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Transforming Discipleship
Missional church, discipleship and the dis-
course of transformation amongst the urban 
poor.

Daniel Njuguna
Daniel Njuguna is a Church of England parish priest whose ministry began with 
ordination in the Anglican Church of Kenya. He has worked amongst poorer com-
munities in the urban context for over sixteen years. He is undertaking part-time 
Professional Doctorate research in Practical Theology at The University of Chester.  
Contact: daniel.njuguna@btinternet.com 

Abstract 

Bevans’ concept of transforming discipleship foregrounds a 
fundamental symbiotic relationship between discipleship and mis-
sion. The interplay between both practices is central to the wider 
debate of contemporary church social engagement under missio 
Dei. He explains that the notion of baptism and theosis embedded 
in the idea of transforming discipleship points to a concrete trans-
formation of the human experience and condition. This forms 
the premise of this article in exploring how Christian practices of 
discipleship and mission articulate a process of human becoming 



Daniel Njuguna—Transforming Discipleship

27

and participation in the life and mission of God that centres on a 
critical engagement with lived reality. This understanding offers a 
consistent framework of fostering a mutual relationship between 
local churches and communities in the poorer urban context, 
which often face the twin challenge of church and social decline. It 
questions a simplistic binary correlation between the practices of 
discipleship and mission. Such correlation often leads to a seeming 
dichotomy in Christian practices, with mission being portrayed 
as a means of achieving a quantitative outcome and discipleship 
a qualitative one. Instead, the focus of this article is to elucidate 
how discipleship and mission are interwoven, that both start with 
God and are integral to the actualisation of God’s salvific plan in 
the world. 

Introduction 

This article adopts Bevans’ (2016) notion of transforming disciple-
ship in an attempt to address the apparent dichotomy that often 
emerges from the question about the relationship between mis-
sion and discipleship, and their objectives. The aim of this paper, 
therefore, is to demonstrate that both mission and discipleship are 
critical in the general flourishing of Christian ministry. As such, 
both contribute to personal and social transformation, and the 
growth of church in numbers and depth of discipleship. 

The examination of the notions of baptism and theosis em-
bedded in the idea of transforming discipleship offers a critical 
analysis of the process and participation of human beings in the 
life and mission of God, an actualization of salvation in the world. 
These notions underpin a transformation in the relationship be-
tween human beings and God and the transformative work of the 
God in the world, in and on believers individually and as a com-
munity, which is attuned to missio Dei. 

By paying attention to urban ministry, theology and social 
theoretical frameworks in advancing transformation discourse 
amongst the urban poor, the article asserts the importance of an 
inductive approach to both practices of mission and discipleship 



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that is rooted in people’s experience and reality of the local con-
text. Importantly, the argument draws also on my experience as 
a Church of England incumbent in this context. Essentially, this 
forms the basis of the complex task of this work in seeking to dem-
onstrate how church’s participation in missio Dei requires paying 
attention to the diverse and multiple factors that give meaning to 
the experiences of communities in this context. 

Overall, it is the hope of this work to make a critical contribu-
tion in rethinking missio Dei amongst communities and individu-
als who are on the edge of hegemonic powers and discourses. 

Conceptualization of the idea of 
Transforming Discipleship

In the keynote address Transformed Discipleship: Missiological Re-
flections (2016) to the World Council of Churches, Bevans makes 
a bold claim that 

the phrase “Transforming Discipleship” does not appear 
in the three major documents on mission that have ap-
peared in this second decade of the twenty-first century 
. . . These two words, nevertheless, form a significant part 
of the vocabulary of the contemporary missiology across 
the churches . . . They offer a rich entrée into missiologi-
cal thinking and practice today (75–76). 

Bevans draws the idea of transforming discipleship from the 
seminal writing on missiology Transforming Mission: Paradigm 
Shifts in Theology of Mission (1991), by David Bosch. He points out 
that discipleship underpins a transformation of an individual and 
of their lived experience, thus intimating an inherent relationship 
between mission and discipleship:

discipleship, rooted in baptism is not something static, 
something that is not only focused on the transformation 
of personal holiness and personal relationship with the 
Lord . . . In the same way that Bosch speaks of mission, 
discipleship at its most profound level . . . is to transform 
reality around it (2016: 78–79). 



Daniel Njuguna—Transforming Discipleship

29

In summary, Bosch’s notion of transforming mission charts 
the concrete changes (paradigm shift) in the understanding and 
practice of mission in Christian mission history. A key aspect of his 
argument, the one that has influenced contemporary thinking and 
practice in mission is that Christian mission is inherently God’s 
prior activity towards the world. The participation of the church 
in mission, therefore, transforms the church as well as the reality 
in the world. Bosch emphasizes that the church must continually 
undergo transformation if it is to remain faithful to the call to join 
in the mission of the Triune-God, missio Dei (1991: 181–189). 

