As many of you know, we have been working to discern what it would mean for us to be a discipling congregation. We have been reading and discussing in meetings and classes and sermons how Saint Nicholas might be different if we took disciple formation as our central priority. I wanted to report back to you on where we stand in this effort as the summer begins.

There isn’t a consensus in the literature we reviewed on the best ways to encourage and support growth in discipleship. Some things we read invited us to develop a core process for disciple formation and to eliminate everything else that did not support this core process. This seemed to many of us to be a “one-size-fits-all” approach that would assume that everyone grows spiritually in exactly the same way, an approach that seemed to us a little too drastic and limiting. Frankly, we enjoy getting together for Fabulous Friday and if we needed to construct a rationale for how that formed disciples, we sure could do it, but it seemed a little artificial.

Other things we read encouraged us to undertake spiritual disciplines, which many of us do anyway – disciplines like daily Bible reading, meditation, fasting and prayer. Again, we weren’t sure that one size fit all – that is, that one set of spiritual disciplines was what everyone needed to grow spiritually.

Early on, we recognized a fair level of agreement that it was good for new members and for existing members to 1) worship regularly, 2) participate in some small group activity, 3) participate in teaching or learning, and 4) be involved in a ministry of the congregation. We summarized this as “Love God, Love Others, Teach and Learn, and Serve the World.” But we also recognized that we all had different ways that we wanted to do each of these things. For some people, a small group activity might be the young parents group, while for others it might be the book club or Council or youth group. Similarly, we might teach and learn as Sunday School teachers or VBS volunteers or in the Sermon Exchange. We might engage in ministry through Christmas in April or Project ECHO meals or Cupid’s Café or Safe Nights and even though these things were very different, they shared the common interest in service to others as being a core discipleship value.

At the same time, we also recognized that while there are many small group opportunities, it was rare that we had small groups that intentionally understood growth in discipleship as being their main concern. Members had formed a couple of “triad groups,” groups of three or four people who met regularly and through Bible study, discussion and structured exercises sought to grow spiritually. The mutual accountability, the progressive curriculum and the fact that the groups were formed precisely to grow in discipleship made these groups attractive to some people who sought that kind of structure.

So here is where I think we stand at the moment.