In Jesus’ final words to his disciples, he charged them to go to all the ends of the earth, making disciples. With this as the ongoing commission to the church, The Resources Cupboard exists to journey with the local church to make young disciples.
Our simple frameworks provide a road map to help us (and you!) to keep this as our focus, identifying the opportunities we have to connect with children, young people and families and better understand the faith-journey of children and young people.
These frameworks help us to unpick three key principles:
Knowing and Loving your Community
God’s story shouts his love for the world; ‘For God so loved the world…’ As his people, we are formed as a family together, placed within a community God has sent us to; to love and share his love. Reaching children, young people and families must be rooted in our relationship with God and the relationships we have with the individual children and young people he has positioned us close to. Programmes, events and projects have their place; but only as the vehicle and never at the expense of the relationships we have.
Before we pick up something new, change something up or even consider laying something down, we need to keep those individuals at the forefront of our minds. But this isn’t just about the individuals we already know; what about those we have yet still to meet? Understanding our community and context will help us to make wise choices about the work we do.
With all children, young people and families, from birth to adulthood, in all spheres of life.
God’s story of good news is for all the people and so in our mission to make disciples, must be shared with all people. Not only does research show that many people find faith in their earliest years (Talking Jesus, for example) but the Bible makes it clear that it is God’s plan that we should walk with him every day of our lives.
For this reason, our model encourages the local church to walk with all children and young people from birth through to adulthood and beyond. Our own research-based model challenges the church to be actively engaged in the lives of children and young people in four key spheres of life; family first (as primary influences on a child’s life), school, the wider community and culture and as the gathered local church.
Being intentional in disciple-making
In his final words to his followers, Jesus commissioned them (and us!) to go to all the ends of the earth, making disciples. We are not simply in the business of reversing church decline, running the best social action projects we can, or the best kids programmes. Our mission is to invite children, young people and families into the most exciting journey of their lives, as disciples of Jesus.
Drawing on some fantastic thinking in this area, we have developed a disciple-making framework to help keep this front and centre of our thinking and doing.