Welcome!

We are so happy for your interest in The Discipleship Practices Program!

 Our goal is to invite you into a renewed sense of Christian discipleship, with an emphasis on lay leadership, contemplative practices, and community outreach. Up to two participants work with a congregational mentor throughout this process. In their first year of study, participants explore experiencing the church as the People of God and are introduced to a variety of contemplative practices. 

In their second year, they will undertake an action research project aimed at bringing the resources of their faith community to bear on a local challenge. Larger groups from each congregation gather with the aim to increase the congregation’s outreach to its surrounding community.

What is the Discipleship Practices Program?

What this program looks like in your congregation:

Each participating parish or congregation invites up to two participants who will take part in an intensive two-year practice period from fall 2023-spring 2025. These individuals will take non-credit graduate courses at St. Kate’s:  Church and Sacraments (fall 2023), Spirituality for Discipleship (spring 2024), and God and Christ (spring 2025). St. Kate’s theology faculty teach all coursework to support a parish-based social outreach and engagement project that takes place in the fall of 2024. Participants gather one evening each week for a hybrid learning experience that takes place in person on campus or remotely via Zoom.

In addition to this intensive program, all interested parish members participate in grant-funded annual activities and gatherings at the parish or congregation. These activities and gatherings focus on your engagement as disciples with the surrounding community.  We support you as your parish or congregation chooses an issue for engagement and as you identify and assemble various resources that help you carry out this important work of discipleship, Gospel-oriented mission, and social justice.

What it will cost you:

Nothing! This program is generously supported by a grant to St. Catherine University from the Lilly Endowment as part of their Thriving Congregations initiative.

The aim of the Discipleship in Practice and Theory program:

The program’s purpose is to support your parish or congregation as you reach out in discipleship to a hurting world in need of compassion, healing, and justice. Discipleship represents an engaged Christian life actively involved in efforts to humanize the world, representing the ways that (in the words of Pope Francis) the “Church constantly goes out from herself…in commitment to the poor” (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013). 

The number of congregations involved:

Up to ten parishes/congregations from the ecumenical Christian Church in the Twin Cities area will participate in this second two-year cycle of the Discipleship in Practice and Theory program.

Each January and June, ten participants from each participating parish/congregation gather in retreat. Participants from our other program, Contemplative Practices, also attend. These gatherings offer an important opportunity to build an engaged community dedicated to contemplative discipleship here in the Twin Cities.