Mission Network News

Missioner of the Year 2008

Once again the Missioners Conference is on the horizon and so it’s time to elect our Missioner of the Year 2008. Previous distinguished winners are John Holmes, Robin Gamble and Sue Hope.

To vote for the person you think has made an outstanding contribution to the church through their role as a diocesan missioner, please email Jayne with the name you choose, at [email protected]

Cafe Latty

Here's an article in this week's Church Times on cafe church. Let's face it - if your name was Cid Latty, what other ministry could you possibly do?

For more on the Cafechurch Network try http://www.cafechurch.net/

The full CT article is here.

And here's an espresso-sized taster:

TWO high-street coffee-shop chains, Costa Coffee and Gloria Jean’s Coffees, have given churches in the Caféchurch Network the go-ahead to use their shop premises for regular meetings.

Caféchurch is proving to be a popular means of drawing in people who might not be attracted to a service or event in a conventional church setting. The Network describes it as “church, but not as you know it. . . coffee with a conscience . . . the fresh expression of community on the high street. It brings communities into the relaxed café atmosphere to deal with issues from a faith perspective.”

Six churches are already operating in Costa Coffee or Gloria Jean’s premises, and the national agreement will allow many others to set up in their area. The Revd Cid Latty, from Christchurch Baptist Church in Welwyn Garden City, began the movement two years ago, and is delighted with its expansion.

Caféchurch takes place on weekday or Sunday evenings, and is operated by the coffee-shop staff. It uses a simple arrangement that does not involve money changing hands. The church pays by loyalty card. The scheme guarantees a certain amount of sales, depending on the capacity of the store, which in the case of a 70-seater, for example, would be about £250.

“It means everyone needs to buy a coffee. If they don’t make the sales, then the church pays the credit. It’s very simple,” said Mr Latty on Tuesday, describing the national roll-out of the scheme as “very, very exciting. The coffee-shop context is one that Christians love and people who don’t go to church love. There’s a lot of talk about how few men go to church, for instance — well, when you do a Caféchurch, men turn up as well. It’s just all-round good,” he said.

Future Church conference - October 30/31

 From Global Mission Network Janice Price sends news of this:

Dear friends,

I attach our preliminary flyer for the Future Church Conference 2008 on the subject Future Church and Missionary Diversity, 30/31 October 2008 at Woodbrooke Study Centre, Selly Oak, Birmingham.

It’ll be great to see some of you there!

Download future_church_conference_2...pdf

Purpose Driven UK: inculturated for small & rural UK churches

The “Purpose driven” movement are rightly seeing the need to inculturate their material for the UK. Here’s the latest from PDUK’s Peter Simpson.

New campaign reflects ‘British’ culture

Many churches have expressed concern that so many resources now come from the States and using those resources may cause some resistance from members of their congregations.

The Purpose Driven UK  new campaign called ‘Building Relationships’ with God’s Love has been revised and adapted for UK churches and can be easily used in a wide range of church sizes and denominations.  The six weeks DVD teaching will be taught by Rev David Beer and the Sunday school and youth resources  have been compiled by a group of UK youth leaders.

The campaign pack has a wide range of resources for weekend services, small groups and all ages.

This material  is suitable for rural and small churches as both a small group or campaign resource. 

For more information check www.purposedrivenuk.com  or telephone Purpose Driven on 01255 435577

Church Army & Sheffield Centre update

David Coleman & Laurence Keith have this from CA:

XPLORE TASTER WEEKEND

We hope to hold a taster weekend for young people aged 18-25 who are interested in the Xplore Global Gap year programme.

The weekend will be held in Liverpool from 11th - 13th July, and will involve an opportunity to meet this year's Xplore interns, experience a typical training session, and engage in hands on mission.

If you have young adults who may be interested, please encourage them to contact Phil Clark at [email protected] or phone 08445 853575

Sheffield Centre Bulletin

 Laurence Keith reports..... Please find below a link to our webpage where you can view/download our latest research bulletin, released this month.

The Sheffield Centre research bulletin no.2.

