For the past three years Plume Avenue Church in Colchester has been on a significant journey of discovery. The Revd Geoff Felton explains what this has entailed and meant for the church’s walk with Jesus.

The elders kickstarted a process of self-evaluation for the church by exploring issues of leadership, mainly stemming from the lack of people coming forward for consideration for eldership. This automatically led us towards questions around discipleship.

In his book Building a Discipling Culture, Mike Breen says: 'If we seek to build church we will create consumers, if we seek to make disciples the church will grow.’

As we studied scripture, it became clear to us that Jesus never told his disciples to build or grow the church. The disciples were called to make more disciples! For us, this was a paradigm shift in our thinking about the ways in which we be and do church together.

A good example of the shift we have made can be seen in our ’café church’, known as Venue, a monthly event that sees a huge amount of people from the local community visiting the church.

We asked the question, ‘How are we making disciples in Venue?’ In an attempt to improve our response, we have opened an informal, weekly lunch meeting where parents of school-aged children, the elderly and anyone else who is available can come along, eat together, share news of their week and engage in some great biblical insights led by our church members. We are seeking to Walk the Way with our café church friends, not just put on a nice event.

We have discovered that discipleship is long term, it is relational and happens in community. The process of seeking to make disciples is a challenge to the Church, but it is an adventure which we have undertaken in the knowledge that God is with us as we respond to the Spirit’s call to make God known to all.

How does your church engage its members and local community in the Holy Habit of Making More Disciples? Let us know.