Scattered and Gathered: Equipping Disciples for the Frontline

How can the local church empower people to live faithfully and fruitfully for Christ in their Monday-to-Saturday lives?

How can what happens on Sundays and in midweek groups equip and sustain God’s people for the opportunities and challenges that present themselves in the places where they are each day?

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? What sort of churches grow these sort of disciples? What sort of leaders serve these sort of churches?

These are challenges that LICC (London Institute of Contemporary Christianity) have been successfully helping churches address with training events, resources and tools. Scattered and Gathered is the follow-up book to Imagine Church (2012). This new book will enable church leaders to grow churches that help people know what it means to serve the purposes of God on their front-lines.

It's a book that is based on the latest of LICC's thinking and methods of supporting churches with their practice of ministry.

Each chapter will help church leaders to move past good intentions into knowing how the practices of their church will lead to the development of confident front-line-focused disciples. Providing a resource that leaders can use with wider church leadership teams, small group leaders and pastoral workers. It will ensure that local churches are able to keep the contexts of their church communities central to their mission planning and practice.

Scattered and Gathered offers a clear vision of what it means to be the people of God, guides in reflecting on the shape and culture of church life, and then explores what that means for the leadership styles and expectations of those who have that responsibility. This is a book that will further develop the conversation about churches being communities that shape us for our scattered living.

Rev Dr Neil Hudson is the Director of Church Relationships for LICC (London Institute of Contemporary Christianity) and leads of team of consultants who inspire church leaders who want to grow whole-life disciple making communities and develop their culture-change skills. Initially, he led the Imagine Project for LICC - an action-research project exploring the possibilities of churches becoming communities that develop whole-life disciples. The learning gathered in that project led to the IVP book, Imagine Church, published in 2012. As the work continued, a team of trainers and practitioners was formed, and through that team he has led LICC's work with hundreds of churches in the UK and abroad. His team offer training days, learning communities and develop resources for churches to use on an ongoing basis. For eleven years Neil taught at Regents Theological College and has been a full-or-part time local church leader for over 25 years. He is a leader of the Salford Elim Church.