The Council of Nicaea in 325AD (which produced the Nicene Creed) formalised the Catechumenate of the Ancient Church.  It recognised that it takes a minimum of 3 years to form the habits of life and worship that allow for sustained growth as a Christian.  We will need to support and encourage one another as we grow into this.  But as the Church has proved time and again – not just in history, but elsewhere in the world today – when we step into this kind of process, the Lord meets with His people and leads them into ways of being disciples of Jesus that go far beyond what many of us have experienced.

The Discipleship Training Programme will be deliberately focussed on practical outworking, not as an optional extra, but as integral to what we are doing.  We won’t just learn about prayer and fasting: we will pray and fast (and we may find we have to change how we pray).  We won’t just learn about how to do evangelism: we will evangelise.   We won’t just learn about repentance: we will repent, and that will mean change.  We won’t just learn about spiritual warfare: we will engage in it.  We won’t just learn about fellowship: we will fellowship.  We won’t just learn about discipleship: we will be disciples.  If you aren’t willing to learn to ‘do’ discipleship in different ways, then this isn’t for you.

So is it for me?

There are two key questions to reflect on as you make the decision about whether to be involved – either as individuals, families, or home-groups. 

The first is about our own sense of where we are as a Christian.  This isn’t about length of time, so much as it is about how confident we are that we understand what being a Christian is all about, and the extent to which our faith is shaping our life and character.  It’s a difficult question to answer, because we don’t know what we don’t know, and often our horizons drop to the range of our own experience.  But some diagnostic reflections might help.  Do I see God answering prayer?  …am I regularly involved in talking to other people about Jesus?  …Do I understand what we’re doing in our services of corporate worship?  … and do I experience God’s forming me as a disciple in those services?  Am I secure in what I believe as a Christian, and am I confident in talking about it with others?  Can I see consistently how the decisions I make about how I live are shaped by what God has revealed of His will in the Scriptures?  Can I point to specific examples of where I have sacrificed for the cause of the Gospel?  Or perhaps most basically of all: Do I love Jesus, and am I excited about following Him, and being part of His Church?

The second is about how willing we are to change.  This is not a course, and if you approach it as a course you will be quickly frustrated.  Being up-front: if you aren’t willing to change your mind and how you engage with being a disciple, then this isn’t for you.  That can be an unhealthy thing, but it isn’t the case.  If we have structured our lives of devotion and discipleship in a way that means we are maturing, that we have moved ‘beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and [are being taken forward] to maturity (Heb.6:1)’, then my advice is ‘Brilliant, carry on!’.