Disciples Together

Roger Walton

Description

Discipleship is one of the key words used in the churches today and there are many initiatives in the mainstream churches to enable people to grow as disciples of Christ.

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 21 avril 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334051848
• Langue: English

Extrait

Disciples Together
Discipleship, Formation and Small Groups
Roger L. Walton






Published in 2014 by SCM Press
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© Roger Walton 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, SCM Press.
Roger Walton has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978 0 334 05182 4
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon





Dedicated to my wife Marion,
my friend and spiritual companion of over 40 years




Contents
Introduction
Section 1: Formation
1. Forming Christian Disciples: Mission
2. Forming Christian Disciples: Worship
3. Forming Christian Disciples: Community
4. Forming Christian Disciples: Christian Education
Reflections and Questions on Section 1
Section 2: Small Groups and Discipleship Formation
5. The Value of Small Groups
6. Small Group Explosion: Church Small Groups in the Twentieth Century
7. Research on Church-related Small Groups
8. Small Groups and Discipleship Formation

9. Disciples Together: Small Groups in Theological Perspective
Bibliography



Introduction
Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.
Jeremiah 18.2
The first church I served as a minister was in Stourbridge. This is an area of the West Midlands famous for its cut glass. When I moved on to my next appointment, several kind people gave me pieces of cut glass – bowls, wine glasses and ornaments – made at one of the many glassworks in the area. I still have them some 40 years later. Sometimes I lift them from the shelves they adorn and hold them, feeling the weight of the glass and the smooth and etched surfaces of these works of art. I continue to be captivated by their elegance and fine craftsmanship and see in my mind’s eye the skilled worker who created the shapes and patterns they carry. I reimagine the visits I paid to glass-blowing demonstrations and the sense of wonder I felt watching these experts handle molten glass, turning, blowing, reheating, cooling and fashioning, at ease with their skill – and making it look easy – as they created objects of beauty before my eyes. I could watch such craft in action for hours.
Had glass-blowing been a part of the economy of Jeremiah’s home town in the sixth century BCE, I wonder if God might have prompted him to visit the glass-blower’s workshop rather than the potter’s house. The point of the visit would have been the same, no doubt. For what Jeremiah saw – a potter making a pot that went wrong and was refashioned into another object – reminded him that God was forming Israel and that he would shape his people according to his purpose. Jeremiah would have witnessed similar creative and redemptive acts in the glass-blower’s workshop. But he also would have seen that there is more in this forming process than the material and the hands of the craftsman. Perhaps he would have reflected on the roles of fire, breath and water – all symbols of the work of the Spirit – in the creative process. Maybe he would have noticed the various tools brought into play at different stages to work with these natural elements. Although not complex in the modern scientific sense of the word, he would possibly have observed and commented on the range of skills and processes the craftsperson must skilfully apply at the right time. He might, like me, have felt quiet awe observing the worker’s ability to combine and use the various elements, energies and techniques to mould and make a thing of beauty.
This book is primarily about formation: how God forms us and shapes us, transforms us and reshapes us, as we take up the call to follow Jesus.
It began life when I was granted a research opportunity by the William Leech Fellowship in 2010. For a year I was freed of all other work responsibilities and, with the support of Durham University’s Department of Theology and Religion, allowed to investigate the role of small groups in churches in the north-east of England (referred to in this book as ‘the Leech research’). This yielded some insights that have been shared in various places, including publications, 1 but the more I pursued the research the more other questions became pressing. Many people join small groups in their church with the hope of strengthening and developing their discipleship, and an increasing number of churches expect their members to be part of a small group for the same purpose – to be formed as disciples. But how does God form and transform us? What are the vehicles of grace that enable change and growth? How do we recognize them and work with them? If small groups are important, what about those who do not want or cannot belong to such groups? These questions led me to try to locate what I was discovering about small groups in a broader theological framework that includes some understanding of the biblical notion of formation and some reflection on Christian companionship. The book is the result of my efforts.
It is written in two distinct sections. Section 1 sets out the pattern of formation discerned in the Scriptures and particularly in the Gospels. It identifies mission, worship and intentional Christian community as primary vehicles for formation and transformation. These are the regular determinative agents in Christian discipleship and the normal channels of God’s grace to God’s people. Christian education is then considered as a derived or dependent set of tools for working with the three primary energies, and its purposes are set out, with some reflections on our current practice in relation to enquirers’ courses, gathering for worship, and training for ordination.
Section 2 is focused on small groups. It opens with a sociological perspective on small groups and their use (Chapter 5), followed by a historical outline of the changing role of small groups in churches across the twentieth century (Chapter 6). Chapter 7 distils the research work of various studies on church-related small groups and majors on the research of Robert Wuthnow in the USA in the mid-1990s and my own research in the north-east of England. Both these research projects highlight the tendencies towards mutual support, self-help and the privatizing of religious experiences in small groups. The last chapter in this section, Chapter 8, is an attempt to construct an approach to small groups that combines spiritual growth with a broadly based missional orientation, including engagement with issues of injustice, as well as making disciples and serving our neighbours.
Finally Chapter 9 offers the beginning of a theology of companionship. My conviction, like that of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, is that the journey of discipleship is not intended to be made alone but in the company of others. We are to be disciples together. The form this shared journeying takes is not in itself the most important point. It could be via small groups or in other forms of relationship. The key thing is that we are not alone in the journey; we need the insights, encouragement, gifts and truth-telling of others along the way. To see our calling in this way is to recognize that we, and the whole Church of God, are on the move, restless until we find our rest in God, and part of a pilgrim people seeking a kingdom that is not of the earth but in its coming transforms the world with the grace of God.
My hope is that you will find something here to help you make the journey of discipleship, if not more easily then at least more intentionally and with greater awareness. I pray that you may enter more wholeheartedly into the forming and transforming processes of God.
Roger Walton
Note


1 Roger L. Walton, ‘Disciples Together: The Small Group as a Vehicle for Discipleship Formation’, Journal of Adult Theological Education 8:2 (2012), pp. 99–114, and ‘Ordinary Discipleship’, in Jeff Astley and Leslie Francis (eds), Exploring Ordinary Theology , Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 179–88.



Section 1. Formation
The four chapters that follow are all concerned with how Christian disciples are formed. The argument they attempt to make can be stated quite simply. Chapter 1 argues that it is by participating in mission that disciples are formed. Chapter 2 considers worship and outlines the ways participation in worship forms worshippers. Chapter 3 focuses on Christian community as a forming agent and explores the role of intentional Christian communities for forming disciples. These three, I suggest, are the primary formative agents of Christian disciples. As following Jesus into the work of the kingdom, worshipping God and living out faith in community are the essence of Christian faith, they are also the main means through which disciples are formed in God’s image and become Christlike.
Chapter 4 looks at the role of Christian education. In