Living Holiness, a new small group resource, has been published today, alongside an outline for a Eucharist service. These are the latest resources for the diocesan Rhythm of Life, with a focus on churches and communities.
The diocesan Rhythm of Life is shaped around 7 Christian practices – prayer, scripture, worship, loving one another, living generously, sharing faith, and having patterns of rest. These practices together offer a flexible and creative framework enabling us to grow in missional discipleship, as we seek to become more like Christ.
These new resources have been created collaboratively, drawing together contributions from many people and communities across the diocese, born out of a commitment to resourcing the Rhythm of Life as a culture growing across the diocese. Each of the eight sessions includes an introduction to the practice, a reflection based on a passage of scripture, questions for group discussion, opening and closing prayers, music suggestions and a ‘takeaway’ activity to ponder during the week.
Within the diocesan strategic priority of Becoming More like Christ is a focus on building up the ministry of small groups. Small groups hold great value in offering opportunities for people to connect and grow together in faith, through prayer, belonging and sharing life together. Small groups take different forms, often having a regular rhythm which is helpful for building relationships and going deeper in faith together.
The Ven Dr Amanda Bloor, Archdeacon of Cleveland, says, “It can be enormously rewarding to pray, reflect and learn with others. They can help us see new ways of understanding and remind us that the Christian journey is never undertaken alone; we are fellow pilgrims, following Jesus and supporting each other as we travel on.
“I’m really excited by this new resource that can help small groups or entire communities to together walk more closely with Christ. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a Christian or how much or little you think you know about faith, there’s something here for everyone.”
The small group resource is being offered both digitally and in hardcopy form, and the liturgical materials for a Eucharist is available for download through the website.
