The Discipleship Training Program (DTP) runs in term times, on Tuesday evenings, 7:00-8.30pm in St Andrews Church (next door to Pathfinders if you’re a parent of younger teenagers).

Welcome to DTP Term 8. Throughout the Summer term we will be reflecting together on the question of suffering and sacrifice, on the quesiton of living a cross-shaped life. We can be in danger of trying to re-configure Christianity in a way that requires minimal suffering or even inconvenience. We are unlikely to share our faith in situations where we know it will provoke a hostile reaction, prefering ‘wisdom’ and silence. We struggle to understand why we may have to forego the normal priveleges of our culture’s expectations.

A Chinese translation of the Bible renders I Peter 4:1, ‘Make this willingness to suffer your weapon’. Yet the idea that God might call us to suffer and sacrifice for the cause of the Gospel or the good of the Church is alien to much of our spirituality. The suggestion that such sacrifice and suffering are in fact integral to authentic discipleship is one we would likely dismiss as extreme. Which is difficult to square with the Bible’s teaching.

everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted
We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children.

What do Jesus and the Apostles teach on such matters? What does this mean for us? And how can we become those who would be willing to sacrifice and suffer, and indeed who would count it a privelege to do so (Act 5:41)? What kind of Church would we need to be a part of if we were to learn to live like this?

Due to half term there will not be a DTP session on Tuesday 28th May. And this term’s invitation week will be w/b 10th June.

Discipleship Training Program Blog