Key words and phrases

I am passionate about exploring the co-existence of ‘traditional’ churches and new worshipping communities.

If we want to grow younger, sustain local ministry, cultivate vocations and nurture new worshipping communities, we need stop cutting clergy posts and invest more at parish level.

Over the years I have had the privilege of serving in many different ways, pioneering new worshipping communities, working both within and beyond traditional church structures, and building bridges between them.

I long to see churches renewed, new worshipping communities planted, vocations released and Christians equipped to share their faith in everyday life restoring the communities in which they serve to help build together the Kingdom of God here whilst we await Christ’s return.

New worshipping communities, chaplaincies, church plants and fresh expressions all have an important part to play in our common life.

Supporting Lay ministry and New Worshipping Communities

Training, equipping and supporting lay ministers in developing and sustaining new worshipping communities will enable more people to encounter the transformational love of God.

I welcome new worshipping communities where they plant the Gospel in places the inherited parish cannot easily reach.

Where money is spent to support fabulous new worshipping communities, this should reflect the wide breadth of Anglican traditions, not focus on one or two.

I have seen mission flourish when parish churches, chaplaincies, fresh expressions and new worshipping communities work together.

I would like to serve again on General Synod as a practical, constructive voice for local churches: committed to mission, encouraging the growth of new worshipping communities, supporting our church buildings, and making sure the contribution of lay people is heard.

I welcome the current national aim of creating 10,000 new worshipping communities - alongside the congregations of the existing 16,200 parish churches, and Bishop Debbie 's keenness for our Diocese to play its part in this.

It has been remarkable to see what God has done during this time, illustrated by the 13 new worshipping communities that have grown out of this original plant.

The team I lead is responsible for implementing the diocese’s vision and strategy, raising and supporting lay and ordained vocations, training of our curates and readers, clergy wellbeing and their continued ministerial development, parish vision planning, revitalisation, mission, evangelism, Children, Youth and Families support and training, and the development of new worshipping communities from new services to large church plants.

Having been a multi-parish rural incumbent in this diocese for seventeen years, and for the past eleven and a half one of the archdeacons supporting clergy and lay people in rural and urban parishes, I remain utterly committed to the parish system as the bedrock of the Church of England’s proclamation of the Gospel in our localities, and to our own Exeter diocesan vision for the growth of mission communities encompassing churches, chaplaincies, schools, and new worshipping communities of many different kinds—with the parish church at the heart of it all. continued over the page

National initiatives and new worshipping communities can help, but they should strengthen the parish, not bypass it.

My ministry has involved both growing established parish churches and planting new worshipping communities.

However, I also see the incredible work being done by fresh expressions and new worshipping communities, and would seek way for the familiar and the innovative to flourish together, for the enrichment of the whole people of God.

Church plants, new worshipping communities and other forms of mission can reach people from different backgrounds while flourishing alongside our parish churches.

I welcome church planting and new worshipping communities alongside that commitment.