Right on, Luke! Our context in Sweden is a bit different from the US, but one of the ways we have been engaging discipleship since the fall is that we have a more "traditional" service every second week, and on the other week we have a more interactive service in our cafe downstairs. I had listened to a research presentation at a "mentor day" at a seminary in Stockholm called "Faith on the slide"(transl.) and the research was following up with young Christians who had done a bible school of some sort, and the stats that many of them still have a faith, but it is no longer within the context of "church". The conclusion was that we need to create more spaces for younger people to grow,, learn and express their faith in the context of "we the church". So this was my response to that, especially being that we really needed work on our 20-30 year olds. The interactive often leads into a sort of Holy Spirit "lab time", and the result is that we have grown somewhat significantly in that age group and we are getting a lot more consistency in participation (I don't like the word "attendance) in our regular service as a result too. So that's what we have done with "space". Not everybody likes it, but overall our feedback with an anonymous survey was overwhelmingly positive. By the way, when I was leading the Vineyard Ranch late 80s. David Watson's widow, Ann, came and attended one of our schools there. She was such a wonderful woman. She came with another elder couple from their church as well. Keep up the good writing, Luke!
Right on, Luke! Our context in Sweden is a bit different from the US, but one of the ways we have been engaging discipleship since the fall is that we have a more "traditional" service every second week, and on the other week we have a more interactive service in our cafe downstairs. I had listened to a research presentation at a "mentor day" at a seminary in Stockholm called "Faith on the slide"(transl.) and the research was following up with young Christians who had done a bible school of some sort, and the stats that many of them still have a faith, but it is no longer within the context of "church". The conclusion was that we need to create more spaces for younger people to grow,, learn and express their faith in the context of "we the church". So this was my response to that, especially being that we really needed work on our 20-30 year olds. The interactive often leads into a sort of Holy Spirit "lab time", and the result is that we have grown somewhat significantly in that age group and we are getting a lot more consistency in participation (I don't like the word "attendance) in our regular service as a result too. So that's what we have done with "space". Not everybody likes it, but overall our feedback with an anonymous survey was overwhelmingly positive. By the way, when I was leading the Vineyard Ranch late 80s. David Watson's widow, Ann, came and attended one of our schools there. She was such a wonderful woman. She came with another elder couple from their church as well. Keep up the good writing, Luke!