About Pioneering Parishes
Nurturing the conditions for mission among people who are not like us
Pioneering Parishes provides tools to help parishes become more outward looking, enabling parish priests and congregations to extend the care of souls to people into all the parish – without increasing workload.
Founded on the belief that pioneering is integral to parish life, the webinar courses, events and tools enable churches to shift energy out into the parish.
Pioneering Parishes began in the first COVID lockdown after Rev Greg Bakker was tasked with creating a response to the pandemic to help church leadership teams adapt to the new environment. Working with Rev Tina Hodgett, they devised a four-week webinar series called Looking Ahead, which gave attendees the skills and tools to nurture the conditions for moving congregations outwards into cross-cultural pioneering mission among people who are not like them, and to manage the shift of balance from an inherited mode to a mixed ecology of church.
Since then, Pioneering Parishes has grown organically with the involvement and interest of a number of collaborators. It is currently provided in partnership with the Church Mission Society and with funding from Church of England Innovation Fund.
Pioneering Parishes has now been repeated six times and around 400 people (lay, ordained, in a variety of roles) have participated.
Meet the creators of Pioneering Parishes
Rev Tina Hodgett
Tina is a pioneer, teacher, speaker and leader with a reputation for inspiring hope and drawing whole congregations into a kind of mission ‘with a twinkle in its eye’. She co-authored the pioneer spectrum and birthed the Pioneer Project in the Diocese of Bath and Wells.
Rev Greg Bakker
Greg is as an experienced parish priest of 30 years and thought leader in the skill of advocating for pioneers, he is committed to creating space for both pioneers and parish churches to thrive in the work of developing new Christian communities. Greg was previously pioneer development officer for the Diocese of Portsmouth.
Our Vision
To make pioneering integral to parish life
Our Mission
Help parishes moving outwards to the edges in innovative ways to connect with the unconnected
Our Values
• We are hospitable
• We are playful
• We pay attention to use of power
• We model what we want we see
• We question what is
• We adapt to what’s emerging
Partners
In addition to offering the Pioneering Parishes course, events and tools to all the church, each year Pioneering Parishes also has space for three dioceses to partner to receive additional training and events. Every partnership is entirely bespoke, designed to fit with the strategic aims of each diocese. In addition to our webinars and events, we also provide training at all levels across dioceses including residential weekends, at diocesan conferences and bespoke leadership training. Our partnerships are designed to leave the intellectual property in the diocese to be moved forward.
Our partners
Year one (April 23 – March 24): Dioceses of Portsmouth, Bath & Wells and Carlisle
Year two (April 24 – March 25): Dioceses of Truro, Lichfield and Oxford
Year three (April 25 – March 26): Interested in becoming a partner? Email us now.
