We are excited that we have Matt Summerfield(Urban Saints), John and Joanne O’Connor, (Junction 42), Rich Atkinson(Rebuild) and Lynn Alexander (Children Families and God) joining us to help us think through how we both disciple different generations of people, as well as how we disciple all-generations of people together as one church.
This event is open to anyone and we have space for plenty of people so come along with your colleagues, teams and friends! Tickets are now available at www.buytickets.at/kx and we hope to see you there.
We love Form! An intense year of discipleship, rooted in a culture of leadership and mission running in several Kx family churches. Last week we shared some stories from Form USA, here is a video of similar stories from Form UK trainees.
There are three ways you can get involved in form.
Give a year to form as a trainee yourself and see see what God can do!
Recommend form to one or two young adults from your church and send them off on a life changing adventure!
Start a Form training centre at your church.
To find out more about each of these head to www.form-uk.org.
FORM is an intensive year-long discipleship internship for young adults, currently running in 4 locations in the UK and also in the USA. Here are a few stories from this years trainees at Form Fort Wayne, Indiana about what God has done with them over the past year.
“FORM Fort Wayne year number two was a great success! We had nine new trainees and three young adults returning for a more intense year of leadership training. Here are some questions we asked them with answers…
How has FORM been worth the investment of the cost and nine months of your life?
Without FORM it would have taken me probably nine years instead of nine months to learn to hear the voice of the Lord – Hannah
It help me grow in commitment- Ross
FORM has been worth the cost because it has made a substantial and lasting difference in how I view my relationship with Christ, my relationship with others, and what following God with my whole life really means – Malachi
FORM has drastically changed my life. It has pruned my character, altered my life goals, produced many skills I was unaware I had, and has given me a deep hunger and thirst for Holy Spirit, His presence and His power – Wardell
It has taught me how to live opposite the American dream and truly live a life worth living and for a worthy God -Hayden
I think Form is an amazing opportunity. Giving up a whole year to hear/pursue God I think is something God really honors. If you allow Him, God can radically change your life through Form. It is definitely worth your time because it teaches you how to live in community and gives you some great tools to help you in your relationship with God -Brandy
It has shifted my perception of ministry and forever changed my approach to reaching people with the Gospel. Form experience = Priceless – Daren
How have you changed the way you live?
I consult God more with my decision making – Ross
I have an increased focus on intentionally making room for God’s will in my days and decisions both through more set aside time to spend with Him and a greater awareness of His desires for my life – Malachi
I no longer chase money, relationships, or self gratification. I now prioritize my time to read the word, pray, seek Holy Spirit, and share the Kingdom with everyone around me by sharing the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection – Wardell
I’ve gained freedom from sin struggles, as well as I don’t spend all my time worried about the pursuit of the American dream – Hayden
I quit neglecting the “little” stuff and do them despite not knowing the end results – Dan
Creating predictable patterns and rhythms. Used to fly by the seat of my pants, now I’ve learned to keep my belt on, and fastened tight – Daren
I’ve started to see my life differently than I have in the past. Everything is an opportunity. I have started to become more aware of God in day to day life. I’ve started to put on the armour of God before I go to work. I’ve started to see ways I can fight against the enemy. Praying/talking to God is becoming even more important to me – Brandy
You can find out more about Form USA here. Look out for some stories from the UK Form Trainees soon!
This term our sermon series has been based in the book of Romans. As we have done this we looked at the ‘one another’ verses that can be found in the Bible (did you know there are over 50 of them?), so we called the series ‘Love One Another-Living as Family’. This is how we introduced the series to the church:
“We are looking forward to exploring what these different ‘One Another’ passages mean. One of the ways we are going to do this, that we’d love you to start thinking about will be to encourage everyone to get to know one another better by eating together in each other’s houses; a sort of ‘Come dine with me’ but without the rating system! The value behind this is to enable us to get to know each other better and give attention to who we are called to be as the people of God.
The series is going to start on 29th January and will last for 9 weeks, so get the dates in your diary and perhaps put up 1 Peter 4:8-9 on your fridge. ‘Above everything, love one another earnestly, because love covers over many sins. Open your homes to each other without complaining.’
And if you really want to go deep, the greek word for ‘One another’ is ἀλλήλων, pronounced ‘ah-LAY-loan’. Try and drop it into conversation during coffee time….people are certain to be impressed.”
We’ve had a number in the church talking about how they have loved getting to know different people through this series. They’ve been invited to houses and then on the back of that have been inspired to invite people to their houses in return. These people then themselves go on to invite people and so on.