Crucially, Bevans uses the notion of transforming disciple-
ship to unpack how both mission and discipleship are fundamen-
tally interwoven and grounded in God’s prior activity towards the 
establishment of his reign in the world, within the economy of 
salvation. The following section explores how Bevans draws on the 
notion of baptism and theosis to demonstrate that transformation 
both in discipleship and mission underpins a process of becom-
ing and participation of human beings in the life and mission of 
God in the world. This provides a strong foundation for this work 
in addressing the apparent juxtaposition of the missional and dis-
cipleship commitments of the church. Christian practices and ac-
tivities of mission and discipleship express a process and concrete 
participation in the missio Dei, “in ways both prior to and beyond 
the conventionally ecclesial or religious” (Graham, 2018: 215). 
Therefore, it is the argument of this work that such participation 
is enhanced by practices that are essentially rooted in the reality of 
human experience. 

The notion of baptism in Transforming 
Discipleship

Bevans states that baptism transforms “our understanding of dis-
cipleship, committing us to constant transformation as we con-
tinue to follow Jesus” (2016: 80). He points out, further, that this 
transformation is rooted in the incarnation and attested in Scrip-
ture (Rom. 6.3; 2 Cor. 5.17; Jn 8.12; Gal. 3.27-28). It is mediated 



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and articulated simultaneously in the baptism service with the 
help of different liturgical practices and cultural elements (2016: 
79–81). Therefore, baptism embodies a process of becoming and 
participation in the divine life that engages with the whole of hu-
man existence. 

The centrality of the Christian rite of baptism in Christian 
tradition has drawn great interest over the years, with emerging 
multiple perspectives that have significantly influenced contem-
porary discourse and practice. For instance, Croft (2002) notes a 
fundamental shift that locates baptism as the foundation for the 
ministry of all God’s people: 

Roman Catholic and Protestant churches have made 
enormous strides since the middle of the last century 
in recovering and developing [the] concept of ministry 
of the whole people of God linked with the recovery of 
a richer understanding of baptism. The development 
has vital implications for the ordering of the life of the 
church (88).

I argue that this dominant perspective which places baptism 
as foundational for ministry and accessible to all God’s people has 
a significant influence on the understanding of the relationship be-
tween discipleship and mission and their objective. It underlines 
what happens when human beings are incorporated into the life of 
God by faith and form a community in which everyone’s gifts are 
set free to serve and actualize the realities of the Kingdom of God 
in the world (Williams, 2016: 68). 

Zizioulas (2011) makes a key point that links the principle of 
transformation in baptism with the transformation of the world, 
as a kind of salvation. He argues that baptism as practiced by the 
church today “cannot be understood apart from a pre-existing 
baptismal reality in the mystery of salvation” (116). This reality 
comprises the historical and eschatological dimensions of salva-
tion which are united in the person of Christ. The historical factor 
is attested in the act of baptism with water, signifying the crossing 
of the Red Sea to freedom in the Promised Land. As for the escha-
tological dimension, he states that, “it is only by the virtue of the 



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outpouring of the Holy Spirit that Christian Baptism could exist as 
the Baptism of both water and the Spirit” (2011: 116). 

The historical and eschatological dimensions therefore un-
derpin baptism as a process of transformation that involves human 
beings’ participation in God’s salvation plan. It is fundamentally an 
incorporation of humans into “God’s prior initiative and action in 
effecting the work of reconciliation and redemption in the world” 
(Graham, 2018: 215). Zizioulas asserts, further, that the primary 
reality that grounds baptism in the church, “is a reality which does 
not depend on the belief or unbelief of the individual since it is the 
reality of Christ himself ” (2011: 117). This point presupposes that 
practices of mission and discipleship by the baptised members of 
the church are essentially grounded in God’s prior initiative.

Both discipleship and mission, seen through the lens of bap-
tism within the wider context of salvation history, offer the start-
ing point in talking about the world and humanity not as wholly 
chaotic and in need of remedying. Instead, as the locus of real and 
concrete transformation effected through the mysteries of the in-
carnation. This transformation involves an intimate sharing in the 
divine life and an ongoing participation in that life through faith-
ful engagement with the daily realities of life. This engagement be-
comes the very means by which Christian practices of discipleship 
and mission are continually transformed and informed. Groome 
articulates this point lucidly:

because the world is the arena of God’s saving activity, 
human history must be the primary locus, the point of 
both departure and arrival for rational discourse about 
God. This means that the praxis of God in history as it is 
co-constituted through human praxis is our primary text 
and context for doing theology [and ministry] (cited in 
Stoddart, 2014: 24).

