If you have an iPod (or other MP3 player*), then here’s an interesting little thing to put on it: Godpod. The concept is very simple, three highly regarded but very grounded theologians (Graham Tomlin, Mike Lloyd and Jane Williams), bring a mug of tea and a plate of biscuits and as they eat and drink together discuss burning issues of God, theology, life and wherever else the conversation leads. It often manages to help root big, important concepts in day to day life – often in a highly missional way.
They record about one a month and can be listened to direct from ther website: http://sptc.htb.org.uk/godpod or subscribed to by going to iTunes and searching for Godpod.
*You don’t need an MP3 player, you can just go to the website and click on play!
...allowing God to help us soar higher in mission...
With thanks to the many Churchwardens, clergy, administrators and others who took valuable time to complete the Statistics for Mission returns, for the first time this year we have produced a summary of these returns. It’s an exciting and challenging story of what God is doing across the county and city – a headline from which appeared in the recent edition of Shaped by God News.
The conclusions and comments on the Statistics are my own and some are even possibly contradictory, so it is important the summary is read as a whole, rather than aspects extracted without context (for example, the exciting news of the returns which indicate over 1,300 new people have joined our worshipping communities as regular members should be held against the caution in the yellow box on page six!). I’m not a professional statistician and I’m happy to be contradicted or, even better, for additional to be reached! The main thing is that we engage together in what God is doing amongst us and saying to us – how might we best help Him to grow His Kingdom, so that lives and communities might be transformed by the saving love of Jesus Christ?
For the first time, this year, we are also making available the raw data, in excel format, for those interested to analyse. The hope is that this will result in additional conclusions being reached, maybe more specific to Mission Partnership or Deanery, as well as help the ongoing diocesan 2020 vision process. It is important that the caveats in the above summary are held alongside the raw data, which is in Excel format. To download the spreadsheet click here.
UPDATE: Also, Bob Jackson (church growth consultant) has written some thoughts on using these Statistics for Mission. He proposes four stages: collecting, collating, reading and interpreting. The above summary deals with the collating, reading and some of the interpreting, but much more local interpretation work remains to be done. To read Bob’s paper and explore how it might relate to your benefice, Mission Partnership or Deanery click here: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/about/churchcommissioners/resourcingmission/chapter5.pdf
Framland Reader and Evangelist, Ted Hutchin, has written a comprehensive reflection on the rural mission day conference (with comments from Audrey Hutchin). To read it click here: report on the day conference on Rural Mission
For those who have ordered resources for Back to Church Sunday, I’m pleased to say they have been printed (nationally) ahead of schedule and so should be with you in the next two-three weeks. Invoices will also follow in the coming weeks too, together with a note with some ideas of how to make the most of this important occasion.
Also, one thing to mention, a number of churches have found the Everybody Welcome course especially helpful in looking at how to make our worshipping communities as welcoming as possible. Well, good news! There is now a commerical tie-in with Back to Church Sunday so if you do Back to Church Sunday you can now get an even larger discount on Everybody Welcome resources. For more details see http://www.everybodywelcome.org.uk/ and contact Church House Publishing direct for the discount (25% I think).
We’re in the process of finalising numbers for the Mission Shaped Ministry course (the eighteen month accompaniment course for those interested or involved in leading Fresh Expressions of church). The course is being facilitated by a number of both nationally respected specialists in their field (people like Bishop Graham Cray, Rachel Jordan, Andrew Roberts, Ian Mobsby, Tim Lea and Bob & Mary Hopkins) and a range of excellent local practitioners, and comprises of six Saturday’s and six week nights over a year and a half.
We are hoping to have finalised places soon and are able to offer a subsidy for those coming as part of a leadership or core group from a Fresh Expression. The next course likely won’t be starting until later in 2012 so this is the last opportunity for a while for people to experience this course.
On Saturday 10th July, 130 clergy and key lay people gathered for a diocesan day conference in Broughton Astley to consider how we might go further and deeper with mission in a rural context. We were welcomed by the assistant Bishop of Leicester, Christopher Boyle, who shared a story of his time engaged in rural mission in Malawi; stimulated by two keynote addresses by the Bishop of Shrewsbury and Chair of the Rural Theology Association, Mark Rylands; positively provoked to further thinking by five subject specific seminars; and visited a range of related stalls. Many people left enthused, encouraged and stirred in their thinking and action. Let’s continue to pray that God uses this, and the energy of all those present, to help grow His Kingdom further, both in breadth and depth. Pictures from the day are below the links to download recordings of the talks and associated notes.
Seminars were led by Tim and Kirsten Shaw (Fresh Expressions in a rural context); Peter Hooper (Church Tourism and Mission); David Newman (Resourcing Mission); Janet Ingram and John Fryer (Rural Children, Rural Church) and Barry Hill (fruitful rural Mission Partnerships).
With many thanks to all who came and contributed leading seminars, talks, stalls, worship and behind the scenes in so many ways.
The link up with BBC Radio Leicester is developing even further this year but as a result the date is changing. It will now be on:
TUESDAY 21 DECEMBER, 7 – 8 pm
Hopefully this change from the provisional date will be OK for you. Sing Christmas 2010 will have a higher profile on BBC Radio Leicester with much more advance promotion. The content will be similar to last year with well-known Christmas carols to sing along with and the opportunity for participating venues to text or telephone in for a mention in the live broadcast.
