Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said that, “Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.” As we work towards growing missional church communities that flourish in our secular age, then it’s evident that making discipleship normative will be critical.

Enter stage-left the second edition of Discipleship Explored, from Christianity Explored Ministries…

Back to Discipleship

I count myself a long-term fan of Christianity Explored Ministries. I realised when writing this that I’ve been involved in leading Christianity Explored (CE) courses for nearly ten years (CE was first developed in the late 1990’s, but is now on its third edition). Indeed, I’ll happily give you 10 reasons why I love it. Off the back of the popularity of CE, and seeing a need for a ‘next step’, CE Ministries launched the first edition of Discipleship Explored back in 2008. The teaching films and Bible-studies focused on Philippians and gave people a grounding in what it meant to go on as a (new) Christian. Completing the ‘Explored Trilogy’, Life Explored came into being in 2016 (and my review is here). It wasn’t so much a replacement or a prequel/sequel to the other two, but more sought to engage people with the gospel who might not be in a place where they’d consider CE, and yet its idolatry lens had a powerful knack of challenging existing believers too. Together the three DVD-based resources have become a main player in the ‘outreach course’ market over the last few years.

So when I heard that Christianity Explored Ministries was re-designing Discipleship Explored, I was keen to explore the new material. Presenter and co-writer Barry Cooper kindly took the time to answer some questions a few months ago about the new-look DE. Of course, at one level video-based resources will inevitably date quickly, so there will always be a pressure to keep ‘re-freshening’ such resources. However, ‘DE 2.0’ has more than just a facelift: all the material has been completely re-written, as well as being re-shot, whilst still retaining its focus on Philippians. Old-timers will recognise many of the same session titles, even if the content is different.

Real World Stories

If you’re familiar with the recent Life Explored, then Discipleship Explored comes with a similar quality of film production. The teaching films are beautifully and professionally shot, with Barry Cooper visiting a different location for each episode. Rwanda, Jordan, Serbia, India, Greece, Peru and the USA each provide the context for eight documentary-style films, giving DE aninherently international feel to it – as well as being visually engaging.

One of the other obvious differences is that the teaching films now include snippets of interviews with Christians from these different locations. Each session’s theme is therefore grounded in the reality of lived experience. Whereas Life Explored introduced a series of thought-provoking but fictional visual stories, intentionally taking the viewer into a ‘different world’, Discipleship Explored now introduces us to ‘real life’ stories capturing the richness, variety and earthiness of Christian faith in the ‘real world’.

Good to Go

The main components of each DE session are fairly straight-forward and, again, there’s no surprises if you’ve used the other Explored resources. Simply put, it’s a case of watching the film (15 mins), before spending a longer chunk of time time (DE recommends 45 mins) going deeper into the week’s passage from Philippians by working through some provided discussion questions. Over the eight sessions participants will read through the whole of Philippians, and each film picks up on a theme from that session’s passage (e.g. Living in Christ, from Philippians 1:1-11, or Righteous in Christ, from Philippians 3:1-9). Hosts are encouraged to introduce the film with a ‘question to keep in mind’, which tees up the issues about to be addressed. The corresponding discussion after the film is effectively a Bible-study on that session’s passage.

As part of the resource package, a Leader’s Handbook provides extensive resources on Philippians, running DE, following-up pastoral issues, as well as a rough ‘script’ to lead each session, e.g. prayers to close the session and introductory sentences. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be tempted to decide you already know what you’re doing and just crack on with running DE before having read the Leader’s Handbook. However, it’s worth pausing and having a gander at the suggestions provided to reap the wisdom ‘in the box’. It’s also recommended that DE participants each have their own Member’s Handbook (one of these is included in the DE kit, and extras can be purchased separately – they work out as just over £2 each, depending on how you buy in bulk). These also provide ‘Follow Up’ daily readings and questions for the following week, picking up on a particular theme from the session (e.g. assurance, the Holy Spirit, meeting with other Christians, contentment) and then taking the participants through various Bible passages to complement what has been discussed in the session. This is commendable because it gently helps someone establish a simple pattern of daily Bible reading, prayer, and, particularly admirably, Scripture memorisation too.

