Items filtered by date: December 2015

Facebook is the biggest social media network with millions of people worldwide using it. It offers a brilliant opportunity for your church to link into the local community, share events, photos or discussions. 

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Twitter is a remarkable social media platform. It's a way to connect with new people, keep in touch with those you know, find out what's going on in your world and get your message out there...all in 140 characters! 

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Ministry for Mission

I have recently been re-reading the Venerable Bede – monk and church historian in the eighth century. His Latin text was part of my syllabus as a student! I have been reminded of some important principles about ministry to deliver God’s mission in our time.

Principles for Today

In July the General Synod discussed the Reform and Renewal Programme being pursued by the Church of England in order to mobilise our resources to be most effective for God’s mission in the twenty-first century. There is the challenge of maintaining our inheritance of a parochial system that embraces every community in the country. Further, there is a challenge to find new and appropriate ways of being ‘church’ in our times. Both challenges depend upon the leadership and witness our church can offer.

Key proposals include:

• Doubling the number of candidates for ordination.

• Discipleship being our key priority – equipping the people of God.

• Creating a learning community to shape and support the leadership of the Church.

Bede and His Wisdom

In the eighth century, as the parish system was developing, there seemed to be a huge gap between the resources of the church for mission, and the needs of disparate communities not easy to reach (then because of poor roads; today because of cultural confusions about Christianity).

Bede wrote to the Archbishop of York making some suggestions:

• More priests to preach in the villages, celebrate the holy mysteries and baptise – we would call this traditional church today.

• The need to employ ‘adequate leaders of salutary life’, who could ‘teach the truth of the faith, and the difference between good and evil’. We would call this discipleship – focused on the two great issues that perplex our time: truth, and an understanding of good and evil.

Ministry for Mission

How should these resources be best deployed? Bede believed in the importance of minsters – we might use the term Resource Churches. Centres where priests and lay ministers were gathered for prayer, support and strategic deployment. We would call such arrangements ‘learning communities’. Locally in the Diocese we are using the term ‘School of Formation’.

Bede was content for each minster to ‘develop its own system of regulation’. Resources need to be marshalled appropriately. We see this as the potential role of the new Deaneries.

He concludes his advice with the observation that Bishops should ‘ordain priests, and institute leaders’. I am up for that – how many of you are ready to offer yourselves for such service?!

Reader Training

For all initial enquires about Reader Ministry in the Diocese of Derby, please contact:

See also: What is a Reader? | Becoming a Reader | Readers Handbook | Reader Returns and Reviews | Reader Licence Renewals

The Church of England takes its responsibility to select and train readers very seriously.

You may be called to become a Licensed Lay Minster (Reader).

An reader is a lay person who, following a call from God, is trained and licensed by the Anglican Church to teach the faith, enable mission and lead in church and society.

Readers are uniquely equipped to enable Christians to live out their Christian faith in the places where they spend the majority of their time.

As people who daily move between the worlds of work, home, social networks and church, readers can teach the faith and play a part in leadership such that all God’s people grow in confident and humble witness to God’s kingdom.

This ministry involves working together with an incumbent.

It can also include pastoral care, funeral ministry, and involvement in many other aspects of leadership in church and society – it now encompasses just about every area of ministry in the church apart from ordination! Watch the short video below to see how some LLM(R)s are living out their ministry (the last one, Emily, is from our Diocese).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqYC20Dtgwo&t=31s

If you feel you'd like to explore a calling to reader ministry please hop over to our dedicated reader training course website here or contact Revd Dawn Glen (dawn.glen@derby.anglican.org) for more details.

Once training begins, students go on placement in their home parish and their incumbent is expected to offer appropriate supervision and opportunity to develop new skills, preach and take part in leading worship. 

Students also do an external placement in a different setting.

For further informaiton, please contact Revd Dawn Glen - dawn.glen@derby.anglican.org or visit www.discipleship-training.org.