The argument linking the transformation embodied in 
baptism to the concrete transformation of lived experience is 
critical in formulating a key argument of this work, as outlined 
later. It stresses how important it is for transformation discourse 
in the poorer urban context to adopt a contextual approach that 



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acknowledges local experience and lived reality as normative in 
shaping Christian practices of discipleship and mission. 

The notion of theosis in Transforming 
Discipleship 

According to Bevans, the idea of theosis (deification) offers “a help-
ful language to describe the reality of participation in the life and 
mission of God” (2016: 81). The notion of theosis is premised on 
the principle of the incarnation. It highlights the view that God in 
Christ became human so that humans could become divine (Bev-
ans, 2016; Zizioulas,1985; Russell, 2004; Morris, 2014; Gorman, 
2015). The scope of this work does not merit further investigation 
into the scholarly material around the study of theosis. The focus 
of our investigation is on the reality of the transformation of hu-
man beings articulated in the notion of theosis that is pertinent to 
the main thrust of the discussion about Christian discipleship and 
mission. 

Drawing on the work of Russell (2009), Bevans claims that 
the theological idea of theosis intimates an understanding of 
Christian participation in the divine nature of God as a combi-
nation of personal transformation and the transformation of the 
world. Russell argues that theosis rooted in the incarnation and 
embodied in Christian baptism “is nothing less than our entering 
into partnership with God, our becoming fellow workers with him 
for the sake of bringing divine economy to its ultimate fulfilment” 
(2009: 36). Accordingly, Gorman (2005) posits that the idea of the 
call for Christians to “live the gospel” in Pauline writings is pre-
mised on the principle of transformation in theosis. This stresses 
the invitation to the church to participate in the life of God and 
his transforming mission in the world, and the engagement in 
mission and discipleship embodies the response (300). Gorman’s 
latest work, Abide and Go: Missional Theosis in the Gospel of John 
(2018), goes further and marks what could be a turning point in 
articulating how theosis and mission are interwoven through the 
lens of the Fourth Gospel. He delineates how participation and 



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transformation in missio Dei is embodied by life together with one 
another and a changed world, by dint of the Spirit:

Participation in God’s mission effects transformation. 
However, this does not mean that human beings accom-
plish their own salvation or deification; participation 
means, at least for John (as for Paul), a mutual indwelling 
of the triune God and believers that entails the empower-
ing and transforming work of God, by the spirit, in and 
on believers individually and as a community (23). 

Therefore, theosis provides a rich language and a useful con-
ceptual framework to talk about how a believer’s incorporation 
into the life of God in baptism is lived out in practice. The trans-
formation articulated in both baptism and theosis is linked to the 
transformation of the world within salvific history. This transfor-
mation does not suggest that human beings become part of God’s 
substance or nature, a fourth member of the Trinity, but that they 
become God by being embraced evermore into the existence of 
God’s self (Zizioulas, 1985). The incarnation is the ultimate fulfil-
ment of the transformation and incorporation of human existence 
into the life of God. This is attested in the Scripture, “For in Christ 
all the fullness of the God lives in bodily form, and in Christ [hu-
manity] has been brought to fullness” (Col. 2.9-10). This view is 
helpful in developing an understanding that presents practices of 
mission and discipleship as an embodied expression of the incar-
nation within the economy of salvation. 

In the following section, the article sets out the framing of 
transformation embedded in theosis and baptism from a sote-
riological perspective. But before this, it is important to highlight 
that the World Council of Churches’ Conference on World Mis-
sion and Evangelism, Moving in the Spirit: Called to Transforming 
Discipleship (2018) in Arusha, assimilates Bevans’ notion of trans-
forming discipleship with its deep embeddedness in theosis and 
transformation:

Discipleship is both a gift and a calling to be active col-
laborators with God for the transforming of the world (1 
Thessalonians 3:2). In what the church’s early theologians 



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called “theosis” or deification, we share God’s grace by 
sharing God’s mission. This journey of discipleship leads 
us to share and live out God’s love in Jesus Christ by 
seeking justice and peace in ways that are different from 
the world’s (John 14:27) (Jukko and Keum, 2019: 2).

