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BTCS 2008 is next week; please be sure of prayers from here for all your parishes as they prepare for this. 38 dioceses are formally involved, with some others who are running parallel projects of their own. Plus terrific buy-in from ecumenical partners, especially in the Baptist Union and the Methodist Church.
Please pray too for the national co-ordinating group as we discern the way forward for BTCS in the future.
http://www.backtochurch.co.uk/
Steven Croft has this for us: please share the news where you are
National Day of Pilgrimage 8th December in Coventry
The Archbishop of Canterbury is leading a national day of pilgrimage on forming fresh expressions of church in a catholic and sacramental tradition in Coventry Cathedral on Monday 8th December.
A PDF of the brochure for the day is attached: Download national_day_of_pilgrimage_invitation.pdf
All are welcome but it will be particularly helpful for clergy and lay leaders in an anglocatholic tradition who are beginning to explore fresh expressions of church. The day is centred around the Eucharist.
Please send on the attached invitation to everyone within your networks who may be interested. A number of fresh expressions in the catholic tradition are offering prayer stations to tell their stories including Blessed, Contemplative Fire, Feig, Glorious, mayBE, Moot, Nightchurch and Visions.
Numbers are limited. Booking is essential and you can book online or download a booking at www.freshexpressions.org.uk and follow the link from the home page.
Oxford diocese have been at the forefront of experiment in the mixed economy church for five years with their "Cutting Edge" programme.
Their report on the initiative, collated by project director Angie Paterson, is enormously helpful; view it here:
Alan Wilson (http://bishopalan.blogspot.com/) has drawn attention to this priceless video clip. As he says, "all behaviour is learned behaviour"...
NB. Start The Week is NOT recommending that you try this at home.
Smile if you like. But what do the 18-monthers do in YOUR church?
Alison Morgan sends news of these new materials:
Two new mission booklets from ReSource
We are finding increasingly that we are being invited to work both with mission partnerships and groupings, and with individual churches to provide support and training for mission. To help meet this need we have just published two new ReSource booklets by Roger Morgan. Roger has for years been involved in mission and evangelism, working amongst university students, for a time with Daniel Cozens and Through Faith Missions, and latterly in his own parishes of St Columba’s Corby and then Holy Trinity Leicester. Roger has now joined the ReSource team as a strategist and specialist missioner.
The first booklet, Stay Evangelism, is written to encourage ordinary Christians to develop a transparent and friendly lifestyle which makes it possible to share their faith unthreateningly and in a servant-hearted way with others. The second, Decision, is for those who are thinking of making a step of commitment, and is ideal for use with Alpha or in the context of parish missions and outreach events.
Stay Evangelism costs £3; Decision is £2 or £10 for a pack of 10. Both are available through www.resource-arm.net.
From the Cambridge Federation Dave has written of his experience as a pioneer with "The Net" in Huddersfield, and the lessons learned and applied from there.
From Fresh Expressions Andrew Roberts writes:
If you have five minutes and a cup of coffee please take a look at the you tube piece below.
The film is all about Wolverhampton Pioneer Ministries the fresh expression we set up in the centre of Wolverhampton as a joint venture between the Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury District and Lichfield Diocese. It was a labour of faith and love getting it together but you can see on the film how it is beginning to impact the city.
The clip is also a good example of a fresh expression engaging with Hope 08.