Turning Up the Music

Again, if you’re familiar with the other Explored resources, you’ll know what you’re getting in terms of teaching content. DE doesn’t disappoint. Presenter Barry Cooper (who wrote & presented on the original DE and has worked for CE Ministries for the last 20 years) is engaging, clear, and provides a compelling vision of Christian discipleship that is both solid and fresh; re-assuring and yet unashamed in its call to follow Christ. The metaphor he uses is that we can often think about discipleship as like teaching someone to dance by simply explaining a series of moves. But that’s no use without someone hearing the music. Cooper hopes that the apostle Paul’s vision of Christ and His love would be like turning up the music in our discipleship. And our experience of DE was that even for people who have been Christians for decades there was much that was invigorating and tellingly put.

Occasionally it felt like the teaching was covering so many ‘discipleship’ issues that we were slightly gorged out by the time the film finished. All good stuff and sparklingly illustrated. But as a result, what I felt I needed next was some time and questions to help me process some of the issues raised by the film, rather than a seven-question Bible-study. I wonder if this was because some of the teaching films felt more thematic, interspersed with related snippets of interview, rather than being particularly tied to the passage. Again, nothing wrong with that, but the subsequent Bible-study then felt like ‘something more’, rather than just ‘going deeper’. I’d love to hear how others have found making – or managing – this connection, because I’d want to re-look at this next time we use DE.

A few practical observations:

Perhaps it’s worth noting that one of the inevitable consequences of the new DE ‘global’ feel is the practical reality of accents! Depending on whether participants are used to hearing a range of accents in everyday life, some viewers may struggle slightly with following along. We ended up putting on subtitles for most episodes, which helped us better appreciate these interviews with Christians from around the world. (On that, it’s worth being aware that subtitles are presently only available if you’re playing the DVD, whereas the downloadable files (to which you get an access code within the box) don’t contain subtitle options.)

Most of the episodes also begin with a short, unintroduced burst of these interviews, but we found for some people beginning like this took a bit of getting used to – just a line of explanation to know who this person was and why we were hearing from them would help set the scene. As the weeks went on we ended up supplying this ourselves as part of the introduction (“we’re going to begin the film by hearing from X, who will be sharing about…”).

Those practicalities aside, these interviews undoubtedly strengthen the versatility of the DE package. Whether or not your own context is particularly ‘international’, it’s hugely encouraging to see that all over the world the gospel is indeed bearing fruit, growing disciples, and making sense of life. 

Strictly Come Discipleship

The second edition of DE is a strong resource; professional and pleasing in its format, and trust-worthy and compelling in its content. Its evidently suitable for a variety of settings: one-to-one viewing, the traditional group format, or even a summer teaching series. Likewise, I’d say it’s global flavour makes it more deployable, even across the spectrum of culture and class within the UK. So, thank you Barry Cooper, not least for all you’ve given to these three Explored resources. All in all, it’s hard to see how there wouldn’t be some forum within most churches where DE was a welcome and beneficial addition.

You can pick up Discipleship Explored resources from the publisher here, or visit the DE site page here.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Discipleship Explored for free from the publisher, but I hope this is a fair and honest review!

Tim Chester is a pastor at Grace Church, Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire. He is also a faculty member of Crosslands Training; and is the author of over 30 books, a number of which have been really significant in my own formation: Total Church, Everyday Church, You Can Change… When I heard about the vision behind Tim’s new book, Enjoying God, I was really keen to hear more…

– Tim, you’re probably one of the most prolific British Christian authors around. And yet I’ve heard you say this particular book might be your most important. Can you tell us a bit about Enjoying God – and why you feel that way about it?

Well, the word ‘might’ is significant because it’s not really for me to judge. But I hope the book says something fresh that can really make a different to our relationship with God. We talk a lot about enjoying God. If someone is struggling with temptation or bitterness or longing or emptiness then we call them to find joy in Christ. Rightly so. But what are we do to do with this exhortation? It makes a fine climax to a sermon, but what I am supposed to do next? Is joy an act of the will or even an act of make believe? What I’m trying do in the book is help Christians have a strong sense of living in relationship with God in the everyday stuff of life. The central ideas are not novel. To be honest, I’ve nicked them from the Puritan John Owen. But they’re not often talked about today and think they have the potential to make a powerful difference in people’s lives.

– Bible-believing Christians will often say that the gospel has brought us into a ‘right relationship with God’ – and yet you point out that we’re not very good at talking about what that relationship looks like in everyday life. Why do you think that is?