This work does not seek further analysis of the report. How-
ever, this is recommended for critical examination of various per-
spectives emerging from the notion of transforming discipleship, 
which are shaping the church’s engagement in missio Dei globally. 

Transformation and Salvation

There are multiple perspectives on salvation and the attempt to dis-
tinguish them is complex (Sobrino, 2008: 57). However, Sobrino 
(2008) makes an important point that highlights the perspective 
that locates salvation in the concrete reality. He stresses that “this 
concreteness should be recalled in order to counter the danger 
of ‘universalizing’ in nonhistorical ways the concept of salvation 
and realities that accompany it” (57). Morris (2014), accordingly, 
advances an argument that makes a significant contribution to-
wards an understanding of the concreteness of salvation through 
the lens of theosis. He draws the distinction between the idea of 
being made in God’s image and growing into the likeness of God 
underpinned by the notion of imago Dei:

The starting point for talking about human beings is not 
that they are utterly wretched and lost, but that they were 
created in God’s image, to grow into God’s likeness and 
that, despite their capacity to sin, still reflect the beauty 
and goodness of their divine creator. The sin from which 
human beings need salvation is the sin that leads to the 
suffering and oppression of any human persons at the 
hands of others. It is real and concrete [salvation] (52).

This argument underscores an important point on human 
transformation and participation in effecting salvation on the 
plane of history, embedded in the notion of baptism and theosis, 



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and actualized in the incarnation and the proclamation of the 
message of the Kingdom of God:

Jesus’ embodied life and ministry in particular, rather 
than his death, is where salvation can be discovered . . 
. It is also in his teaching and ministry, his praxis . . . he 
reveals an alternative understanding of salvation (Mor-
ris, 2014: 55). 

Vincent Donovan in his writing on cross-cultural mission, 
Christianity Rediscovered (1978), similarly, explains that the basis 
of salvation is best envisaged in the role of Israel’s messiah fulfilled 
in Jesus to establish the Shalom. He contests that, “Shalom is much 
more than personal salvation. It is at once peace, integrity, com-
munity, harmony, and justice” (157). From this view, we can draw 
the conclusion that the salvation plan realised through the incar-
nation and encapsulated in the Judeo-Christian salvation history 
unfolds in the realities of human life and experience. 

Therefore, the understanding of salvation from this per-
spective provides an essential framework that is helpful in the 
examination of how the incorporation of human beings into God’s 
initiative (missio Dei) through baptism is lived out and practiced 
as expressed in theosis. The call for the church to participate in 
missio Dei cannot, therefore, be reduced to a simplistic binary cor-
relation between the mission and discipleship imperatives of the 
church. It is understandable that the attempt to examine the rela-
tionship between practices of mission and discipleship, including 
their theological bearings is a complex undertaking and requires 
sophisticated methods of enquiry and interpretation. However, 
the notion of transforming discipleship underpins the importance 
of an inductive approach to the church’s engagement in missio Dei; 
that acknowledges lived experience and context as fundamental 
in shaping Christian practice. This provides a fundamental cri-
tique to Christian ministry in general. Before turning our focus to 
ministry in the poorer urban context, the article first evaluates the 
juxtaposition of practices of mission and discipleship, which tends 
to polarize their relationship and objective. 



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Juxtaposition of mission and discipleship 

The Church’s prolific literature and training resources on con-
temporary discipleship is replete with the view that discipleship 
provides a fundamental mechanism of engaging in the wider 
mission of the church. For instance, Croft (2002) points out that 
the church has the crucial role of “providing context for growth 
in discipleship. . .where commitment can be encouraged nurtured 
and sustained and where ministry can grow” (89). Davison and 
Milbank (2010) however raise the question that “if everything is 
for the sake of mission, even worship and the Church, then what 
is mission for?” (53). This view not only highlights the apparent 
tension in grappling with the question of the relationship between 
mission and discipleship but reveals a dominant view that tends to 
place mission as the outworking of Christian discipleship.

A recent research project by St Peter’s Saltley Trust (2017) ad-
dressing the question about what helps Christians grow explores 
the significance of social engagement in inspiring personal faith. 
The finding indicates that “Christian mission work is best seen 
not as the fruit of discipleship, but as interwoven in discipleship” 
(Jones, 2017: 5). This outcome, substantially, supports the argu-
ment in this article that mission and discipleship are complemen-
tary as far as the church’s participation in missio Dei is concerned. 
However, the idea that ‘mission is interwoven in discipleship’ 
plays into the hands of the dominant view that sees discipleship 
as everything. 

