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The C of E releases its official "Developing Discipleship" Paper

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Kendall Harmon

Developing Discipleship aims to renew and deepen a conversation about discipleship across the Church of England.

The conversation will begin in General Synod when we meet in February. I hope it will happen in local churches and in dioceses in the coming months.

At the February General Synod, the paper will provided a context for the important conversation and debate about the reports from the four Task Groups to be published later this week.

Read it all and please note the links at the bottom for the paper (a 12 page pdf) and the online discussion site as well.

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Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, Adult Education, Anglican Provinces, Anthropology, Church of England (CoE), Ethics / Moral Theology, Parish Ministry, Pastoral Theology, Theology, Theology: Scripture

One comment on “The C of E releases its official "Developing Discipleship" Paper”

  1. MichaelA says:
    January 16, 2015 at 4:37 am

    This is a pretty inadequate paper.

    The bishop’s solutions are set out in the ten points at the end, and they don’t grapple with the real issues facing the Church of England today.

    One major omitted issue is consistency of witness – the Bishop had this driven home to him in 2009 when he made overtures to an independent Anglican Church plant in his own diocese (Christ Church Central) and was rebuffed: “After careful consideration, this offer was declined by Christ Church Central because of alleged wider differences between Christ Church Central and the Church of England.” See http://www.sheffield.anglican.org/index.php/home/latest-news/29-latest-news/4455-a-statement-from-the-bishop-of-sheffield-on-the-ordination-in-kenya-of-pete-jackson. Christ Church Central understood that joining itself to a Church which tolerated and promoted liberal interpretations of scripture would inhibit its own efforts to make disciples.

    A second omitted issue is preaching. We in the evangelical churches know that discipleship is built by consistent, scholarly, godly and inspired preaching every Sunday, which is firmly based on exposition of God’s word. Everything flows from that. It is the reason why orthodox evangelical churches in the Church of England are thriving, and the reason why in my own diocese (Sydney, Australia) we have an average ASA of about 300, across an arch-diocese of some 250 congregations. Good preaching begets discipleship, and in turn a proper respect for scripture begets good preaching.