More information will be available in September and we’ll let you know when venues can register online and download invitations, posters and song sheets. Please note the date, and plan to join in with this huge Christmas sing-along. See www.singchristmas.org.uk for what happened last year.
One of the five ‘marks’ of mission within the Anglican Communion is ‘to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth’.
To this end, there’s a three day conference in Nottingham this September, ‘Green as a Leaf; Renewing a Theology of Creation’. The conference aims to cross disciplinary divides to challenge us all to live and flourish in a new way. It will be unique in bringing together theologians and ethicists from around the country to convene with artists, poets, those engaged professionally with horticulture and the environment, together with interested members of local worshipping communities. Rarely are such disparate groups brought into conversation, and yet they have much to offer each other. For more information click here.
Find out what is being learned from the experience of leading Messy Church in a variety of difference contexts (rural/urban/large/small etc) and what this may be saying to the Church at this Messy Fiesta training day on Saturday 17th July. For church leaders, youth workers or children’s workers considering running Messy Church events, or Messy Church leaders considering the next steps. The event will be held at St John’s College Nottingham and the speaker is Lucy Moore. Cost is £15 including lunch (payment in advance by cheque or card please). To download a booking form click here for further info contact Helen Taylor, tel: 0115 968 3221 or email: h.taylor@stjohns-nottm.ac.uk
Bishop Graham Cray, head of Fresh Expressions, wrote an thought provoking piece on Fresh Expressions in this months Fresh Expressions newsletter. he started, “One of the most common misunderstandings about fresh expressions is the belief that they are new types of worship service. It is an understandable mistake as worship lies at the heart of the life of the church, and fresh expressions are…” To keep reading click http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/e-xpressions/jun10?newsletter-view
Some of us have recently read Daniel Pink’s best selling book, Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. This isn’t a Christian perspective, but gives a fascinating challenge as to what motivates us. His work would seem to strongly indicate carrots and sticks don’t work in most situations. Really?! And if not, what does?! Why not watch this 10 min summary of his book, narrated by him and drawn by… …well I don’t know but someone very good at drawing:
Thought provoking, eh? How might this speak into the Christian life, our churches and mission?
Rather than leaving them in a pile at the back of your church, where they can get a little lost amongst a range of other leaflets, it is designed to be given to each congregation member one Sunday. Can I encourage you to try giving them out this time? I appreciate this is a little different to you may have done it, but where this has happened it has really helped encourage congregations as to what God is doing in nearby or neighbouring churches. If this means you need more copies just let Carol know (carol.gibbons@leccofe.org)
This edition has exciting news on church growth in the diocese last year plus encouraging stories and ideas for mission from Reaching for the Sky with the All Saints Mission Partnership, Street Pastors in Blaby, Passion for Life in Rothley, drinking from The Well in Kibworth, Foxton’s exciting new community choir and Grill a Vicar in South-West Framland. Plus there’s the usual mix of resources for mission reviewed, a Bible study and much besides. Read it online here: http://sbg.dioceseofleicester.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/2010-July-SBG-Final-Version.pdf
One of the joys of my role at the moment is working with a number of churches the welcome they offer – both the human welcome and the buildings themselves. In a session recently, in which the topic of noticeboards came up, one Churchwarden mentioned that the normal SmartWater signs sent by Ecclesiastical Insurance get quite tatty rather quickly. Given these signs are normally displayed in key places in terms of projecting the best possible image, she asked whether some more robust signs might be available. Good news – if you are in this boat then contact Richard Carter at Smart Water on 0870 2428899 for details of some special harder wearing signage.
A really small thing in the scheme of things, but funny how lots of small things can project an image about the worshipping community – whether we mean to or not!
Just one day to go until the very final opportunity to register your church and order resources for Back to Church Sunday. After Tuesday 15th June there will be no more opportunity to do so. For details of how to register and order resources (no payment required at this stage) go to http://www.backtochurch.co.uk/page/3059/Register++Order+Resources This single print run, by supplier Traidcraft, allows costs to be minimised. All orders will be delivered between late July and the middle of August, and with invoices being sent by Church House, Leicester, over the next few months. Two things to remember when registering/ordering:
1. Whether you are using your own resources or purchasing the nationally produced ones, please can you registereither way so we can put any visitors who contact us in touch with you, and get your feedback afterwards.
2. Please can every church taking part be registered individually – even if a single pack is being ordered for a team – just put zero in the order boxes when registering – again this allows us to put any visitors who contact us in touch with you, and get your feedback afterwards.
If you have an iPod (or other MP3 player*), then here’s an interesting little thing to put on it: Godpod. The concept is very simple, three highly regarded but very grounded theologians (Graham Tomlin, Mike Lloyd and Jane Williams), bring a mug of tea and a plate of biscuits and as they eat and drink together discuss burning issues of God, theology, life and wherever else the conversation leads. It often manages to help root big, important concepts in day to day life – often in a highly missional way. 
The July Fresh Expressions newsletter is now available to download here: 
