The Discipleship Cohort: Transforming the Young Adult Community at All Saints
There is a growing community of young adults at All Saints Church in Amesbury who increasingly believe that they are known and loved by the Triune God and, in turn, are enjoying a taste of the eternal life that the New Testament authors speak of. It is a community of young people who are walking in greater and greater freedom and wholeness and who are sharing this life in Christ with those around them. Over the last three years, the young adult population at All Saints has grown from five people to about thirty people. The Discipleship Cohort at All Saints has been at the center of the cultural transformation of the young adult community at All Saints. It has helped to cultivate a space to receive from God and one another and to walk in greater freedom and maturity.
The Fall of 2024 marks the launch of the fourth Discipleship Cohort at All Saints Church! The Discipleship Cohort is designed to usher young adults into greater intimacy with the Triune God, so that they might know the riches of His delight, the immeasurable greatness of His power, and the present and future hope to which He has called them. The nine-month program from September 1st to May 31st is designed to run parallel to the participant’s personal work or study. At the end of the program, the hope is that all participants can say that they have tasted and seen that God truly is good.
The model for the Cohort is fairly simple. The Cohort gathers weekly for teaching and prayer led by the ministry leaders. Participants meet monthly with a ministry leader for one-on-one discipleship and encouragement, and they also serve twice a month on Sunday mornings in various capacities. Over the last three years the Cohort has had seventeen different participants, many of whom have decided to stay in the Cohort for a second year, and this year four new members are being welcomed into the Cohort. Past members continue to serve the church, be it with Vestry, kids or teens, music, A/V, administration, or hospitality. Currently, one past member is the Church Administrator (and so much more than that!), three are on Vestry, and one is the new Assistant Director of NextGen Ministries.
Sydney Hughes, a 2nd year member of the Cohort, wrote, "The Discipleship Cohort is a safe place to receive God's love and delight through the arms of his Body. This community provides spiritual companionship and support for young adults on the journey of ‘growing up into Christ’. My personal experience of the Cohort resembles something of a cocoon, sheltering and comforting me amidst the examination and renovation of my wounds, desires, and sin as I have been ushered into deeper healing and freedom."
The participants in the Cohort do not walk away with a certificate or a degree. The hope, however, is that they do walk away having experienced new life in Christ. Paul’s words in his second letter to the Corinthians ring strongly: the members of the Cohort “are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. (They) show that (they) are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
