Connecting Sunday With Monday

Dave Gooderidge, minister at Lymington Baptist for the past 10 years, has been seeking to create a whole-life disciplemaking culture in his church. Here he shares something of their experiences...

The conviction that God is interested in the whole of life was rooted into me primarily as a student under Mark Greene at London School of Theology. So as a minister, the Sunday has always connected with Monday. I didn’t know anything different!

I think this is crucial to our understanding of the church. There is a big thing in the Baptist understanding of church about ‘walking together in ways known and ways to be made known; watching over and being watched over,’ what that means is, if we are going to grow as whole-life disciples we need to band together. We need to watch over and look out for one another and ask questions, about how you are getting on with your boss, for example, creating mutual care and accountability.

As a minister, I try and listen hard to people when it comes to what they do and what is going on in their lives. I might not understand the finer details of how to build a power station or trade on a foreign exchange. But I want to try and understand, to get a sense of what it is like. It is a genuine thing and I don’t think you can fake it.

This thinking has shaped my pastoral ministry. One of Mark’s ideas that stuck was the 11 o’clock preaching test: what difference will what I’m saying at 11 o’clock on Sunday make at 11 o’clock Monday morning? It is a very simple idea. But as a preacher, it makes you ask, how will this help, in the boardroom, the factory or putting the third load of washing in?

As a church whatever we do, we seek to connect to work, home and leisure. We do a slot on Sunday, ‘From the Frontline’, where we interview someone for 5 minutes asking four questions. First, where is your frontline? In other words, where do you engage with today’s world? Second, what do you most enjoy there? Third, what do you find hardest? And, fourth, how can we pray for you? It’s a short thing but people appreciate hearing about what others do and what is important to them.

We’ve done a number of simple things, one degree shifts really. For example, on our mission notice board, we post details of the missionaries we are supporting, but we’ve also put up a mirror, which reminds everyone that we’re on mission too.

I’ve also taken a shift at Costa Coffee and that has helped earth my ministry. It reminds me that the average person in the street is so far away from the big story of our faith, they often haven’t got a clue about what we are talking about. I’ve begun to recognise where people are coming from and the kind of questions they are asking.

It is hard to quantify how people have responded but I see a growing awareness that we can’t compartmentalise our lives and it is fun when we don’t. I think we have a long way to go, but I do think we have a culture developing where we are trying to connect Monday with Sunday. I think it is in the DNA. People don’t notice it terribly, but it is just there. People are becoming more confident and they are recognizing that discipleship is supposed to be 24/7.