This year, our focus is on Thanksgiving and Prayer, giving thanks to God for all that he has done among us in the last 5 years and praying for the next 5 years.
The following piece has been written about discipleship at Tain and Fearn Free Church.
As iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another.   Proverbs 27:17. TNIV
Christians are meant to be together. The various metaphors the Bible uses to describe a believer all emphasise that. We are a sheep in a flock, soldiers in an army, and stones in a building. And one of the great benefits of belonging to a local church is that we help each other grow in our faith. Getting saved is just the start. We are called to be disciples of Jesus and to disciple others along the way.
Post Covid it was really challenging to get groups running again. We took a big hit with attendances dropping dramatically. But we give thanks for steady and sustained growth in the last three years. We have been blessed to see the Lord at work among our teenagers especially, with eight of our young people professing faith during that time.
But knowing that many of them will head off to university in the next few years, they need to be discipled. We adapted our Youth Fellowship to do more teaching on current themes that affect our young people. We invite speakers who will guide them on making good choices now and when they leave home, particularly getting plugged into a good church where they will be nurtured and continue to grow.
We realise that we need to be more intentional in the way that we equip all our people to be more like Jesus, as they grow in their faith and in their knowledge of him. This should be a central function of a Healthy Gospel Church. We feel that Mentoring has an important part to play in that.
As part of that we introduced a monthly Discussion Forum where we have several small groups considering set questions as well as asking any other questions, they have themselves.
In addition to our midweek Bible-Study and Prayer we now have two women’s Bible studies and a men’s study group. These run on different days and at different times to allow the maximum number to attend. One of our members has written a book called, A Student’s Guide to Reading and Applying the Bible which has recently been published by Christian Focus. We plan to make use of that book to help people get the most out of their scripture reading. One of our elders will also be running a small men’s group memorising Bible verses.
There is still much work to be done, and our elders have recently engaged with the Free Church, Healthwise programme to assess our strengths and weakness and help us work out a strategic approach for the next five years. We have much to give thanks for, but plenty to pray about regarding the future.