Our proposals for mission communities will enable us to work together in growing, nurturing and serving our communities across the Diocese of Manchester. But what will mission communities look like? We’ve developed a resource to guide local conversations about this new way of working and what it will look like in practice. A printable version is available hereand a short video can be found below:
Starting your mission community
Focusing on these three priority areas of growing, nurturing and serving will help our churches and mission communities thrive in changing times. A church that is growing, nurturing and serving contains ideas under each mission goal to get you started.
It is key that our mission communities are underpinned by a culture of prayer, discernment, theological reflection and expectation. A prayer event is therefore the perfect way to mark the formation of your mission community. This could take the form of:
a prayer walk between the churches in your community
a prayer event at each of the churches
establishing a regular pattern of prayer for the mission community as a whole. Ideally, this event will be organised and promoted by a team from across the parishes in your mission community.
Each of our new 33 mission communities will have a mission community leader who will provide leadership of and support to the mission community leadership team and the wider mission community.
A number of mission community leaders have been appointed and a programme of induction and training is underway. The Area Deans and Archdeacons will continue a process of discernment to identify the rest of the mission community leaders up to June 2022. The role of the mission community leader has been laid out in the Mission Community Guidance document published in November 2021.
A representation of each mission community and details of the mission community leader can be found below.
Bolton Deanery
Mission community
Mission community leader
1
2
3
4
Bury and Rossendale Deanery
Mission community
Mission community leader
1
xxxxxxx
Donna Williams
2
Julian Heaton
3
Paul Sumsion
4
Rod Bevan
5
Shaun Conlon
Manchester North and East Deanery
Mission community
Mission community leader
1
xxxxxxx
Eddie Roberts
2
Paul Hutchins
3
Chris Moore
4
Manchester South and Stretford Deanery
Mission community
Mission community leader
1
xxxxxxx
Luke Maguire
2
3
Andy Salmon
4
Richard Young
5
Richard Sherratt
Oldham and Ashton Deanery
Mission community
Mission community leader
1
xxxxxxx
Katy Cunliffe
2
Liz Devall
3
Nick Andrewes
4
Paul Monk
5
6
7
Rochdale Deanery
Mission community
Mission community leader
1
xxxxxxx
Alison Bailie
2
Mike Read
3
Jason Powell
4
Janet Pitman
Salford and Leigh Deanery
Mission community
Mission community leader
1
xxxxxxx
2
David Cooper
3
4
The Church of England Diocese of Manchester,
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90 Deansgate,
Manchester M3 2GH
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