The central idea of the book is that a vital step in enjoying God is to think about how God the Father is relating to us and how we can respond, how the Son is relating to us and how we can respond, and how the Spirit is relating to us and how we can respond. This is what the book then tries to do. The reason this is important is because it’s hard to relate to God as a generic entity. Christian theology has always said we can’t know God’s essence. As it happens, I’m writing this in Hong Kong airport on my way home from a conference in Australia. On the plane I’ve been reading a book on the attributes of God in which lines up a series of theologians across the centuries who are all making precisely this point. We have nothing in our experience that enables us to have any sense of the ‘godness’ of God. But – here’s the good news – we can know the persons of God. The Father, Sons and Spirit exist in an personal relationship of joy and in Christ we are able to enjoy that relationship by relating to the persons of God. This is Owen’s big idea in his book Communion with God. It’s heavy duty theology, but it cashes out in a very simple principle: think about how the Father, Son and Spirit are each relating to you and how you can respond. That’s a long-winded way of answering your question. What it boils down to is people find it hard to relate to God when they’re relating to him as a generic entity – a being beyond comprehension.

– In Enjoying God, you underline the importance of relating to God as Father, Son, and Spirit – rather than just ‘God’. How do we know ‘who to relate to when’ – and what might you say to someone who is who feels this is ’splitting up’ the Triune God? 

Good question. Having just stressed the three-ness of God, let me now stress the one-ness of God. The three persons are one being so to relate to one is to relate to them all. In other words, as soon as you think about relating to the Father you inevitably start thinking about how we relate to the Father because we are ‘in’ the Son. That means our experience of God is the experience of the Son – that is, the love of a Father. Moreover, God sent the Spirit to enable us to cry ‘Abba, Father’. As a result, the objective reality of being a child of God becomes a subjective experience in our lives. All this means that by thinking about their distinctive roles, you find yourself actually connecting with the one triune God.

– At the end of each chapter, you include an ‘action point’, as well as ‘discussion questions’. It struck me that Christian books will often have discussion questions – but what made you include an ‘action point’?

It’s something I did in my book You Can Change and many people have told me how helpful they found it. I really, really want Enjoying God to help people see how God is at work in their lives day by day in all the nitty gritty of life. When many people think about experiencing God they think of an emotional experience in corporate worship or perhaps hearing God speak in some way a voice. Often people don’t really experience either these very much and so God feels rather distant to them. What I want to show people is that the triune God is intimately at work in our lives in many different ways all the time. Our experience of God is much bigger and richer and fuller than those kind of moments. I want to use the Scriptures to open the eyes of our faith to see God’s involvement in our daily lives.

– You say that one of the principles underlying your book is understanding the difference between our union with God and our communion with God. Can you unpack this further and show us why we need to understand both?

Again, this is something John Owen says. I don’t want to get hung up on the terminology, but the distinction is really important. Union with God in Christ is all God’s work from start to finish. That means our relationship with God is something we not achieve, nor something we can ruin. It’s all of grace. This is the foundation of our relationship with God. Communion with God describes the two-way relationship into which we’ve been saved. What we do really does make a difference to our experience of God. This gives us a great incentive to see God at work, listen for his voice in his word and pursue him in prayer. But all the time we have the great assurance that our relationship rests secure on his grace.

– I’ve heard a few people say recently that in our post-Christian culture the church needs to have a ‘thick’ spirituality that embodies our faith. How important is it that Christians in a post-Christian society are actively ‘enjoying God’?

Well I’m not sure how to quantify the importance. What units of measurement did you have in mind? But I do think it’s important. It’s important for us if we’re to survive in the face of increasing hostility and scepticism. And it’s important of the watching world. People often don’t want to engage at the level of what is true. But they are looking for something. Our culture is, as the philosopher Charles Taylor says, still haunted by transcendence. A deep sense of the triune God’s involvement in our lives, together with the joy this brings, has the potential to be a powerful apologetic for the gospel.

You can download the first chapter of Enjoying God for free here, or pick up a copy of the book from the publisher here.

Life Tastes Better is a short and punchy new give-away book from Terry Virgo, the founder of the Newfrontiers network of churches. It’s aimed at – and ideal for – those who are wanting to explore the Christian faith, demonstrating the life-changing surprise Jesus brings. Virgo’s friendly and conversational tone, as well as the fact the ‘book’ is only five short chapters (each between 6-14 pages) mean it’s a very light and inviting read.

