Holy Habits - Missional Discipleship Resources for Churches  

Holy Habits is a new resource to help churches engage more intentionally with discipleship, but it's not for our medium size, middle of the road Baptist church

Holy Habits - Missional discipleship Resources for Churches 
Edited by Andrew Roberts, Neil Johnson and Tom Milton 
Bible Reading Fellowship 
ISBN: 9780857466778 
Reviewed by: Keith Parr 

Review a discipleship course, they said. OK, I replied. Two days later 11 books hit the door mat, each the size of an Alpha course book - my postman grumbled his way to my neighbours. Just as well I had nothing else to do with my life for the forseeable future, except, you know, the usual insane diary! So you need to know I've not read every word - sorry - but have tried to answer the 'would I invest our church resources on this?' question. 

The answer is, unfortunately, no. Not for my situation anyway. 

But before I explain why, what's good. I like that they base it on Acts 2:42-47, finding ten discipleship 'habits' from this passage, and it is very professionally published. 

But I'm afraid that's kind of it for me. 

So what's wrong? 

It misses out so much! For example, no space is found for the more charismatic element of discipleship. 

It's published by Methodists (no problem there) but heavily relies on liturgy and the Methodist Church Hymnary 4 (whatever that is). 

You need a very large team to facilitate this, ideally a whole church involvement. I can hear the response of our church meeting if I took it to them...... 

It all feels a little, well, old! Like I've read this stuff before. I know there is nothing new under the sun, but even the sermon outlines feel like All Age talks from the 1990s, and some of the photos really don't reflect the church I know. 

But, and this is going to sound really childish, the biggest problem is IT'S CALLED HOLY HABITS! When I first heard the name I wondered if Whoopi Goldberg had made another dreadful film about nuns. Yes we all need to cultivate habits that reflect Jesus, but surely a better title could have been thought up? 

If you are running a LEP with a heavy Methodist involvement, then maybe this will work for you. But in our medium size, middle of the road Baptist church, this is one habit we won't be developing. 
 

The Revd Keith Parr is pastor, Maghull Baptist Church