Manchester Diocese has a strong commitment to discipleship and evangelism within the context of nurturing. We recognise that our lay people spend most of their time at work, home or community, as opposed to being in church on Sunday. Therefore, we want to affirm the value of their work beyond church life.
Our aim is to help all of us to grow in confidence as those who follow Jesus in God’s world by:
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Forming and equipping lay people to follow Jesus confidently in every sphere of life in ways that demonstrate the Gospel.
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Enabling laity and clergy to minister together, based on their baptismal mutuality, equal in worth and status, complementary in gifting and vocation, mutually accountable in discipleship, and equal partners in mission.
We believe these changes would represent a seismic revolution in the health and vibrancy of our people and our churches. They are important in their own terms, but we also believe they are essential to creating confident Christian communities equipped to live out their faith, from which appropriate faith sharing will develop.
To achieve these aims, we are:
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Working with a national initiative called Setting God’s People Free. In Manchester we are calling this #MoreThanSunday, building on the work that has already been developed in our Year of Discipleship. There are ten pilot projects (eight parishes, one chaplaincy and a school) looking at how they can develop Seven Shifts in their lives that can change their culture. Learning from the pilots will be cascaded across the diocese.
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Working closely with our colleagues in Education so that our work dovetails with the Growing Faith initiative.
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Developing a relational approach to evangelism, not focused on programmes or missions, but growing naturally from a deeper understanding and confidence in whole life discipleship. We are also creating a toolbox of evangelism resources such as Alpha, Pilgrim, etc.
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Devising a new Mission & Evangelism course as part of our lay training. Continuing to develop lay ministry, in particular the Foundations for Ministry course and the vocation of Authorised Lay Ministry.
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Creating discpleship resources for congregations, building on experience of #MoreThanSunday.
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Supporting and growing the essential ministry of Readers and the work of the Vocations Team.