We hope you find it interesting, and that it gives you more of an idea of what we do here outside of the focus on older people information bulletin. Any queries please get in touch.

RUN conference, June 17-19

This year’s Reaching the Unchurched Network conference has a star-studded speaker list headed by Brian McLaren. They have 250 attendees to date but there’s plenty of room for more. Download the flyer here.

File Attachment: more than this - run natio...pdf (495 KB)

Mission Action Planning latest

Mike Chew has this from Blackburn diocese

 

Dear friends,

 

Just an update on Mission Action Planning.

 

1) The churchmaps.co.uk website is attracting a growing number of hits, and the number of dioceses now contributing or showing active interest has risen to 14.  There is some good material on the site, but many people want to know more about MAP. So Mark Ireland, Peter Hill and I are writing a book to synthesise the latest learning and thinking. We have invited David Hope to write the foreword.

 

2) We are receiving requests to organise a study day for MAP facilitators/missioners. We plan to organise this for Sept/October at a central location, and  we will provide more information soon. Would those who would be interested in attending please email us via the website (www.churchmaps.co.uk and click on 'email us') and we will send full details when we have them.

 

All best wishes,

 

Mike

--------------------------------------------------

Mike Chew

MAP/Growth Strategy Facilitator

Blackburn Diocese

Tel:   01282 680266

Mob: 07801 888955

New DNA website

Peter Gilbert writes:

Dear friends,

We have recently had our website redesigned and are thrilled with its new look and feel. 

We would really appreciate it if you take a few minutes to log onto to www.dna-uk.org to have a look – and please tell us what you think; specifically if you have any ideas specifically as to what else would help us attract people to do DNA with us.

Thanks for all your support and friendship. 

With love and peace in Jesus

Pete

[email protected]

Back To Church Sunday worldwide

Check out this blog post on the Sydney Anglicans website from Australia’s National Mission Facilitator, Stuart Robinson.

Includes reference to Back To Church Sunday which is now spreading beyond UK – a number of bishops at the Lambeth Conference will be discussing Back To Church with members of the UK steering group.

Yvonne Richmond & family: prayers please

Most STW readers will know Yvonne, who is Canon for Mission and Evangelism at Coventry Cathedral.  Yvonne's husband Simon died tragically and suddenly last week while on business in Spain. Please pray for Yvonne, for the children Melissa, Ollie and Luke, and for their wider family and friends in their grief.

College of Evangelists - latest newsletter

Membership of the College of Evangelists continues to increase and the College continues to play its part in recognising and supporting those whose evangelistic ministry reaches beyond any one diocese.
Download the latest College newsletter here; it has biographies of most of those commissioned this year, together with articles by Alan Smith, Jean Kerr and Stephen Cottrell:

Download 58220_evangelists_3rd_rev.pdf

Leading Your Church into Growth

Dave Banbury sends this on behalf of the LYCiG team:

Leading Your Church Into Growth

9 -12 June 2008, St Johns College, York

There are a handful of places left on this excellent residential course.

Leading Your Church Into Growth is highly popular course specifically designed for clergy and lay leaders from across different traditions and denominations who want practical help and training in the area of church growth.  The course has now been attended by 1 in 10 Anglican clergy and regularly attracts extremely positive feedback from course members.

Course content includes:

• Becoming a positive leader
• Leading a positive team
• Understanding our context and mission field
• Becoming a mission church
• Sharing practical mission event ideas
• Preparing and stimulating lay people for evangelism
• Establishing growth structures, strategies and principles
• Encouraging missionary worship
• Developing a culture of invitation and welcome
• Creating a church community

If you know anyone who would benefit from this course please do pass this information on to them.

For inquiries and bookings contact

Mrs Tracie Hunt
LYCIG Administrator
34 Wesley Ave
Low Moor
Bradford
BD12 0NR
Tel: 01274 604904

E-mail [email protected]

There is also a course in Swanwick 3-6 Nov 2008

Latest Religious Trends publication ‘flawed and dangerously misleading’

You may well have seen this C of E release by now, but just in case:

Projections and comparisons published by Christian Research in its recent Religious Trends publication are flawed and dangerously misleading, the Church of England said today. “These statistics are incomplete and represent only a partial picture of religious trends in the UK today. In recent years, church life has significantly diversified so these traditional statistics are less and less meaningful in isolation,” said the Rev Lynda Barley, Head of Research and Statistics for the Archbishops’ Council.

