Discipleship is a life-long journey to becoming more like Jesus Christ.
What is a disciple? During His short life walking the earth, Jesus called twelve men to follow Him. To witness His miracles, hear His teaching and most importantly live life with Him for those brief intense years. Today Jesus is still calling people to be His disciples and amazingly to participate in showing God's love and mercy to the world, just the same as He with those first few followers. Our starting point for understanding discipleship is Jesus – his life, conduct, and teaching. Jesus is the source, substance and goal of true discipleship.
Here you will find resources on lifetime journey of being a disciple of Jesus.
This is part of the Discipleship Project within Outreach Canada, a think tank on future possibilities and opportunities within Canada. In this article, I try to map the fruitful arenas of discipleship that I believe the Canadian Church needs to attend to, both for its own integrity and witness, and the retention of its young people under 30. It is a work in progress, meant to stimulate research and vision, to give hope.Where are you and your ministry on the map? Where do you want to be moving forward? How can you find others of like mind across the country? many of the ideas are from Christian leaders like yourself.I believe God wants us to move towards maturity and holism. ~Dr. Gordon E. Carkner, InterFace: Graduate and Faculty Ministries, Outreach Canada
The work of transitional ministry requires a certain type of leader. Experience and background matters but it’s more than that. So whether you’re in the trenches doing this work or looking to find someone to help a congregation in transition, consider these 4 C’s as you look for leadership during transition.
Jean de Dieu is one of the key young African leaders of his generation. Against the odds, he has pursued higher education, worked tirelessly many jobs that barely met his family’s needs, and eventually found himself leading a significant NGO in the country. His commitment to his densely populated nation of over 11 million people (470 people per square kilometer) is remarkable.
Here are 3 truths from the gospel that inspire gratitude in me. Even though they may seem simple & straightforward, as I meditate on these ideas, my heart fills with gratitude. My hope is that as you lean into these truths, that your heart will be filled to overflowing.
I have this odd habit--I like to collect rocks. I find them fascinating—each one is unique and in its own way, interesting.
I am as likely to come home from a holiday with a rock as I am with some other memento. I have rocks of all types in my home and in my garden, and each of them at the time was marking a particular event or memory (some of which, I confess, are now lost to my memory).
Is there a cure for weariness in the Christian life? Christians know that they have every reason to be happy, to be joyful.
Experience tells us, however, that the daily cares and pressures of everyday life have a way of wearing us down; of weakening our enthusiasm even though our efforts—in calling, in relationships-- might be perfectly respectable by any normal measurement.
One approach might be to pause and explore the dimensions of gratitude in our lives.
I am so grateful for Christmas, for The Hope of Christmas. Not the sugar-coated, Hallmark movie kind of Christmas, where everything turns out okay in the end. Not the presents and candy canes and tinsel. Not even all the messaging about love and giving and togetherness.
Our Hope has a name. Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us.
We view Christmas as a season of peace, but does December really feel peaceful?
Jesus is referred to as the Prince of Peace. What does His peace look like in the midst of regular life, including the difficult times?