A Christianity That Works

As the title suggests, the book is written from the angle of showing that what Jesus adds to life makes him well worth considering. This is a legitimate and helpful evangelistic approach: rather than being concerned with Christianity’s objective truthfulness, many people want to know if Christianity actually ‘works’. What does it bring to my life? Appealing to this instinct doesn’t mean Virgo dilutes the gospel call to turn and trust in Christ, nor does it mean he promises material prosperity or the absence of suffering. And yet it did mean that the book takes a slightly different line of engagement to many of the evangelistic books I’ve read.

The booklet focuses in on Jesus’ appearance at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11) and the hook is that Jesus can help us when we’re running out – whether it’s running out of answers, options or hope. There’s not many of us who would say our lives are all sorted – so Virgo’s appeal here raises interest. He grounds this helpfully in the apostle John’s bigger purpose of showing that Jesus’ ‘signs’ should lead to believing that he is the Messiah, in turn receiving ‘life in his name’ (John 20:31). In other words, the ‘sign’ of water being turned into wine in John 2 demonstrates that Jesus has an authority that means he is worth trusting with our lives.

A Jesus Full of Surprises

In the next three chapters Virgo seeks to show how this incident at Cana demolishes a number of common stereotypes about Christianity.

Firstly, in chapter 2, we see that Jesus was willing to be at this party. In other words, he is interested in the things of real life. Is this the kind of Jesus we often think of? Is this what we imagine about religion? More than that, this party is a wedding party – which leads to Virgo skilfully introducing Jesus as the Bridegroom of the Bible’s greater wedding storyline. Setting this against the backdrop of a modern resistance to the commitment of marriage, we see Jesus as giving himself to us, “for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health”.

Chapter 3 was my favourite chapter. Virgo addresses Jesus’ seemingly rude comment to his mother in John 2:4 (“Woman, what does this have to do with me?”) and shows how it reveals the bigger truth that Jesus has not come to complete our agendas and plans. I thought this was a really powerful way of highlighting how we can all bring our own expectations to Jesus, but in effect we’re trying to redefine him, expecting him to pay more attention to our hopes and goals than his. And yet Jesus wants to turn that perspective on its head:

“Acknowledging Jesus’ authority to be in charge in his world unlocks the door for us to enter into a new world where he will do amazing amazing things for us.”

Or to put it simply, “Jesus helps by taking over.” We have been taken from our surface-level problems – or even our under-the-surface-level problems to consider that Jesus has come to put his finger in an even bigger problem.

A Life That Is Not Our Own

In the final chapter Virgo leaves us seeing the need to respond to Jesus. Reflecting on his own Christian journey, he shares that he’d been living as a Christian for a while before someone showed him that God wanted his whole life:

“I wanted Jesus to do his thing for me, but not to be in charge of me… [But] Jesus wanted to take charge – not coexist with a load of competitors. I never really understood that before, but I could feel God saying to me, Are you mine or not? I was suddenly really aware of the awesomeness of God. I want your life. Do I have your life? 

This is the rub of the book: that Christianity involves a change of ownership (or at least acknowledging a change of ownership!) – but that this is for the better. As the one who can deal with our greatest need and give us peace with himself it is a much better thing for us to hand over our lives to God.

A Resource to Share

This is an evangelistic book with a lot of strengths. It is brief – surely increasingly important in our cultural moment. It is warm in tone. It is engaging – even the title and presentation seeks to connect with the reader. And yet you couldn’t miss its central message, which doesn’t pull any punches and leaves you fully aware a response needs to be made.

Perhaps this is a generalisation, but many evangelistic books seem to be either written in response to a particular objection or they assume substantial pre-existing Christian interest. (The exception to this would be testimony-led books, e.g. Marcus Nodder’s excellent City Lives). But I wonder if this means such books can tend to come across as either just solving a logical problem, or they just struggle to engage. Either way, it makes the opportunities to give them away more niche. Life Tastes Better models something different, and it means I’m already thinking about people I’d love to hand it to.

Life Tastes Better is currently available from the publisher for £1.69 per copy here, with further discounts for bulk purchases.

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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, but I hope this is still a fair review.