camps that engage children well, but too often the effectiveness of the programs wane soon after childhood, beginning with youth.
“We need to help our youth understand that this is a journey, and the church is there to help them with their journey,” Dumas said.
The web page is considered a “soft launch.” It is the intention of the task force that the page will become an interactive forum, where people will ask questions, offer answers and contribute ideas about disciple-making processes that worked well in their church.
“It is the prayer of the Core Practices Team that this resource will strengthen the Discipleship of congregations across the connection,” Dumas said.
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