In the cultivation of such communities certain concepts have proven helpful in helping leaders and their churches grasp the challenge.

10-110

On one level it's a simple maths exercise. In a week there are 168 hours. Let's assume you sleep for 48 hours of these hours. That leaves 120 hours. What happens in these hours? Unless retired, with a lot of discretionary time or employed by a church, it is unlikely that most church members will be able to devote more than 10 hours each week to gathered church activities. So these 10 hours matter.

They may include worshipping with the wider body of believers; times of fellowship where we share our lives together; or joint mission activities, e.g. youth and children's work.

And the remaining 110 hours? This is the time we give to living - work, leisure, family. If Christian maturity is not just about the accumulation knowledge, but involves the way we live, where will we grow the most? Where will we be most challenged about forgiveness? Or sense the need for wisdom? Or cross paths with non-believers? Surely it will be in the 110 hours.

So, the central question is this:

How do our 10 hours of 'church engagement' (and this is beyond the possibility of most people today!) prepare us for the 110 hours of active discipleship and mission - life with God in the world?

Watch a video exploring this idea further here

Frontline

Our frontlines are the places where our lives cross with the lives of others. They may be in our home, or workplace, or school gate, or pub or club. A disciplemaking community has some sense of the different 'frontlines' people face and the issues they wrestle with there. Believing that God wants to use us on the 'frontline'; knowing the frontlines of some in our community stimulates us to pray, equip and support one another in those places.

For an exercise to help people reflect on their frontline, click here

Watch a video exploring this idea further here

ABC/D

Real success is not measured primarily by numbers or activities, but by reproducible disciples. It's not about ABC - Attendance, Buildings or Cash. It's about D - Discipleship. Most leaders know the pressure and distractions from the A,B,C's. And of course, they can't be ignored. But the primary focus is on D. That's what dominates the agenda.

Train & Release

Disciplemaking churches go beyond a mission strategy of 'convert & retain'. They focus on developing a mission strategy that 'trains and releases' people for the adventure of whole-life discipleship. We're not simply waiting for heaven, aiming to stay in some state of pristine holiness until our time comes. Jesus came to declare that a Kingdom had been inaugurated. It's our task to discover what that means for each of us, whether we are postal workers, politicians, parents or performers- wherever we are and whatever we do.

Heroes

The essential fact is that if we are to live and grow as disciples, we can only do that as part of a community of believers. However, the purpose of church is not to create good officers for the institution of the church, it is to be the place where mature disciples are formed, where they reflect on life and faith together, and encourage others who are beginning the journey of faith to grow to maturity themselves. In the past, the heroes of the church were often seen as those who were fully committed to all the church activities - at home or abroad. In the future, heroes will be seen to include those who are fully committed to allowing God to use them to make a difference wherever they find themselves..

Church Based NOT Church Centred

In a really useful article a theologian called Miroslav Volf has written this: 'Faith is to be seen neither as simply a system of propositions to be believed, nor as merely a set of energizing and healing techniques to be practised but as an integral way of life. This will not take the form of a free-floating 'public theology' unrelated to concrete communities of faith. The Christian pursuit of the common good must be church-based without being church-centred. We need to build and strengthen mature communities of vision and character who celebrate faith as a way of life as they gather before God for worship and who, sent by God, live it out as they scatter to pursue various tasks in the world.'