Jesus Shaped People

Revd Eddie Roberts, Rector of Wilmslow Parish Churches

I want to tell you a bit about our journey with Jesus Shaped People.

To explain how it started, I need to take you back a few years to when I was in Manchester Diocese. Back in 2019, I was introduced to Gordon Dey and the team behind Jesus Shaped People — a brilliant whole-church discipleship adventure designed for parishes in areas of deprivation. At that point, I was looking after three churches in Blackley, which rapidly became four, then five, and eventually six as nearby parishes fell vacant. We were trying to operate as one big, slightly chaotic parish, and we desperately needed something that would help us work together.

Jesus Shaped People turned out to be exactly that. It’s a 15-week journey based around five key priorities of Jesus — his love for people, the centrality of God’s word, the importance of team building, the life of prayer, and the prophetic challenge that grows out of all of those things. The idea is that you teach it on Sundays and let it run through everything else — PCC meetings, small groups, coffee mornings, mission planning, all of it. It gives the whole church a common language and a shared sense of purpose.

In North Manchester, that language really caught on. We started talking about Jesus-shaped conversations, Jesus-shaped decisions, even a Jesus-shaped budget. People who hadn’t said much before began joining in with energy and confidence. It helped to pull very different congregations together around something simple but powerful — the character and priorities of Jesus himself.

Fast forward to 2023, when I moved to Wilmslow. Very different context — much more affluent, very leafy — but actually facing similar questions about identity and direction. The church was active and friendly but unsure what it was for. So I thought, why not give Jesus Shaped People another go?

We began the course, and within weeks it had taken off. Before that, there were no midweek Bible studies or small groups. By the end, around forty people — about a quarter of the regular congregation — were meeting weekly in discipleship groups. And again, that shared language began to emerge. People started asking things like, “What would a Jesus-shaped event look like?” or “How do we make our PCC more Jesus-shaped?” It sounds simple, but it’s transformative when a church starts thinking like that.

We have woven it into everything we do. Midweek worship picks up Sunday’s teaching. Small groups revisit the same themes. Even our community lunch club has flyers with a short reflection on the Sunday topic, just to keep the conversation going. It’s about making sure that discipleship doesn’t stop when you leave church on a Sunday — it carries on into every part of life.

For me, Jesus Shaped People has been more than a course; it’s been a way of helping the church rediscover who we are and what we’re for. It’s brought a sense of unity, continuity, and focus that’s been a real blessing. And if you’re looking for something to help your church grow in confidence and discipleship, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

It’s simple, it’s biblical, and — most importantly — it keeps us centred on Jesus. And at the end of the day, that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be about.