Latest News
New Health & Beauty Programme Begins, Mon 6 Nov 2006 read more
New 4x4 Courses At Life Discovery, Sat 16 Sep 2006 read more
Life Discovery Works To Develop New Films For Guests, Sat 1 Apr 2006 read more
Forthcoming Events
Sat 6 Sep 2008, Discovert First Saturday, event details
Sat 4 Oct 2008, Discovert First Saturday, event details
Sat 1 Nov 2008, Discovert First Saturday, event details
Sat 6 Dec 2008, Discovert First Saturday, event details
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More about Life Discovevry
What does Life Discovery do and what's different about it?
When and how do your days happen - and how much are they?
What's the background to Life Discovery and what's been achieved so far?
How many people are involved in this work?
Do you give your guests the opportunity to make their own minds up?
What does Life Discovery do and what's different about it? top
In a phrase, we aim to offer what we call 'Space To Think'. It's a concept we believe in so strongly that we've created a place for it, our own venue, the Discovery Centre, in Salfords, Surrey, not far from Horley on the Surrey/Sussex border.
Somewhere that adult people can go on the first Saturday of each month, away from the pressures of everyday life. Somewhere they can discover something about themselves - in the course of discovering activities that, for us, are each, in their own way, expressions of what Jesus called 'Life and Life to the Full'.
Our Karting For Life programme, for example, puts guests through more high speed on-track motorsport excitement than they could buy almost anywhere on the corporate market. Xtreme Mudsports For Life, meanwhile, provides off-road exhilaration with all-terrain buggies and quad-bikes. Watersports For Life, with its jet-sking and canoeing is equally stimulating. As for Paintballing For Life, well get into your combats, grab a machine gun and get rid of those frustrations: there's nothing quite like it. Health, Beauty & Life in contrast, is like a day at a health spa - the ultimate in relaxation.
As the activities are going on, we ask our guests to consider some life-changing questions. Like Why Am I Here?, Does My Life Matter? and What Is My Purpose? And we give them some answers to consider. Answers that can change their lives.
Coming to know Jesus Christ is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It follows then that a once-in-a-lifetime day out, doing something you've never had the opportunity to do before, is an ideal environment in which to hear the Gospel. As importantly, if guests want to attend in the first place, they will be much more open to what the speaker has to say.
That's the key. The people who come on our days want to come, even though they know that in the course of the day, they're going to be hearing the Gospel. They want to come because what we're doing is something they'd find difficult to duplicate anywhere else - in or out of the church.
When and how do your days happen - and how much are they? top
The 'when' is easy: all our days happen on the first Saturday of each month at our centre. As for the 'how', well our Karting, Mudsports, Watersports and Paintball programmes often all run together as part of what we call a Multi-Activity Day that gives people a chance to experience all of these in a single event. However, each of these can also operate as a single stand-alone day in itself. It all depends what you want.
Because our Health, Beauty & Life programme is only for women, it operates separately but still on our first Saturday dates at the Discovery Centre. That means partners can come together, do their own thing, then meet up in the evening.
And cost? Well, as a registered charity, we make no formal charge, though we do ask for a donation (usually about £30) towards the cost of the day and give a suggested figure that will help cover our costs. However, money is never allowed to become a barrier to churches or to guests.
What's the background to Life Discovery and what's been achieved so far? top
The background is simply down to a group of Christian people determined to reach out to others who would never normally be open to anything Christians had to say. That's what led to the establishment of the first Karting For Life programme in 1992 and subsequently to the setting up of Discovery Ministries.
For the next ten years, Discovery Ministries ran a variety of programmes all targeted at getting Christians to invite people who would never normally darken the door of a church. Watersports For Life, Health, Beauty & Life and Xtreme Mudsports For Life were all added to the activities that could be offered, all run on separate days at separate venues.
Throughout, we had a vision that in the future, all these programmes could be brought together and run on one day from our own purpose-built centre. It was a vision made reality in 2005 when the 'Discovery Centre' was established on Honeycrock Farm near Salfords in Surrey. After just 18 months of development, we were able to re-launch with a refreshed vision and a new name: Life Discovery.
The response from guests over the years we've been operating has been phenomenal. We see our job as changing people's perceptions about Christianity, creating opportunities for Christians to build relationship bridges and making people more open to the reality of a relationship with God. Those three objectives have been achieved with virtually all our guests over hundreds of events run over more than a decade.
A registered charity whose events are run by volunteers from a variety of Christian denominations, we're there to provide a tool for churches and Christian organisations to use to reach those who would otherwise be... well, hard to reach. As a bridge into church-based outreach, we think we've a crucial role in the church of the 21st Century.
How many people are involved in this work? top
It takes many men and women to operate each activity programme. They're all volunteers, giving up their spare time to make these days possible. Our guests just can't believe the amount of effort that is put in or how excited the team is about doing it. We don't have to preach at the people who come along: the day itself says everything that needs to be said.
Do you give your guests the opportunity to make their own minds up? top
Absolutely. They're certainly not pressurised in any way. We show a short video at the beginning of each of our days that tells our guests what activities we have in store and shares a little of who we are and why we're doing what we do. From this, we develop into a multi-media presentation that in short sections asks the key life questions we want them to consider throughout the day. They'll get a DVD copy of this to take away at the end, a disc that includes an extra session that can be viewed back at home with the person that brought them.
Plus, they're given a free booklet called Exploding The Myths that tries to address most of the common issues people have with Christianity. At the end of the day as a prelude to the meal, there's a short talk from a Christian speaker they'll have had time to get to know with throughout the day. Apart from that, if people want to ask about our faith, they can. Otherwise, they are simply free to enjoy the activities we offer them. What we do and how we do it speaks for itself.
Busionaries top
A particular source of help for our work to date has come from Christian business people who have felt God calling them to financially support the ministry: we call them Busionaries. Visionaries who, thought they can't physically get involved, give regularly or specifically for particular items of equipment to make the programmes happen. It's an exciting thing to give to because you can very often see a concrete result from your giving as an extra item of equipment increases the number of people we can reach.