Intentional Faith Development

Intentional Faith Development (IFD) Questionnaire

The Intentional Faith Development Group’s mission is:

To encourage members of the church to grow in their faith in Jesus Christ, and grow closer to God in the community of the church.

To ensure that opportunities are provided within the church for communal Bible study, prayer and other classes as required so that members of the church may grow in their faith.

The current situation in church is:
We have a number of prayer groups including, Saturday Prayer Meeting and The Prayer Chain. The IFD had suggested Prayer Triplets earlier in the year but no one signed up to this.

We also encourage people to pray as individuals providing leaflets including Week Of Prayer For World Peace, Circuit Prayer Diary, District Prayer Diary and The Methodist Prayer Handbook.

A number of people have attended the Community Bible Study over the years. We have recently started providing Friday Bible Study and, although it requires no long-term commitment, there are fewer than a dozen individuals that attend. We advertised the Biblefresh initiative and the E(ssential) 100 Bible readings. Copies of the list of Bible readings were produced and some were taken.

We are also in the third year of Disciple and again limited numbers have signed up for this.

Robert Schnase in his book “Five Practices Of A Fruitful Congregation” says that -Everyone needs to be involved in Intentional faith development: ministers, leaders, musicians, etc.  Everyone (including the minister and church leaders) should be expected to develop their own faith in a community as well as enable others to develop their faith in a safe communal setting.  Giving everyone a chance to mature as a Christian should be a top priority for every aspect of church life.  Maturation in Christ “is always about content and relationship.  Ideas change people, and people change people; and God uses both together to work on our behalf and to shape our lives in the image of Christ.  Transformation comes through learning in community”.

In order to fulfill our mission the IFD Group are inviting you at this time of year when New Year resolutions are made to look at the time you spend with God. We have produced a questionnaire so that you can take stock of your current commitment. We also invite you to make a commitment to spend more time during the coming year. It would be helpful if everyone completes the questionnaire, which will be confidential, and brings it to the Covenant Service on 8 January 2012. If you can’t come to this service a box will be placed in the pigeonholes for posting the questionnaire, or alternatively hand it to Robert Lewis, Lawrie Ginn, or Andrew Watchorn.

A summary report of the results will be produced which will help the IFD Group to plan future courses and services.

Extra copies of the questionnaire are available in the pigeonholes or can be downloaded.