Overall, the report is symptomatic of a shift towards a richer 
understanding of how contemporary experience and situation are 
key in framing the question of the relationship between mission 
and discipleship. The acknowledgement that lived experiences and 
the realities of the local context are critical in shaping practices 
of mission and discipleship challenges their juxtaposition. This is 
well highlighted in the Church of England recent report Setting 
God’s People Free (2017): 

We, ordained and lay, must teach and equip lay people 
to follow Jesus confidently in every sphere of life in ways 



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that show the difference the Gospel makes . . . We need 
to enable every member of our congregations—lay and 
clergy alike—to follow Jesus confidently wherever they 
are.

Several emerging discipleship and mission resources such as 
Fruitfulness on the Front Line and Frontline Sundays by London 
Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) are beginning 
to embody this shift. They are providing resources for worship, 
mission and discipleship that predominantly use an inductive ap-
proach rooted in people’s daily experience and shaped by the real-
ity of their context. LICC sees its role as equipping God’s people 
to see their mission field beyond church organised activities and 
to “create open, authentic, learning and praying communities that 
are focussed on growing whole-life disciples who live and share 
the gospel wherever they are” (London Institute of Contemporary 
Christianity). 

The emerging inductive approach adopted by churches for 
their mission and discipleship initiatives affirms the central tenet 
of the idea of baptism and theosis, mapped earlier. The transforma-
tion underpinned in both ideas points to the possibility of human 
beings being able to participate more fully in the divine life in the 
concreteness of lived experience. Moreover, it repudiates the view 
of baptism offered by the church as simply a means of transmitting 
Christian belief. Instead, baptism is presented as a church tradi-
tion that enhances the transformation of a believer who is already 
incorporated in the salvific plan embedded in missio Dei and un-
folds in the concreteness of life. 

In that case, the objective of Christian engagement in practic-
es of mission and discipleship has less to do with what the church 
does, and much more with their significance as an embodiment of 
God’s reign and activity in the world. 

This emphasizes the fact that lived experiences and realities 
of a local context are fundamental in shaping practices of mission 
and discipleship. They are essentially a response to and an expres-
sion of God’s initiative in bringing salvation to the world. Pope 
Francis (2013) points out how this understanding is important 



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especially among communities on the edge of hegemonic powers 
and discourses:

we need to let the poor and marginalized evangelize us. 
Through struggles in and for life, marginalized people 
are reservoirs of the active hope, collective resistance, 
and perseverance that are needed to remain faithful to 
the promised reign of God (198). 

Description of ministry in the parish

In this section, I set out the urban context where I practice as the 
incumbent before investigating and analysing the reality of min-
istry amongst the urban poor, broadly. The Church of England 
parish statistics (Church Urban Fund) indicate that the parish is 
ranked among the most deprived, 1382 out of 12,425. It has above 
average levels of child poverty, with 27 percent of primary school 
pupils receiving free school meals compared to 23 percent nation-
ally. Ethnically, the parish demographic shows, noticeably, little 
diversity with just over 16 percent  of the population being non-
white British. This contrasts significantly with the surrounding 
areas which are over 77 percent. In the past two decades the parish 
has experienced multiple new housing developments, which have 
attracted young families.

In the past few years, the church has run multiple social 
projects aimed at the local community on a weekly basis and 
occasionally. These activities include parents and toddlers’ play 
session, community social forum (Natter’s Café), family summer 
camp and a collection centre for the local food bank. Interestingly, 
in comparison to worship activities, these activities draw a wide 
range of members of the community from diverse backgrounds; 
economically, socially and culturally. The majority of those attend-
ing the social activities tend to be from the social housing and new 
housing estates. In activities such as parents and toddlers and sum-
mer camp, young families’ attendance is higher with an average 
of thirty families with children between 1–10 years old attending 



Daniel Njuguna—Transforming Discipleship

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regularly compared to five in Sunday worship. While less than 1 
percent of people of non-white British background make up the 
regular worshipping congregation, social activities tend to attract 
a higher percentage of over 5 percent. 

Although these projects are aimed at meeting some of the 
growing social needs of the local community, the church lacks a 
consistent framework of understanding the experiences of those 
who attend. This amounts to a missed opportunity of drawing on 
the experiences of the participants in shaping how the activities 
are run and understanding if they are meeting the intended objec-
tives. Importantly, while some of the social projects in the parish 
are mainly informed through the National Church and Diocesan 
mission initiatives, several others have been tried and failed. This 
presents a serious question on how the relevance of the projects 
to the reality of the local context is taken into account. This work, 
therefore, addresses a wider problem in church ministry and re-
veals how grassroots reality and experience is critical to the church’s 
social engagement and practices of mission and discipleship. 

