Urban Discipleship Articles

Practical, field-tested thinking and experience on discipleship, mission, and what it means to partner with God in the city. Written by practitioners from across the global learning community focussed on the unique challenges of the urban harvest field.



What Can Happen When You Stay With One Person (even when you keep leaving)

We sometimes assume more ground covered means more fruit. But what if the pattern — the biblical pattern — is the opposite?

This is the story of one week in one village, one couple, and what grew from staying rather than moving on. Not a method. Not a programme. Just presence, Word, and Spirit — and then getting out of the way.

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The Urban Challenge Marko Pretorius The Urban Challenge Marko Pretorius

How to See What God Is Doing in Your City

You move into a city carrying a burden for the harvest — and almost immediately the scale overwhelms you. Where do you start?

Ecosystem mapping is one team's answer: a practice of drawing an honest circle around the relationships, spaces, and rhythms where God has currently given you influence, and asking what He is doing there.

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Discipleship & Outreach Pyry Winter Discipleship & Outreach Pyry Winter

How Your City's History Should Shape Your Prayer Strategy (and Your Team!)

Every people group carries a spiritual history — and that history is still shaping how they see God, themselves, and whether they'll come near Him at all. Spiritual mapping is how you read that terrain before you engage it. It gives your prayer coordinates. And it often starts not with the people you're praying for, but with you.

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Discipleship & Outreach Marko Pretorius Discipleship & Outreach Marko Pretorius

The Fields Are Dead Because We Stopped Planting

A young man stranded in Kabul told the missionary who'd spent weeks with him: "I really like your Jesus, but I can't stand you."

That line has stayed with Marko for years — and it gets at a potentially uncomfortable reality. The lack of harvest in our cities may not be from a lack of care or vision. It may be because we never stopped to ask what we needed to become.

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