One of the great things about it is that it’s encouraged people from across the ages and different groups in the church to meet together and find out about each other which is helping to give a greater sense of family. We used the twitter hashtag #tweetyoureat to share the fun!
We love Form – the discipleship year run by a number of churches in the Kx family. Here are some stories from the Form year at Network Church Sheffield.
“It is going to be the most exciting but challenging year of your life”, this is what the Form leader told us with the biggest smile on his face to most of us on Form. We were encouraged to undertake a year of discipleship to help us transform and look more like Jesus. From his face, he knew exactly what he was getting us into and he was very excited about the outcome. There are 14 of us undertaking this year of transformation, and over the past 6 weeks we have been very busy getting to know each other.
We have enjoyed so much together already, walking through the beautiful peak district, cheese and wine nights, and watching shooting stars! It has been great getting to know each other and the leaders. But as you can imagine it hasn’t all been that easy! We have also been pushed out of our comfort zone doing missional work for the student’s Freshers week. It wasn’t easy to step out and speak to the students about faith, but we found it encouraging seeing so many freshers wanting to know more about Jesus, and having the leaders at every step was very helpful. This was something that most of us have never done before and we would not have blamed you if you mistook us for street sellers. It sometimes felt like trying to sell a product that we did not ourselves believe in, I guess this is all part of growth. It was mostly about getting to know the students and building a relationship with them, welcoming them to the city, which would have been a new surrounding to most of them, and also to some of us. We also helped at a community festival at Kings Church which is a sister church of where we are based. This involved helping setting up for the event, serving and talking to the community.
A highlight, and probably also the most challenging time we have had so far, has been the weekend away in Castleton where we got to meet the other Formees from around the country, and got to know each more intimately. It was a weekend full of worship, prayer and teaching. We played games and grew in relationship with one another, growing deeper in our first huddles. In the huddles, we shared our journey with Jesus and what we have found difficult in our faith so far. It was a great time of being vulnerable and trusting one another and bringing it to God. We then all read our Form prayer to the rest of the Formees which was very nerve-racking! This prayer included what we wanted Jesus to do over this year and what we wanted breakthrough in. This was also a glorious time as we saw God mending hearts and speaking to us throughout the weekend and felt excited to return and get started with our internships!
The teaching we have received so far has been amazing, many of us have been moved by the Covenant and the Kingdom teaching amongst many other teaching we have received. It has brought the reality of the gospel to our hearts and has begun a change in our lives. We have learned so much over this term, some of the teaching that has challenged us is Andy Stone’s talk on the Covenant where in short we have learned that we get to “be to do to and not do to be”, this has really challenged our identity and knowledge of the gospel as it is not about what we have done, but it is about what Jesus has done and accomplished. The teaching has been practical, on how to do mission well and how to be intentional in finding people of peace and investing in them. Through our experiences many of us have learned to trust God even when it is hard, and to fix our gaze on Him when we feel overwhelmed.
Every day at Form we begin with prayer and worship to start the day, which has been a place where God has spoken to us and revealed himself. During the Form day we are able to spend time with God through praise and worship and spending time in His presence through prayer or simply being quiet. We are still getting hold of the truth that every time we breathe is spending time with Him and that we do not have to be in a specific place to do so for “He shall never leave us nor forsake us”.
Finding a rhythm in the week and settling in with a routine has been difficult for some of us, and fitting all of life into one week! Another challenge is being vulnerable with others and meeting new people. However, over time we have all grown closer and learned to support and encourage each other through the experience. It is also amazing to note that all of those on Form who can get a part- time job have been able to get one, all in the first few months! God has truly been amazing. We have seen healing take place through prayer and we also have been encouraged by the prophecies and words of knowledge given. So far it has been a very exciting few months and yet also very challenging.
Josh knew what he was getting us into, and he knows of the amazing changes that this year will bring. We have already started to see the transformation, and it is so exciting to think of the end of the year and what we will all have learned.”
This blog post was written by Jill Straughan, Anna Gyllensten & Thomas Msadala
The teaching we have received so far has been amazing, many of us have been moved by the Covenant and the Kingdom teaching amongst many other teaching we have received. It has brought the reality of the gospel to our hearts and has begun a change in our lives. We have learned so much over this term, some of the teaching that has challenged us is Andy Stone’s talk on the Covenant where in short we have learned that we get to “be to do to and not do to be”, this has really challenged our identity and knowledge of the gospel as it is not about what we have done, but it is about what Jesus has done and accomplished. The teaching has been practical, on how to do mission well and how to be intentional in finding people of peace and investing in them. Through our experiences many of us have learned to trust God even when it is hard, and to fix our gaze on Him when we feel overwhelmed.