First steps

Nurturing the conditions for mission among people who are not like us

A series of four webinars which help both priests and lay people discover pioneering; what it is and why it’s integral to parish life.

Case studies and ideas are shared along with practical tools, enabling churches to have honest conversations which will help shift the energy of the congregation out towards those who are not yet connected to God in Christ. This begins an effective re-wiring of the existing church system.

Next course

Take a look at our Eventbrite page to see upcoming courses.

Book via Eventbrite

Who’s it for?

PCC members, parish clergy, people exploring a pioneer call, diocesan or parish support staff and anyone searching for tools to help them shift the energy of the parish outwards beyond the church walls.

What can I expect?

Each webinar is 90 minutes and contains teaching, guest speakers and break out rooms. Explore what it means to become a pioneering parish in an informal, warm, fun and open environment that draws on all the wisdom in the room and practices the skill of communal spiritual discernment. First Steps may involve challenging customs, attitudes, practices and activities in your church which hold a bias towards those who are already present.

What content will be covered?

Over the four webinars, we will have conversations about the key strategic tasks for parish life:

Session 1: Jesus the Pioneer
Jesus constantly generated newness in his life on earth. We take him as our model and look at the common characteristics found in pioneering individuals in church and society. We consider the relationship between the time-honoured and the new, and ask how they can mutually enrich each other.
Session 2: Values
As we seek to hold distinctive forms of church together, we explore how shared agreed values can help a congregation collectively answer the question ‘Who do we want to be for God and our community?’ and form a healthy foundation from which to make decisions about community life.
Session 3: Pioneer advocacy
We share what we believe are the required postures of a leader who is able to hold space and shape understanding, to allow both long-standing and emerging forms of church to flourish alongside each other and contribute to the whole.
Session 4: Creating capacity
A key area of decision-making is about how to unlock enough resources in what appears to be a world of scarcity. We suggest postures, practices and tools which help create an attitude of abundance in place of a scarcity mindset, and release capacity in people and generate resources from unexpected sources.

How much does it cost?

We would hate cost to be a barrier to anyone attending so we charge just £10 for the four webinars in total.

If you bring a team, the maximum your church will pay is for five spaces (£50), any additional participants are free.

The real cost for the facilitation and materials is much higher, so if you feel able to contribute a little more you will be helping to support the continuing work of Pioneering Parishes.

Previous participants’ comments

‘Inspirational!’
Ali Mascarenhas, PCC member, St Mary’s Brighstone churchyard project

‘I joined the first Pioneering Parish course to find out how I could support our pioneer minister…I never thought I’d now be spending most of the week serving and sharing God’s love with 800 families across our twinned parishes.’
Roger Hutton, church warden, St Philip’s Cosham