Saturday, October 15, 2005
Hope for new forms of contextual Fresh Expressions Church and Leadership for the future
You may not have noticed, but last week there was some serious progress in the resoucing of fresh expressions of church. This time the Archbishop has backed the proposal written by the new 'Fresh Expressions Agency' called 'Guidelines for the identification, training and deployment of ordained pioneer ministers'. This document was discussed by the House of Bishops meeting at Lambeth Palace last week which seeks to find 10 to 20 pioneer ministers to enter a two-year training programme starting in September 2006. As some know some colleges such as the one I went to in the now called 'East Region Ministerial Training Course' and St Johns College Nottingham has been gearing up to this task.
This means, that there will be a form of structure for people called to 'pioneer ministerial callings' to have a route that seeks to hold onto their calling in the interface between church and culture.
If this was around when I was going through the selection process, then my life would have been much easier. This does mean, that there are beginning to be opportunities for people who find a home in fresh expressions such as Moot, to seek ordination with a call to do similar church projects in the same or different contexts. So this is a good move for those who are considering training.... Not so great for those who are trained and are looking for pioneering opprtunities, which there are a surprising many, who are deacons and priests who have had to face the difficulties of serving a title that is overly focused on doing traditional church, and neglects their call to innovative mission and .contextual church... Hopefully this will be the next development, to create opprtunities for those who are called to be pioneer ministers who are already trained and battling to keep going. However, this does not undervalue that things are moving in the right direction.
For further info on the article in the Church of England Newspaper, click here.
On a similar note, A funding proposal has now been drafted and is now going to those with responsbility for Moot, (The Vicar of St Matthews Westminster & the Archdeacon of Charing Cross), to check the application to support the creation of a fulltime post of an ordained Pioneer Minister/Moot Project Worker to assist the Moot community to develop its activity and ministry....... Please pray and watch this space to see if we are successful. I will post the application once it has been submitted.
This means, that there will be a form of structure for people called to 'pioneer ministerial callings' to have a route that seeks to hold onto their calling in the interface between church and culture.
If this was around when I was going through the selection process, then my life would have been much easier. This does mean, that there are beginning to be opportunities for people who find a home in fresh expressions such as Moot, to seek ordination with a call to do similar church projects in the same or different contexts. So this is a good move for those who are considering training.... Not so great for those who are trained and are looking for pioneering opprtunities, which there are a surprising many, who are deacons and priests who have had to face the difficulties of serving a title that is overly focused on doing traditional church, and neglects their call to innovative mission and .contextual church... Hopefully this will be the next development, to create opprtunities for those who are called to be pioneer ministers who are already trained and battling to keep going. However, this does not undervalue that things are moving in the right direction.
For further info on the article in the Church of England Newspaper, click here.
On a similar note, A funding proposal has now been drafted and is now going to those with responsbility for Moot, (The Vicar of St Matthews Westminster & the Archdeacon of Charing Cross), to check the application to support the creation of a fulltime post of an ordained Pioneer Minister/Moot Project Worker to assist the Moot community to develop its activity and ministry....... Please pray and watch this space to see if we are successful. I will post the application once it has been submitted.
