For those who wish to grow in their life of discipleship and be part of the Upstream Core Team we have "DNA Peer groups" where we support each other and encourage each other in at least 3 specific core practices.
We see discipleship as comprising 3 main areas:
Loving God - being connected with him and learning more about him.
Loving one another - looking after the 'family of faith' rates as a high priority in the Bible so we see this as very important.
Loving the world - loving those not in a church community is equally important and we will endeavour to love and serve our local community as well as those beyond us
Common Core Practices
We encourage everyone to take on the following common practices as they are integral to a life of discipleship.
For those who wish to be core members of Upstream Communities we agree together to let their life be shaped by 3 common practices - one from each of the key areas.
(It is also possible to add specific practices that may suit an individual, but the 3 described below are regarded as a minimum.)
a) Loving God - we will engage directly with the Bible for 90 minutes each week.
b) Loving one another - we will choose to actively love another person in the team / community thru serving, encouraging, helping or some other means at least once a week outside of our regular gatherings.
c) Loving the World - we will seek to be actively developing at least one relationship with a person or family in our local community over the course of a week.
DNA Peer Groups
Purpose: to help us grow in our christlikeness and to pray for our local community.
We will encourage one another and hold one another accountable in our core practices as well as giving time to pray specifically for each other and the Brighton community.
Groups are intentionally small ie. 2-3 and once they get to 4 they replicate again.
These groups meet for 4 hours a month to support and encourage us in our core practices as a community.
These groups exist to:
a) help us actually become the people we say we want to be as disciples
b) steer us on the journey of 'upstream' living and to encourage each other to live more Christ-like lives
c) develop some rigour in the kind of life we want to call others to also