In general, the idea to examine the relationship between mis-
sion, discipleship, and social engagement began to develop in 2013. 
I was in my second year in the post when a decision was made to 
close the church building in the neighboring parish, which had 
served the local town since the middle of the nineteenth century. 
Two decades before, the parish had a thriving congregation at-
tending church regularly and an important ministry to children 
and families through the local Church of England primary school. 
However, the steady decline in church attendance meant that the 
existence of the parish was no longer viable. The church closed in 
September 2016, triggering the process of finding a new way of 
providing ministry to the local community with the help of neigh-
boring parishes.

I began to think about the future of my parish which despite 
facing similar challenges of numerical decline continues to be an 
integral part of community life through social engagement. In this 
work, I argue that the complex task of measuring church growth 
and the impact of ministry should take into account multiple 



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factors connected to both the reality of the local context and the 
changing shape of church life. 

In his reflection on the history and changes in the inner-
city and church life, in light of industry and globalization, Brown 
(2018) emphasizes that the development of an ecclesiology and 
missiology adaptable to changing times remains critical (89). 
Such development draws on an inductive approach to the practices 
of mission and discipleship and is premised on a dialogical frame-
work that pays attention to people’s experience, Christian tradition 
and doctrine. So far, the examination of Bevans’ idea of transform-
ing discipleship through the prism of the Christian tradition of 
baptism and the doctrine of theosis, offers a critical framework of 
engaging with the tension inherent between the three dialogical 
poles. Importantly, Brown maintains that, “all discipleship, all mis-
sion, takes place in the theological interim, between Pentecost and 
the Parousia” (2018: 90). 

Therefore, the task of the church is to work with this tension 
and embody the spirit of Christ until God’s Kingdom is finally re-
vealed in fullness. As outlined in the following section on general 
analysis of ministry amongst the urban poor, this requires inte-
grated theological and social perspectives that encourage seeing 
and thinking about mission and discipleship as complementary. 
As such, this supports a key premise of this article that seeks to 
articulate how discipleship, mission and social engagement are 
interwoven. Indeed, they play a critical role in personal and social 
transformation, and congregational growth in numbers and depth 
of discipleship. 

A broader analysis of ministry in the poorer 
urban context 

Ecclesiological studies and theological reflection in this context 
emphasize that it is critical for the church to pay attention to the 
social and cultural dynamics in engaging the local communities. 
This is particularly in response to new geographies of poverty and 
marginalization under global urban hegemony (Atherton, 2000 



Daniel Njuguna—Transforming Discipleship

41

& 2003; Sheldrake, 2001; Green, 2003; Inge, 2003; Lynch, 2005; 
Baker, 2009; Davey, 2010; Shannahan, 2010). In the last two de-
cades, urban social meaning and cultural identity have focussed 
on the impact of globalization and the effects on the social and 
cultural reality of the urban communities (Atherton, 2000; Cas-
tells, 2000 & 2010; Baker, 2009; Shannahan, 2010; Davey, 2001 
& 2010; Baker and Graham; 2018). Significantly, Andrew Davey 
notes that “the urban population changes with social transition, 
migrancy and community tensions. New demands are made on 
urban settlements to accommodate a vast array of groups and mi-
norities within a common space” (2001: 30). 

I draw on Manuel Castells’s work The Rise of Network So-
ciety (2003) and The Power of Identity (2010) in which he links 
globalization with emerging patterns of social forms and cultural 
identity in the urban context, with significant impact on the expe-
riences of local communities. He uses the concept of "Network so-
ciety" in arguing that in a globalised urban context, “the search for 
identity, collective, or individual, ascribed or constructed becomes 
the fundamental source of social meaning” (2003: 3). For Castells, 
identity therefore is people’s source of meaning and is constructed 
“on the basis of a cultural attribute . . . that is given priority over 
other sources of meaning” (2010: 6). These identities and associ-
ated meaning stand in stark contrast to those traditionally “defined 
by norms structured by the institutions and organizations of soci-
ety” (2010: 7). 

Castells’s analysis charts key social and cultural processes in 
contemporary urban societies with cumulative effect on social and 
cultural experiences. His argument is fundamental in demonstrat-
ing how identities constructed on the basis of common experiences 
can generate shared meaning among heterogenous urban commu-
nities and galvanize them for social action and change. Various 
theological studies draw on his work in examining the constantly 
changing social landscape in Britain’s urban society, and the effects 
of emerging social meaning and cultural identity on the experi-
ences of communities and Christian ministry (Gilroy, 2000; Beck-
ford, 2004; Baker, 2009; Davey, 2001 & 2010; Shannahan, 2010). 



