Examples of Discipling Community
Serving Communities are the hands and feet of Christ as Serving Communities engage in Community Learning and Community Outreach. The term Discipling Community implies a community where members are being discipled and also implies a community that disciples others. Each Discipling Community has an outward focus to reach out to another community through acts of kindness or compassion in response to the grace they have received through Christ. The vision shared by the community in terms of its passion and outreach defines the DNA of the Discipling Community.
Some examples of Discipling Community:-
A lady lost her husband to cancer, was broken and lost. Besides managing her emotion health, she had to look after two young children and be a pillar of support to them too. There were times when all seemed unbearable even with the support of loved ones because no one could feel exactly what she was going through; her pain, sorrow, helplessness. The need to receive support from women who went through similar situations was answered when she joined an online community for widows.
Using social networking tools like blogs, conversation and forum for asynchronous and synchronous participation, widows could lend support to those who grieve through words of encouragement, advice and experience. Related and useful information could be created or linked from other websites for easy reference for selected groups or everyone. Most importantly, they could there for each other all the time during the process of recovery and also help one another whenever necessary.
The protected environment enabled personal and intimate sharing which are archived as part of the healing journey. These reflections can also be a source of encouragement to new members who join the community. Alerts kept members of community notified of testimonies, comments or discussion that were shared within the community and enabled them to encourage each other around these sharing. These features support active participation, enabling them ‘to be there’ for one another and reach out to other widows who are also struggling.
A young adult cell group which a youth pastor led had irregular attendance. They missed meetings often due to work commitments and studies. It seemed like an impossible task for the group to develop a closer bond. As they embark on a new course about relationships, the pastor decided to complement the face-to-face lessons with online ones.
Out of the ten lessons to be conducted, everyone was encouraged to attend at least five face-to-face sessions. Three of the ten lessons were facilitated purely online. The course materials were repurposed into online materials using activity templates within the Community Hub. Websites, video and other useful resources were added to enrich learning. For outreach, they linked up with a young missionary worker who had gone to the neighbouring country to minister to the youths there.
The course turned out to be less burdensome for everyone including the youth pastor. Those who turned up for the face-to-face sessions had more opportunities to interact in a smaller group and those who could not be present need not felt guilty nor missed the lesson. Using the materials online, young adults who missed face-to-face lessons could pick up online and contribute their views even after the face-to-face session. The young missionary worker was also encouraged by their sharing and a close relationship was developed with the group. Subsequently, many of the young adults also went on mission trips regularly to help the missionary worker.
The Sunday school department was struggling to recruit enough teachers to serve in the children’s ministry. The attrition rate was pretty high because the ministry was demanding and a number of volunteers who signed on felt kind of burnout after almost a year. This became an annual crisis and many who were serving found the ministry rather burdensome and did not find much meaning in it. Many of the parents who brought their children to the Sunday school treated it more like a child-minding service.
The head of the department decided to manage the volunteers as a community and incorporated learning and outreach as essential aspects of the community. Since the children’s ministry is already very time-consuming, most of the learning is facilitated online. The topics range from spiritual growth to children related ones helpful for their ministry. For the first time, the volunteers felt that they were learning and growing even as they were serving. The Sunday school volunteer community grew in size and they could add an outward focus to their ministry by reaching out to the kids in the neighbourhood.
Serving in the Sunday school is no longer just about giving but it is also a place of learning and growth. The transformation into a Discipling Community gave it a balance that was long overdue. As the community grew from strength to strength, serving in the ministry was really a joy, especially when they also started to reach out to the kids in the not so well to do neighbourhood. As a result, the ministry is far from being a child-minding service now. Not only do the Sunday school teachers actively reach out to the neighbourhood kids, the other kids in church are also taught to befriend them and help them to feel at home.
A couple of homemakers in the women ministry wanted to form a bookclub to read books together and discussed after they had read each chapter. However, they found it quite difficult to find a time when everyone was free to meet as each of them had their own commitment. Hence they decided to move their bookclub online so that everyone could read and share in their own time from the convenience of their home according to the schedule they had planned for each chapter of the book.
Initially only a few of the ladies went online while the rest still preferred to meet face to face, but after a while it was obvious that the online community was thriving as ladies who went online shared more and at a deeper level. Because of the depth of sharing, closer relationships were fostered and the ladies really got to know one another and not just about the books they read. They also went on to collaborate to reach out to the girls staying a Girls’ home near their church. Another online hub was set up to form an English Writing Club for the girls where the ladies serve as mentors, again from the convenience of their home.
Many of the ladies who are homemakers temporarily gave up their careers to look after their kids. There is a need for them to be part of a community beyond their homes and they also have the desire to serve and make meaningful contributions to the society. However, running a house and looking after kids can be very demanding, especially when children fall ill unexpectedly. Being part of the bookclub is an encouragement for the mothers to reflect and share their struggles with other homemakers. Functioning as mentors to the girls n the home enriches their lives and gives the bookclub a sense of purpose beyond reading books.
Perhaps you are aware of a group of people around your community who is in need, do create your own outreach project and setup a Discipling Community to reach out to them together with other like-minded people who share the same passion and burden.
And if you have a story to share about your community, please send us your story through community@vhubs.com.
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