Going deeper 

Growing stronger

All Saints aims to sustain those who come into its family, to draw in people who want to know more about christianity and tackle the big issues, and to encourage to go deeper into their faith as closer and closer disciples of Jesus Christ.

We are all called to deepen and strengthen our faith. This part of the website is about the opportunities that All Saints offers to grow as christians. We become christians, many of us small children, by baptism, but the story doesn't stop there. We are constantly needing to explore what it is that has been given to us by our baptism, by our membership of the church and by the grace that God has given to us the by the power of the Holy Spirit. In many places we see the disappointing lukewarm-ness of baptised christians, the apathy about the use of our gifts to transform society, even the un-christian behaviour of church communities. What has gone wrong? Why has their christian initiation not borne better fruit?

At All Saints, we seek to maintain the cycle of believing, repenting and receiving the Holy Spirit that was initiated in our baptism. Being a baptised christian, and being called to faith in later life, are not just passing events, they are part of a process which needs to be ongoing. One of the prayers we regularly use in church uses the phrase "those whom he is saving", showing that salvation, coming to faith, being born again - this is not a one-off event but a continuous process. The reformers who created the Church of England were anxious to justify infant baptism, as opposed to the non-conformist preference for believer's baptism, by identifying the ongoing role of parents and godparents, but also by emphasising the individual christian's responsibility to receive the fruits of baptism fully by constant prayer, repentance and renewal. You cannot be baptised more than once, but as a baptised christian you need to work tirelessly to fulfil the promises of baptism. 

Here are some opportunities to deepen our faith, extend our discipleship and build on the gift we received in baptism.