“These figures take no account of the rapid growth in ‘Back to Church Sunday’ initiatives that are drawing thousands back to church. Nor, being based purely on numbers in church buildings on Sundays, do they take account of the thousands joining the Church through ‘fresh expressions’ initiatives meeting in other places, on other days.”

Across Christian denominations and other faiths, the research does not compare like with like. The number of active Muslims, for example, is an estimated projection based on halving the number of people who said they were Muslim at the last national government census in 2001. The same process for those who said they were Christian at the last census would yield about 20 million active Christians of whom around 14 million are active Anglicans (based on recent national surveys).

Instead, this research estimates Christian 'membership' using, for example, the number of adults on the Church of England's local parish based formal voting lists as the sole measure of its active 'members'. Huge numbers of people worshipping every week and involved in their churches in all sorts of other ways are consequently missed.

“There are more than 1.7 million people worshipping in a Church of England church or cathedral each month, a figure that is 30 per cent higher than the electoral roll figures and has remained stable since 2000,” said Lynda Barley. “More are involved in fresh expressions of church and chaplaincies across the country and we have no reason to believe that this will drop significantly in the next decade. Of course, we hope and pray even more people will come along and see what they're missing.”

mission shaped ministry gains academic recognition

Norman Ivison has this good news from Fresh Expressions:

The Fresh Expressions’ one year part-time course, which aims to equip people to start new forms of church, has received academic recognition by the University of Cumbria, the nation’s newest university. 

mission shaped ministry was launched nationally last year and will be running in 20 centres with a total of 1000 students by the end of 2008. 

The University of Cumbria was so impressed with the method of teaching and the programme that it validated the course currently running in Cumbria and North Lancashire.  Students who successfully complete a series of assignments will be awarded credits which they can use when they do further courses in higher education. 

The President of the Methodist Conference, Dr Martyn Atkins, said that ‘more and more Christian people are learning to plant, sustain and lead fresh expressions of church. The mission shaped ministry course is a crucial means by which the Holy Spirit is preparing them for this calling’. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, added that when it comes to starting fresh expressions of church, ‘the mission shaped ministry course looks set to make a major contribution and I’m delighted to commend it.’

The Bishop of Lancaster, Geoffrey Pearson, who is part of the team working on the Cumbria and North Lancashire course,  also claimed that ‘the mission shaped ministry course is set up to invest in new mission leaders.  It is a positive pathway for any who desire to be better equipped for sharing Jesus Christ in today's culture’.

According to Fresh Expressions’ Director of Training, Norman Ivison, the aim is to make the course available within an hour of everyone in England and also available in Wales, Scotland and on both sides of the Irish border.

He said: ‘The University’s recognition of the course also shows that fresh expressions of church and the establishment of new congregations are not an optional extra but at are at the heart of what the church in the UK is about’.   ‘Already the course has encouraged Christians to form churches on new housing estates, on a double decker bus in Lincolnshire and amongst students and young people’ he added.

Further information about available courses can be found at:  www.freshexpressions.org.uk/missionshapedministry 

Church Commissioners Annual Report 2007

As you know the Commissioners are some of our really significant missional allies in England; the latest edition of their Annual Report is available now, viewable in an online-reader-friendly version at http://www.churchcommissionersannualreport.org/2007/index.html and downloadable in full from http://cofe.anglican.org/about/churchcommissioners/annualreport/. See especially the info on "Funding the Church's Mission".
A contender for the thumping good read award 2008.

Alison Morgan on John Drane's "After McDonaldization"

Warm thanks to Alison who sends the latest of her excellent precis/reviews, this time of John Drane's "After McDonaldization: ministry, mission & Christian discipleship in an age of uncertainty" (DLT 2008).