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42

Urban ministry and theology 

There is evidence that models of ministry in urban communities 
that become normative often are formed in completely different 
social and geographical contexts, thus failing to take full account 
of experiences at the grassroots (Davey, 2001 & 2010; Green, 2003; 
Vincent, 2003; Shannahan, 2010; Sheldrake, 2014). In the last few 
decades many communities in the deprived urban context have 
faced the “double whammy” of community and church decline 
(Atherton, 2003: 94). Nevertheless, the relationship between 
church and community in this context is explicit in social engage-
ment (Atherton,2003; Baker and Miles, 2010; Baker and Smith, 
2010; Charlesworth and Williams, 2017; Church Urban Report, 
2014). However, despite the explicit positive links between church-
es and community in this context through social engagement, 
there is little impact on numerical growth reflected in church at-
tendance. This situation is clearly reflected in my parish context, as 
already explained. While this reality places the future existence of 
the church in the balance, nonetheless, it provides an opportunity 
to explore new ways of engagement that will transform both the 
church and community and enhance their relationship. 

Given that urban spaces are generally contested and fluid, 
there is real concern that the ministry of the Anglican Church, 
based predominantly on the parochial system with an entrenched 
idea of localism, may not have adequate flexibility in its ability 
to fully embrace the complexities of urban reality (Baker, 2009). 
Sheldrake (2014) notes the tension in the contemporary British 
urban context as the sense of identity embedded in a locality is 
de-emphasized in favour of one that relates to a wider framework 
of people (117–118); thus, underlining Castells’s idea of network 
society as discussed above. Shannahan calls for models of British 
urban theology that express the complex fluidity of the contem-
porary urban life and forge new cross-cultural theology for the 
contemporary globalized urban landscape by paying serious at-
tention to migrants and diasporan communities (2010: 11–15). 
Davey (2010) argues for a theological and ecclesial practice based 



Daniel Njuguna—Transforming Discipleship

43

on an inclusive and participative model of ministry. As an ex-
ample, he cites ecumenical ministries in the urban context involv-
ing migrants who are equipped to contribute to life in their local 
communities primarily through engagement with the local church 
(29–33). 

From a practical theology perspective, the primacy of Chris-
tian practice hinges not on the privileged position over theory or 
tradition but as the starting point in the attempt “to understand 
human action and thought and the meanings inherent in practice 
including their theological bearings . . . and requires sophisticated 
methods of enquiry and interpretation” (2017: 12). This is de-
noted by the term ‘praxis’ which “points towards something that 
is more reflexive, that is both value-directed and value-laden. It 
is the meanings we bring to practice, and the meaning-making 
associated with our actions” (12). The participation and focussed 
attention on the lived reality of urban communities in practices of 
mission and discipleship, therefore, has a significant role in orien-
tating the practices of the church and shaping its overall ministry 
in this context. 

Crucially, the theological reflection framework underpinned 
by praxis encompasses values and meanings beyond religious 
practices, which are constructed through social processes involv-
ing human interaction within a social context (Ward, 2012: 4–5). 
This liberates the church to work in partnership with other social 
agencies in contributing to the common good without compris-
ing its fundamental Christian principles. The contribution of the 
church to the common good is generally referred to as faith-based 
social capital, which is a combination of religious capital and spiri-
tual capital (Baker and Skinner, 2006; Baker and Miles-Watson, 
2010). I would recommend an in-depth exploration of faith-based 
social capital in relation to Christian community engagement as a 
future undertaking. 

In the following section, the article draws further on examples 
of transformative ministry amongst the urban poor to articulate 
how the idea of transforming discipleship challenges the church to 
commit to a discipleship and mission that is attuned to life together 



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44

with the people in the concrete reality of their daily experiences. 
Such commitment orientates church practices towards the world, 
which both the church and the community inhabit together. 

Advancing transformation discourse amongst 
the urban poor

There is strong evidence indicating that for local churches in the 
poorer urban setting, transformation discourse involves tackling 
poverty and other social challenges that tend to disproportionally 
affect their communities. This is seen as an actualization of salva-
tion (Atherton, 2003; Church Urban Report, 2014; Ruddick, 2014; 
Eckley, Ruddick and Walker, 2016). For instance, in her qualitative 
research in Manchester, Ruddick engages with the transforma-
tion discourse in a poorer urban context by adopting an induc-
tive approach to the practices of discipleship and mission. This 
is underlined by a fundamental shift in the team’s perception of 
mission: “We changed the language from ‘entering in to transform’ 
and replaced it with ‘joining in with God’s transforming activity’” 
(2014: 60). 

