Cultivate Programme Announcement

Whenever the church has flourished, Christians have thought carefully, deeply and biblically about how to honour Christ in all of life. As Augustine said, “Not everyone who thinks believes, since many think in order not to believe. But everyone who believes thinks, thinks in believing and believes in thinking.” Sadly, we live in a day when many people think in order not to believe. So we need help to think as believers and believe as thinkers, in every cultural arena.

Across the evangelical church in the UK there are gifted people with deep knowledge and expertise in different fields. The church needs these believing thinkers, and needs the equipping they can offer to other disciples. But first they need to be found, nurtured and given a voice.  Cultivate seeks to serve such people and help them to serve the church.

Cultivate is a two-year, part-time course, designed to help men and women grow in godliness and develop their knowledge and communication skills in their own specialist subject area. The programme is for mature disciples of Christ who have already demonstrated a commitment to understanding and applying God’s Word to all of life, and who would like help to develop their theological understanding and their ability to communicate their expertise with others.

Participants will receive specialist mentoring, training, feedback, encouragement and opportunities to think more deeply and to communicate what they’re learning in a variety of ways and at a range of levels. Each individual will be helped to produce tangible outputs over the course of the two years, including talks, blog-posts, articles, podcasts, and courses.

With the help of the programme director, Matthew Mason, and other mentors, they’ll also dig deeply into the Bible, stimulating contemporary writers, and great theologians like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Gregory of Nyssa and Thomas Aquinas. And they’ll do a detailed study of the greatest theological engagement with culture, Augustine’s City of God.

Crosslands Forum Director, Dr Dan Strange, says:

“Crosslands Forum exists to give church leaders, scholars and other disciples the tools to engage the culture with Biblical conviction, theological clarity and gospel confidence. In the course of my work I meet many thoughtful, gifted believers who are working hard at approaching the world through the Word.  The wider church needs the fruits of their labours, to help us all to think and act in every sphere of life through the truths of Scripture, and bring the light of the gospel to every corner of society. I am delighted that Matthew Mason will be directing the Cultivate programme. His experience as a pastor, teacher and scholar demonstrates a passion to see the formation of faithful and fruitful Christian disciples.”

Cultivate Director Matthew Mason says:

“I’ve been praying for 20 years that the Lord would raise up biblically grounded Christian thinkers who are able to understand and teach about culture across a range of expertise. Cultivate feels like a real answer to those prayers, and I’m thrilled to be involved. I’m excited to help a new generation of men and women to grow as disciples, thinkers, writers and teachers who can speak to the widest possible range of cultural questions as mature disciples of Christ.”

To find out more about the programme—who it’s for, what’s involved and how to apply for the next round – visit the Cultivate page on the Crosslands Forum website.