My five-year-old loves her ballet classes. She’s a great dancer, much better than I was, blessed with rhythm and passion. Once a week, we whizz around the corner to Miss Katherine’s ballet where she dances her heart out for 45 minutes. It’s not just these 45 minutes that make her a good dancer. Throughout the rest of the week, she’s running, jumping, and wiggling around. Sometimes she’s so busy dancing she drives me up the wall – especially when I’m trying to plait her voluminous curly hair!

It’s this movement and dancing outside class that makes her such a good dancer. If she just sat still all the time, she wouldn’t have the fitness or flexibility that she benefits from in class. Her classes inspire her and give her particular ways of movement, but on their own they simply aren’t enough to make her a good dancer.  

Keeping your spiritual muscles moving 

Sunday church and midweek groups are a bit like those dance lessons. They set us up, inspire us, and give us understanding and structure. But if we don’t move in the week – don’t keep those spiritual muscles moving – we never make the most of what we’ve learnt.  

Finding ways to encourage your church family to keep living fruitfully in the week is often a challenge for church leaders. Busy lives are better served by reframing the narrative than adding tasks.

And that’s exactly what Frontline Sundays sets out to do: to help us see how our everyday lives – our work, paid and unpaid, and the people we spend time with – are part of our discipleship. Every aspect of our lives can be lived in a way that keeps our spiritual muscles strong – growing resilience and building stamina.  

Shifting your perspective 

When we ran Frontline Sundays as a church, it helped to shift our perspective to what was happening outside of the building, to see a little more of where God is working in and through the people in our church family. Wonderfully, it showed us how enmeshed we are in our community, and how we are making a difference in all kinds of places. And it was a joy to see people discover more of their God-given purpose where they are, identifying the places where they’d already seen him at work. 

I love the boldness of the first week of Frontline Sundays that claims we can make ‘all the difference in the world.’

For those in positions of power, it’s a reminder that decisions and actions are to be taken carefully. For those who feel they have little influence, it’s a reminder that God sees and honours little and unseen things. 

Growing in community 

The last session of Frontline Sundays is titled ‘Together we grow’. Being fruitful with Jesus isn’t a solo project made for superhero Christians going alone into the great beyond. Whoever we are, and in God’s strength, we’re called to join in with the work of the wider church, seeking to bless the people we’re with and places where we find ourselves. 

This is for us all: ordinary radicals made in the image of a wonderfully generous God.  

As you explore this resource with friends, I pray you discover God-given purpose and see more of why God has brought you together as a community. I certainly did! 

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Rev’d Jo Trickey
Church Advocate, LICC