Eley McAinsh, BRF’s Press and Media Officer, Talks to Author Andrew Roberts about the New Church Resource, Holy Habits.
A major new study from Harvard* suggests that adults who stick to five healthy habits can add more than a decade to their lives. So how much could people who stick to ten holy habits add to their lives? Andrew Roberts is well-placed to answer that, having been instrumental in the creation and roll-out of an exciting new discipleship resource from BRF.
Some of the booklets are already scheduled for reprinting and interest is growing not just in the UK but around the world; so far in Holland, Canada, the US and Chile. Andrew spoke at all four sessions of Spring Harvest 2018, attracting over 700 people to his presentations, which was, as I discovered when I spoke to him, about twice as many as he’d expected.
So why is Holy Habits so appealing?
For the last five, six, maybe more, years, discipleship has risen to the fore of the thinking of not just the major, or historic denominations, but also some of the newer churches as well. Across the board, churches are rediscovering the importance of this calling. The Holy Habits resources are responding to a discerned need, rather than being the product of a strategy or a committee, and I do think that’s a key to fruitful resources in general.
Some 200 people of all ages, cultures, ethnicities and denominations have helped produce these resources: why is that important?
Certainly, the level of collaboration in the production of Holy Habits is different to many other resources. The participative process is significant and reflects the Acts passage on which Holy Habits is based. Jesus called his first disciples into community. Interestingly, they didn’t choose each other; he chose them and brought that group together, and that’s a challenge to our increasingly individualistic society. We flourish and grow, not just as disciples but as human beings, in relationship and in community, and so the community nature, the collaborative nature and the participative nature of discipleship is really important.
‘Enabling’ and ‘ownership’ are two more words which come up frequently in any explanation of the Holy Habits concept. Why?
We have taken a bit of a risk with Holy Habits in that it’s not strictly programmatic and prescriptive. We’ve offered folk a body of resources and then encouraged them to use their gifts to enable one another to participate in this. My friends in adult education say that in terms of long-term fruitfulness and growth, this is a much better approach. If you spoon feed people too much, it’s a lot simpler and easier, but there may be much less in the way of fruitful and lasting results.
What would you most want to say to Christian booksellers about Holy Habits?
One thing that continues to amuse me is how sometimes the most fruitful things come from the most unlikely sources – that’s been part of the joy of the emergence of Holy Habits. It doesn’t have a stellar name on the cover; it’s not an Archbishop’s initiative; it doesn’t have a juggernaut behind it: it’s grown up organically. So, I’d want to encourage the trade to be discerning and open to the unlikely things that may go on to fl ourish. Both BRF and Malcolm Down Publishing are very keen to honour, resource and support local bookshops, so if when we’re out and about doing Holy Habits events we’d love local bookshops to be part of that. We want to honour them with opportunities and the best margins we possibly can. That’s how we got to America: the Bishop of New York picked up Holy Habits in a bookshop in Bristol and thought, ‘this looks interesting’, and that has opened up possibilities in the States. So, I’d want to encourage booksellers that they are part of what God is doing and to be affirmed and blessed in that.
*Reported by Science Editor, Ian Sample, in the Guardian 30.4.18