Mission Communities

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 here and 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.

For more resources and start-up guidance for your mission communities, please check out pages 24-26 of the Mission Community Guidance document.

Mission community leaders

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

Bury and Rossendale Deanery

Manchester North and East Deanery

Manchester South and Stretford Deanery

Oldham and Ashton Deanery

Rochdale Deanery

Salford and Leigh Deanery