I want to try and answer my own question from the last post in this sequence: “do we provide a context within which people can enter in all sorts of different ways?”

Four different ‘shapes’ – and recognising that we are all a blend of them: active experimentation (‘doing’); concrete experience (‘feeling’); reflective observation (‘watching’ – actually I think ‘imagining’ is better); and abstract conceptualisation (‘thinking’). Let’s call them earth, water, fire and air ;o) And of course – and essentially – they all feed into each other.

So what we’d need, to have a healthy environment within which people can grow as disciples, are places where:
– we can get on with the ‘doing’, eg serving the community – classic example: soup kitchen;
– we can get on with the ‘feeling’, eg pastoral care – classic example: home visiting;
– we can get on with the ‘imagining’, eg creative arts and liturgy – classic example: the eucharistic liturgy; and
– we can get on with the ‘thinking’, eg doing theology – classic example: bible study.

The questions, therefore, are: do these characterisations work to sum up how people can get involved in the faith (these are the different paths by which people can come in – have we covered all the bases?); and – and here’s the kicker – what do we have in place by which people can do this?

Here on Mersea, my initial thought is that we are pretty healthy (tho’ not perfect!!) on the latter three, but there’s quite a gap with the first.

Lots of interesting comments on my first post on this, here and on Facebook. I’ll concentrate on the things that I agree with.

First: learning styles. Yes, this absolutely needs to be taken into account. One model that I’ve liked is this one:

Second: the list in the last post can be jumbled up and shuffled around – it’s not a linear process I mostly agree with this, but not totally.

Put these two together and we’d have more of a spiral staircase, with lots of different access points. So the question becomes – do we provide a context within which people can enter in all sorts of different ways?

Those learning styles: Activist – Theorist – Reflector – Pragmatist. How do they fit into ‘learning how to be a Christian’?

Third: a comment from Tim on FB, “The problem as I see it is that the NT does not present the apostles and early missionaries as leading Christians through ten-week courses. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t grow disciples, though. I tried the ‘course’ approach for years and it just didn’t work for anything more than a minority of people in our context. I also noted that even those who had been through the courses were not necessarily practising the disciplines they had learned about. So I’ve come to the conclusion that the old-fashioned one-on-one approach may well be best. It seems to be working better for me anyway.” I liked this a lot, not least because it chimed with my last talk on St Benedict, wherein he described what the Abbot was supposed to do (how he was supposed to be) which was to focus on the monks as individuals. Raises the ghost of George Herbert again though…

So “What would Jesus do?” – in the ASB ordinal the priest is enjoined to ‘set the Good Shepherd always before [you] as the pattern of [your] calling’. I can see the following:
– plenty of private prayer time and solitude getting intimate with the Father;
– work with a small group of the ‘inner three’;
– work with a small group of ‘the twelve’;
– work with a wider group of disciples (and where Mary Mag?)
– generalised teaching to crowds primarily with parables but also with healing/exorcisms
– prophetic drama and public debate with the religious authorities.

I would say that he modelled a particular understanding of faith, and lived it in the circumstances in which he found himself.

(I’m not sure that he did much of what might today be called ‘public service’ or ‘good works’ – that seems to be a liberal distraction – things that make us ‘good people’ rather than ‘people of God’ – not that there’s anything wrong with being a ‘good person’!)

OK time run out; still thinking about this; more later.

If you go to a school of Martial Arts, there is a clear structure describing how you grow from a complete beginner to someone who has proficiency (helpfully marked out by different coloured belts). The same scheme applies in all sorts of other areas. It doesn’t really apply in the church, and I wonder if that is a problem. In other words, I wonder if a clear structure setting out how we understand what it means to grow as a Christian would be of some use. As a first sketch, how about this:

Alpha

Post-Alpha

Confirmation course and confirmation

House groups and regular attendance at worship

Private prayer and becoming comfortable with silence

Regular and formal bible study, also some doctrine and church history

Service to church

Service to community

What do people think? What is missing?

Of course, having something like this offends against all sorts of shibboleths, eg that we are all of equal value in the sight of the Lord (true, but irrelevant). It begs the question of whether it is possible to be more ‘advanced’ in the faith than others. Yet I don’t believe anyone actually thinks that there isn’t a difference – it’s just that it is only acceptable to talk about such differences when the people being mentioned are a long way away, either in time or space.

I can’t avoid thinking that there is a distinct gap in our formation of new disciples, and we need something to plug that gap. (NB I’m aware that the Emmaus course covers much of this).

“Indians had learned to look on us missionaries as friends, as people who would help them, and as good workers, but they had not yet learned to look on us as men and women of God.” (Quoted in Praying Hyde).

The church will grow when people perceive that here there are men and women of God.

And that will come about when we become men and women of God.

And that will come about when we put the first commandment first.

Let us pray.