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Phil Meadows will be teaching two courses on Wesleyan Spirituality at Cliff College in 2012-13. These courses are part of the MA programme at Cliff, but open for anyone to participate as opportunities for further learning and personal renewal.

Wesleyan Theology and Spirituality, 22-26 October, 2012.

This course covers the following major themes:

• The roots of the early Methodist movement
• Spirituality, holiness, and the way of salvation
• Wesleyan approaches to mission and evangelism
• Small group fellowship and discipleship
• Hymnody, worship, and spiritual disciplines

Wesleyan Approaches to the Spiritual Life, 22-26 April, 2013

This course covers the following major themes:

• Spiritual streams influencing Wesleyan theology
• The holy life as a spiritual journey
• Mutual accountability and spiritual direction
• Christian experience and spiritual formation
• Wesleyan insights on suffering and depression
• Christian parenting and nurturing children
• Holiness, mission, science and medicine

Both these courses makes use of primary sources from John Wesley's writings and Charles Wesley's hymns, and some of the spiritual classics that influenced them.

Further information about the courses, along with details about the small course fee and cost of accommodation, are available by e-mail from the College registrar, Allison Cooper (registrar@cliffcollege.ac.uk).

Inspire team on the road

March was a busy month for members of the Inspire team. 

At the beginning of the month Inspire missioners, Lorna Koskela and Andrea Rogers led a retreat day for students from Cliff College and Sheffield University. The feedback was very positive and we hope to continue to develop our work with colleges, and universities over the coming year.

Later in the month, David Lawrence led four sessions for delegates at the Methodist Church's 'Connecting Disciples Conference'. One delegate wrote afterwards to say that, this was “unexpectedly excellent! I was not sure what to expect but loved it – very thought and prayer provoking. As a result of this stream of workshops I have formed a prayer partnership and look forward to forming a band – excellent!"

David also visited the Incarnate Network houseparty to talk about Inspire. This ecumenical network of church planters were an inspiring group to meet and showed great interest in Inspire's approach to making mission-shaped disciples.

Meanwhile, Inspire Director Phil Meadows has also been traveling, taking a session on mission-shaped discipleship for the pioneer ministry course at  Ridley Hall in Cambridge, and lecturing at Asbury Collegei n America, where we have just heard a new fellowship band has formed!

The team have a number of dates in  the diary for the coming months, but if you would like to talk to us about visiting your church or area to talk about Inspire then please do get in touch via the contact form found on the ABOUT US page of this website.

Throughout 2011 the Inspire Network has continued to grow in numbers, geographical reach and spheres of involvement.

There are now nearly 500 (496 to be exact!) people registered with the network as either an 'enquirer', 'explorer' or 'wayfarer'. There are fellowship bands meeting from the North of Scotland to Cornwall, from South Wales to East Anglia, and from Northern Ireland to the southern USA!

Inspire staff have travelled many miles throughout the year, visiting churches, Methodist circuits, Christian festivals, conferences and events to speak about Inspire's contribution to the development of a mission-shaped discipleship. We have also run our own 'Gathering' events across the country in the Spring, and a national Gathering held in Derby in July.

Contact with colleges has continued to develop with involvement at Moorlands College (Dorset), Queens College (Birmingham), Sheffield University Chaplaincy, Edgehill College (Belfast), and Cliff College (Debyshire). One of our newest bands is being established among a group of students at the Wesley Study Centre in Durham.

During 2011 Inspire's major partnership with the Methodist Church was reviewed, and we are delighted that our partnership has been extended until 2014.

We have been encouraged that in the latter part of the year, seeds that were sown in the early part of the year began to sprout! It appears that typically it takes about 6-9 months to move from first hearing about Inspire to actually acting on it, as people need to reflect on the commitments and challenges involved in accountable mission-shaped discipleship.

Thank you for your part in this growing network. If you would like to explore inviting Inspire to your church,circuit, area or event please contact us via the 'Connect' page.

Make sure you keep an eye on our growing collection of videos, which can be found under the Resources tab, and by clicking on the 'Videos' button in the sidebar. You can also reach them all at:

http://www.inspire-network.org.uk/inspiring-videos

The Inspire Network is led by a group of volunteers – called the Steering Group – who are responsible for keeping the vision and seeking God’s direction for the movement. The group has three work teams: planning, finance and prayer.

The Prayer Team thought it would be helpful to share withthe wider Network something about our role within Inspire and some of the things that God is doing within the team at the moment.

The team has three main roles: (1) developing strategies for intercession so that the work of Inspire can impact and transform people’s lives; (2) being vigilant in spiritual warfare because when God is in the process of touching lives, we will face opposition; and (3) seeking and developing a prophetic edge.

We were privileged recently to experience a training day on prophecy with Jenny Campbell from Eaglesinflight ministries. It was a day of great blessing, a day where God spoke to us through the Holy Spirit and renewed us as individuals and as a team.

One of the things Jenny spoke about was how we all need to develop intimacy with God so that we can hear him speak and recognise his heartbeat. Having a prophetic voice involves walking close to Jesus and learning to lift our eyes so that we begin to see things through his eyes. Sometimes in life we experience moments of sudden clarity when we see something in a new way and there is a shift in our view as God brings revelation to us.  The challenge is to live out those things that the Spirit reveals to us so that we are people who hear God speak and then obey by walking it out in our lives:

“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25)

For us as a Prayer Team we know that God is calling us to be the eyes of the body; to nurture the gifts of the Spirit and use them wisely to seek God for the work of Inspire so that we can discern what he is saying and where he is leading us. It is exciting but humbling to be able to serve in this way and as we come together to pray, we want to be open to what God says and to work together in unity.

Jenny drew our attention to Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians and it is still as important for us today because our desire is the same; to know Jesus better and to become more like him. The Spirit helps us to see him more clearly by illuminating God’s truths in our hearts:

“ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” (Ephesians 1:17-19)

Please pray for us as we build a strong team that we will always keep our focus on Jesus, to hear his voice clearly, and feed our discernment to the Steering Group for the blessing of Inspire as a whole. We hope in the future to open this ministry wider in the Network, so that our movement as a whole may live out its prophetic calling more fully.

Catherine Hill, Coordinator, Steering Group Prayer Team

LOCAL CHURCH FORMS INSPIRE LEADERSHIP BANDS

We are thrilled that the most recent fellowship bands to register with the Inspire Network, are all part of the same local church leadership team! 

Church leadership teams (and ministers themselves!) often find that so much of their time is spent on the tasks that they need fulfil, that they have little time to attend to their own continuing spiritual growth as disciples of Jesus. The Minister and elders at Zion United Church (Methodist/URC) in Frampton Cotterell, near Bristol, decided to guard aginst this by attending to their own spiritual growth - and not just to the church's. Stephen Newell, the minster at Zion, explains: 

"We took the decision as a church leadership several years ago that the real issue was discipleship and to make sure we ourselves were growing. If our own walk with Jesus faltered, we would be in no position to lead others on that path.

That was a nice idea, but how realistically were we to make that happen? The answer as it’s developing is of course Inspire. The eldership has broken down into three bands with of course one common purpose, that we really help each other grow as followers of Jesus. It’s early days of course but every journey needs a first step!"

The team at Zion United Church were supported in this process by Inspire team member, David Lawrence. If you'd like to explore establishing fellowship bands within your church leadership group, contact the Inspire team via the Connect page of this website.