Holy Habits

Andrew Roberts, Neil Johnson, Tom Milton, Bible Reading Fellowship, 2018

What is the overall quality of material presentation?

Each book serves as a collection of resources and materials that encourage and enable a church to adopt spiritually healthy attributes and habits that derive from the thriving early church. They include a comprehensive and insightful amount of information and activities that enable a leader to develop the material into structured sessions, taking as much or as little information as they wish. An extensive collection of resources that encourage a church to adopt a lifestyle that is centred around living out faith and whole-life discipleship, ideally over two years.

How clear are its aims and outcomes?

The books aim to take the church on a tour of the early church, understanding what habits formed and shaped them and how we can adopt these today. Each Habit book provides the backbone of a two-month series of worship material and small group resources for all ages and groups, as well as children’s activities. The introductory guide states ‘Holy Habits aims for the renewal of churches, or the formation of fresh expressions of church, as disciple-forming communities. The aim is to encourage ‘a way of living the Holy Habits, as seen in Acts 2’.

How accessible are the leader’s notes?

Introductory guide explains the ethos, but leaves the rest up to the leader. There is a lot of content, deliberately designed to be ‘thought-starter ideas’ with flexibility, so that local situations can be reflected in the choices that leaders make. This is a creative smorgasbord of information, Bible verses, prayers, worship tools, activities for large groups and smaller groups, children’s activities and youth activities. Each book is a bank of information surrounding one Holy Habit, including ‘understanding the habit’, ‘forming the habit’ and ‘going further with the habit’. Activities are explained well and the books will point you to other resources that you may want to read further. A great set of books but takes some getting used to as it can be a little overwhelming, and there is no prescribed programme to follow.

Who could lead it?

It is intended to be used within a whole church to enable the whole church to adopt and foster these Holy Habits together.  The resource suggests having a team of people, ordained and lay, to oversee it and organise its launch and review. Also suggested is that this team represent a cross-section of the church family, where people can pursue and share their particular passions for a topic. You may find that having a further small team for each habit is useful, to coordinate all of the activity for that particular habit. Launch event recommended.

How helpful are the participants’ resources?

No specific notes. Designed for group learning and participation, but this will filter down to the individual, and there are lots of suggestions for personal applications.

How good is any digital material?

Much suggested through the material: films, online material, music etc. Lots of videos online, introductions for the course,  information and brief introductory one for each Habit. Downloadable promotional items.

How much prep will I have to do?

A good amount of preparation is required. Each book includes masses of activities for sermons, prayers, Bible study resources, children’s resources, links to further resources. It follows a structure of: understanding the habit; forming the habit; and going further with the habit. It suggests exploring a new habit every two months over a two-year journey. The leader for the Holy Habit chosen needs to read the introductory guide and the book chosen. They need to familiarise themselves with the material and begin to build a plan of how they will incorporate the Holy Habit into their two month slot. However, there are materials and activities for small groups, youth and children also. The material serves as a ‘feast of ideas’ of information and activities, but requires planning to fashion it into the desired format. It includes notes for worship, prayer and suggested Bible verses too. The team can also gather stories, testimonies and pictures of the habit in action. Six month lead-in time, a launch event and concluding celebrations and reviews are recommended.

Is there website support? Links?

There is a clear, good website https://www.holyhabits.org.uk which has a smorgasbord of additional and backup resources, from stories to top tips. Great layout and lots of material. Answers all your questions!