Stories

"Boy-child issues - that's what we need to talk about." This was the focus which emerged when Faith2Share International Director, Mark Oxbrow, led a discipleship consultation in Jamaica last month. Mark's work with partners in Asia had often focused on 'girl-child' issues but Jamaican participants wanted to discuss the churches' response to "boy-children". Absentee fathers, a gang culture, the social acceptance of marijuana and the flow of guns from the USA all make it very difficult for boys to develop Jesus-shaped lives - or lives with any kind of healthy structure at all.

"This consultation should have happened years ago," said one archdeacon, "we are so good at doing church that we have forgotten how to follow Jesus." In four venues across the island, 150 Christian leaders explored together the challenges of following Jesus amongst their friends, at work, in troubled communities, in the media, with the LGBT community, and in their family-life.

In the session on discipleship at work delegates reflected that world sugar prices have dropped and the plantations established by the British no longer offer employment. The mineral bauxite is a valuable commodity but requires destructive mining. Should Jesus-shaped investors open up bauxite mines to create employment or protect the beautiful environment for the future? Faith2Share helps Christian leaders around the world who are wrestling with questions of discipleship. To help Faith2Share continue running whole-life discipleship training in 2018, make a gift today and we will double it (up to an appeal total of £4,000) thanks to a generous donor.

• Country

  • Jamaica

• Issues

  • Discipleship