Further investigation into the experiences of both team 
members and members of the local community suggests that 
transformation discourse from this perspective confronts the 
dominant understanding of salvation. It provides a language that 
aligns it with missio Dei. It enables those involved to articulate 
concrete positive changes in the neighborhood as signs of hope 
and acknowledge profound changes in their lives and others. Rud-
dick explains that these experiences embody the biblical models 
of salvation, mission and discipleship that are core to the team’s 
ministry (60–77). Interestingly, a recent survey by British Social 
Attitudes (2019) suggests that 40 percent of people who go into a 
church building regularly do so not for worship but for a social or 
community activity. This resonates with the argument that con-
temporary urban ministry contributes “to social transformation 
through community activities rather than church-centric perspec-
tives and practices” (Ruddick, 2018: 143). 



Daniel Njuguna—Transforming Discipleship

45

According to Barrett (2019), the challenge for the Anglican 
parish church with its well-defined geographical boarders is on 
how it can fulfil its role of a “common space” for the socially and 
culturally diverse urban communities (30–33). His reflection is 
based on an examination of the emerging role and identity of his 
local parish church in a multi-ethnic urban parish context follow-
ing the destruction of the church building in a fire incident. This 
has led the congregation to engage the local community through 
various social activities such as street parties held in the open 
spaces on the street corners, including multiple venues provided 
by the local schools. He notes that these events often draw partici-
pants from diverse social-economic and ethnic backgrounds who, 
otherwise, would not have any connection with the church. He 
draws a conclusion that while the role of the church as a “host” has 
dissolved with the loss of the building a new one has developed: 
“a place of interconnectedness, interdependent ‘common’ spaces 
serving many and diverse functions” (2019: 32). 

Importantly, the analysis above illustrates how critical reflec-
tion on the relationship between church and community chal-
lenges the framing of the question about the relationship between 
mission and discipleship, and their expected outcome. The mis-
siological idea underpinned by missio Dei insists that the goal 
of church mission and discipleship must be understood “as less 
a matter of personal salvation or institutional church growth, so 
much as a participation with the triune God in the task of redeem-
ing the whole of creation as a work of reconciliation” (Graham, 
2018: 215). This challenges the pervasive binary framing of the ob-
jectives of both mission and discipleship in terms of quantitative 
and qualitative outcomes. Normally, mission tends to be presented 
as the means of achieving the former and discipleship the latter. 
However, the argument presented in this paper emphasizes that 
church practices and activities embody a kind of salvation in the 
world, encapsulated in missio Dei. Furthermore, it draws to the at-
tention the fact that practices of mission and discipleship, through 
the agency of the baptised members of the church, are critical in 
contributing to numerical growth and depth of faith. 



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46

A consistent theological reflection drawing on ecclesial and 
missional perspectives is therefore vital in affirming faith and ac-
tivities that give meaning to Christian belief at the personal and 
corporate levels. This is whilst facilitating a process of practical 
discernment that allows new perspectives to emerge as churches 
engage with the complex realties of lived experiences that define 
individuals and their local context. It is from this perspective that 
the anticipated research underlying this work, aims to develop a 
consistent method of inquiry and theological reflection that en-
ables the church to draw on the realities of the local context in 
shaping its practices and overall ministry. To achieve this, the re-
search seeks to use an ethnographic method of inquiry into the 
experiences of members of the local community who attend social 
activities provided by the church in the parish.

Conclusion 

If the logic of the notion of transforming discipleship discussed in 
this paper is assimilated and developed, then this means address-
ing, critically, the question about the way in which the relationship 
between churches and local communities is framed. First, it is un-
derstandable that speaking of mission and discipleship separately 
may be conceptually useful for churches in formulating their Min-
istry Action Plan (MAP). However, the theological idea of missio 
Dei underpinning the notion of transforming discipleship chal-
lenges a binary approach that polarizes personal and social trans-
formation. This is inconsistent with the understanding of salvation 
explored in this paper.

Second, an attempt to frame the relationship between 
churches and their local communities requires paying serious 
attention to people’s experience and reality of the local context. 
This calls for an openness to diverse voices and even contradictory 
meanings arising from the experiences of members of the commu-
nity from different backgrounds. As such, church’s participation in 
missio Dei in the complex urban context requires paying attention 



Daniel Njuguna—Transforming Discipleship

47

to the diverse and multiple factors that give meaning to the expe-
riences of communities: religious, historical, cultural, social and 
economic. 

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