The core vision of The Mathetes Trust is to help make disciples in the local church, and one way of doing this is to produce innovative materials for use in small groups. Last year the Anglican Communion decided to put discipleship at the top of its agenda, and its report Intentional Discipleship recommended three discipleship courses for use worldwide. One of these in Rooted in Jesus, a course which we wrote for rural Africa, and another is The God Who Is There which we wrote for the UK but is now also widely used in South Africa.

Most group discipleship materials adopt the method which put Bible study back on the map a generation or so ago: group members were invited to look up Bible verses at home and then answer some questions. The answers were then explored fully when the group met.

The originality of The God Who Is There lies in the interactive lesson plan format, a familiar concept for any school teacher. The course consists of 30 topical lesson plans beginning with Creation, continuing with Sin and Suffering, and going forward from there; group members are given a copy of a booklet with spiritual and practical exercises to complete at home after each session. It’s probably true to say that The God Who Is There offers a lesson plan for almost any major Christian topic! The other original feature of this course is that it places a much greater emphasis on the corporate nature of discipleship, following Alison Morgan’s observation that the plural of disciple is Church. We cannot be disciples of Jesus alone; we can only be disciples together.

It has been particularly encouraging to work with Colin Cooper, an Anglican minister in Chesterfield. Colin has invited the entire church to join a group to follow the first part of the course, Beyond Ourselves. Colin feels that people have grown in both understanding and commitment, and the church is soon to start on the next book, The New Community. Every Sunday the sermon takes the next week’s topic from the course; Roger has been delighted to be invited to visit the church and preach some of these sermons.

If you would like to find out more about The God Who Is There have a look at our page on Small Groups, where you will find some commendations from those who have used it, and be able to see the outcomes that can be expected for churches who follow the course.

It’s that time of year!

If you still haven’t sorted yourselves for Lent, you may like to take a look at our tried and tested Lent Course Season of Renewal. Written by Alison Morgan and Bill Goodman, it follows the same interactive format, with lots of exercises to do during and after each session. It can be previewed and ordered from our Publications page.

“A group of about ten of us finished ‘Season of Renewal’ last night. It was unanimously agreed that it had been the most inspiring and helpful Lent course we had ever shared in” – Canon John Gunstone

The vision of The Mathetes Trust is to help make disciples in the local church. One of the ways we plan to do this is to provide teams for parish missions. Our first two will take place in September and October in Purley (Reading) and Breaston (Derby). In both places we will be working in partnership with Richard Scott, the Director of Through Faith Missions, who is also an Associate of TMT.

We will be providing three Saturday morning training sessions in each place (based on our Beautiful Lives evangelism course), and inviting church members to join the home team. We know from long experience that in a successful mission those who become Christians are usually those with whom the church members already have relationships. The old-fashioned way of doing missions where the church organises events and the visiting team does all the work is much less effective than a genuine reaching out from within the church itself, so preparation is important. It’s also fun!

If you would like to find out more about our parish missions please do get in touch. If you would like to follow this blog just click on the ‘follow’ button at the bottom of the page.

Canon John Musaasizi writes from the Diocese of Mityana in Uganda: “What we are seeing with our own eyes as far as Rooted in Jesus is concerned is an apparent manifestation of God’s answers to your prayers and prayers of other God loving people spread widely. We thank you very much.” The Diocese plans to host a second Rooted in Jesus conference later in the year. To read some of John’s recent news, including the remarkable story of a man who gave his life to Christ following the violent death of his wife, visit the Rooted in Jesus blog.

We have just received a report from the Diocese of Lango, Uganda, where Diocesan Coordinator Ronald Eguny has been visiting some of the Rooted in Jesus groups founded just under a year ago. Ronald reports that there are now groups in 48 parishes, and he shares many testimonies of changed lives from group members– read them here on the  Rooted in Jesus BLOG.

We have also received news from the Diocese of Fianarantsoa, Madagascar: Revd Pez Raobison writes to say that he has just had the joy of baptising Alpha and his brother, the first two new Christians in Ambositra, where Pez and his wife Louise are using Rooted in Jesus to plant a new church.

Meanwhile Nicole Corlew reports from South Africa that “RinJ Junior continues to be used in the following dioceses: Cape Town, False Bay, St. Mark the Evangelist, Mthatha and Pretoria. The Province has embraced the Decade of Intentional Discipleship initiative, and plans are in place to offer training over the next three years for leaders of Rooted in Jesus, Rooted in Jesus Junior and The God Who is There in each of the Province’s 28 dioceses. We see all of these resources as being integral to discipling people and teaching them to disciple others. We are very excited about the next three years!”

The Anglican Consultative Council made the following formal Resolution last year: ‘In the light of the Gospel and theological imperative to make disciples, the ACC recognizes the need for every province, diocese and parish in the Anglican Communion to adopt a clear focus on intentional discipleship and to produce resources to equip and enable the whole church to be effective in making new disciples of Christ Jesus.’ Rooted in Jesus and The God Who is There are both endorsed by the Report as recommended resources for discipleship training.

The Mathetes Trust was registered as an independent UK charity by the Charity Commission on 24th October 2016. The Trustees are Roger Morgan (Director), Mike Cotterell and Andrew Evans. Roger was for many years Vicar of Holy Trinity Leicester, and from 2008 to 2016 worked with ReSource. Mike is the Vicar of St Paul’s Church in Slough, and has long been associated with Rooted in Jesus, leading teams to South Africa, Tanzania and South Sudan. Andrew is the Vicar of St Katharine’s Church in Holt, and has been a key member of EQUIP over a number of years; Andrew has also been involved in missions with Roger. The Trustees held their first full meeting on 13th December 2016.