The Deeper Life Journal: Taking discipleship further

Assistant Secretary for Spiritual Life Development Major Gary Lacey talks to Lyn Woods about the Deeper Life Journal.

What is the Deeper Life Journal?

I inherited a fortnightly bulletin that went out to the territorial prayer network. I changed it to a blog-style communication, which was well received. When the prayer and spiritual life development team was reorganised, Secretary for Spiritual Life Development Major Gordon Cotterill, Lyndall Bywater (UKI Boiler Room team) and I looked at, discussed and prayed about this bulletin. We felt it needed a fresh approach and a method of circulating a more useful resource that could go much wider than the prayer network.

We have retained the blog-style format and added some new elements, letting everyone in the network know that changes were coming and advising them of the need to resubscribe to receive it. There are now approximately 300 people currently signed up to this new monthly journal, which launched in March.

Who is it for?

It’s for everybody associated with The Salvation Army!

How and why does it help us to go deeper?

The Deeper Life Journal is born out of the belief that as a territory, we’re at a point where we must press into God. It’s a tool that we believe will help people to delve further in prayer and reflection and encourage them to seek out other tools to help them in their spiritual journeys. We’re hoping to be able to archive the monthly journals digitally, for ease of reference.

What values are behind the Deeper Life Journal?

The resource aims to encourage people to constantly seek to make our relationships with Jesus deeper, wider and therefore stronger by focusing on him. From our team discussions, we came up with three values: deeper listening, deeper thinking and deeper living. These are values that we want to live out daily in our journeys with God. Striving to listen more attentively, to think more deeply and take time to reflect on our relationships with God and what he means to us. Deeper living is about living a lifestyle of true discipleship and devotion, deepening our faith, our trust and our relationships with Jesus.

How might this impact our Movement in the UK and Ireland Territory?

As we go deeper with God and commit to God as part of the body of his Church and join him in his mission, I can only imagine the amazing victories that we will see! We are a Movement that has been raised up to reach people who desperately need the Saviour. Our prayer is that a passion will be stirred in people to get deeper in their spiritual life and their relationships with God.

How can corps and individuals contribute to the resource?

There’s scope for us to do so much more with the Deeper Life Journal. We’ve started out simply, hoping to shape it into something much better, and we want people to contribute to that as God directs them. We welcome any thoughts, feedback and contributions directly by emailing me at gary.lacey@salvationarmy.org.uk.