I want to invite you to the Diamond Valley Baptist Church 2023 Discipleship Conference!
This year our focus is ‘’Into the Neighbourhood.”
We are now serve in a multiverse of cultures and beliefs. To meaningfully proclaim and model the reign of Christ we need to be as creative, flexible & dispersed as the early Christians in Acts.
Now that the age of Christendom has passed into history, the church is no longer chaplain to the culture. Christians are as alien in the post-modern West as mission-workers are in un-evangelized lands overseas:
“…We need to exegete culture in the same way the missionaries have been so good at doing with diverse tribal cultures of previously unreached people.” (Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches, 34).)
Rather than being primarily ‘attractional’ in approach, that is, inviting non-christians into our buildings — we are disciples who are sent out amongst the people in their many social settings. That means being equipped and supported as disciples who can serve in their neighbourhoods and workplaces.
Down through history the Holy Spirit has worked through smaller household-size teams or communities of disciples permeating their neighbourhoods whilst resourced by a supportive mission-centre.
How we can best partner to equip, organise, support and multiply effective teams of disciples to permeate all parts of our culture? That means as well as established church-centres and activities, we need to enable the formation of creative mission experiments and smaller groups such as ‘micro-churches’ or ‘missional communities’ or ‘church-plants.’
As we come out of the Covid hiatus, we want to use this Conference to begin to learn, inspire, pray and partner together about how we can make disciples who can launch bold experiments out into our neighbourhoods. You are most welcome to come and join us!