Download it here: 

Download drane_2008.pdf

EA - "Slipstream"

Krish Kandiah at Evangelical Alliance has news of this resource -

I wonder if you could let people know about www.eauk.org/slipstream now as we have gone live…

A monthly podcast and e-letter to bring leadership resources straight to your inbox.

Nehemiah Foundation

Guy Wilkinson has been involved in this initiative - a very interesting, engaging and rigorous way of equipping people to do holistic mission through community transformation/regeneration initiatives. For more see  http://www.regenworker.com

They write:

Following on from the completion of a successful pilot, The Foundation starts the 2nd Round of its Community Regeneration Programme on September 22nd 2008.

It is a programme for people and organisations who want to: -
* play a significant part in transforming their communities;
* work with people from all walks of life; and
* make a genuine, practical and sustainable difference to peoples lives. 
More information is available at  www.regenworker.com

Come along if you are interested in being on it, part of it, or simply
finding out more.

The event will be particularly helpful for: -
* people who want to make a difference in their neighbourhoods;
* neighbourhood focussed organisations who want people to help them do that; and
* businesses engaged in neighbourhood based regeneration.

to RSVP or find out more please: -
Email: [email protected]    OR
[email protected]
Phone: Barbara Hatton on 0121 212 7420
Post: The Nehemiah Foundation, Floor 6A 134 Edmund Street,
Birmingham, B3 2ES
>
> The Nehemiah Foundation is supported by Anthony Collins Solicitors & the Church Urban Fund

Church Website design tool

Tony Whittaker writes with this - might interest some where you are?

I'm the coordinator for Internet Evangelism Day, and based in Derby. And a member of St Philip & Jacob church Bristol.

You may be particularly interested in our church website design tool at

http://ied.gospelcom.net/church-site-design.php

Back To Church Sunday

From the C of E press release for Back To Church 2008.

Back to Church Sunday goes global
Thousands of churchgoers across the world to invite their friends to return to church

People in churches all over Britain, and for the first time, in other parts of the world, will be backingBack to Church Sunday this September 28th and inviting a friend back to church with them.

Thirty eight Church of England dioceses from Cornwall to Newcastle will join with Churches Together in Scotland, the Church in Wales, Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed churches nationwide, Elim Pentecostal churches and Anglican churches in New Zealand and Canada.

This represents exponential growth for Back to Church Sunday, which began in Manchester in 2004 with the message ‘Missing You’, and spread to Wakefield in 2005, nine Church of England dioceses in 2006 and 20 in 2007, when 20,000 people came back to church in one day.

Research by the Diocese of Lichfield after last year’s Back to Church Sunday suggested that 6,000 people came back to church on that day and that, six months later, between 700 and 900 (12-15 per cent) had become regular members. About a further 3,000 are still in touch with their inviting churches and may have come at Christmas or to a social event.

The Archdeacon of Walsall, Bob Jackson, said: “People invite their friends on Back to Church Sunday with no strings attached. We know many people will gladly respond to this. What we’ve proved is that up to 15 per cent like it so much they want to come back for good. No wonder Back to Church Sunday has been such an encouragement. This year we want to work hard on improving our welcome even more.”

Ian Bunce, Head of Mission for the Baptist Union, which represents more than 2,000 churches, trialed Back to Church Sunday last year in the North West and is now promoting it nationally: “We are delighted to be part of Back to Church Sunday. We believe the concept of a personal invitation really works. For people to have the opportunity to try church again with a friend is a great concept.”

The 2008 resources centre on a special and personal invitation, with a place card bearing the emblem ‘VIP’.

The venture is supported by Traidcraft, which produces fairly traded and environmentally friendly resources for churches to advertise their invitation and welcome. Local churches buy a Back to Church pack, with invitations, posters, prayer cards, balloons, welcome team tshirts, with ‘friendly feedback’ cards for newcomers. Participating dioceses and denominations are additionally supported with multimedia training resources and ‘top tips’ style factsheets to use in ‘welcome workshops’ over the summer.

For more go to www.backtochurch.co.uk