Janine Ogborne studied for the CMS Certificate in Pioneer Mission with the South West Pioneer Hub and created a community cafe in Padstow, Cornwall…

With the first pioneer lay minister recently licensed in the diocese of Truro, it seemed a good time to shine a light on the many people leading the way in pioneering across our parishes. Here is Janine’s story:

Janine Ogborne from Padstow began her Christian life in 1986 but it was a course in 2021 which set Janine off on her pioneering journey.

Janine signed on for the Lay Pioneer Mission course and now describes it as “probably the most rewarding experience I have ever had through my Christian life”.

Janine, who is pictured above with her ‘right hand woman’ Andrea celebrating their five-star rating from the Food Standards Agency, said: “That first weekend was a challenging one as I prayed for direction. All I knew was that I wanted to be a voice within my community and to be a link to the church to help the church discern its particular call and priorities around pioneering and mission.”

Called to ‘step outside the box’

As the course developed, Janine became aware that she was being called to ‘step outside of the box’ and meet her community where they were, rather than expecting them to come into the church.

Following the course and trying to find her path, Janine was still praying about her calling and had even tried to push through doors rather than waiting on God to lead. She said: “In my heart, I knew I was forcing myself to go in the wrong direction, which is why I believe the Lord closed those doors.”

Janine started to recognise her love of cooking, serving and organising dinner parties and her love of watching the many food programmes on television might be important. “In my previous life in a Baptist Church, there were endless invitations to meals and events, but where I am now, there is very little, so my husband and I opened up our home and invited people to come and share Sunday lunch with us a couple of times a month. My husband, who’s a chef, and I even discussed using our garden to offer afternoon tea on a Saturday afternoon to the locals.”

This enthusiasm was turned into action when someone sent Janine a link to a cafe that had been set up in a church in Bristol. Janine said: “The penny dropped! This was my calling. I distinctly heard the Lord telling me this was what my mission was for this community.

“I nervously asked for an agenda item at our next PCC meeting and was in total awe when it was welcomed with such enthusiasm. And that is how Croust Community Kitchen was born.”

Croust Community Kitchen

Croust is a not-for-profit initiative, the purpose of which is to encourage the local community of Padstow to join in a relaxed and affordable environment. No-one is excluded from eating at the venue, and all are welcome but Janine and the team target locals through word of mouth. Janine says: “We open every Friday. The church has donated the hall to me to use and donations to setting it up have flooded in.

“There is a large population in deprivation where I live, and the local cafes and restaurants target the holiday trade. Croust caters for those who, for many reasons can’t afford to venture into the local town.”

Well supported

The Rick Stein Company supports the café team in a number of areas with donations of staff and foods, and a charity in Truro provides end of day food from local supermarkets.

Janine says: “We are able to promote church activities and events at the Community Kitchen, and we have found that Messy Church and our monthly All Age Service is growing.

“The local community love it. I have an amazing team who can’t do enough to support this initiative, some who have never walked through the doors of the church, and I’m at peace as God is at the helm, and it goes from strength to strength. Before we open the doors on a Friday, we pray that the customers will feel the love of the Lord as they spend the morning with us, and those who don’t or say they don’t have a faith still stand with us as we pray.”

The initiative has also started to spur more pioneer work with a breakfast club linking to the local primary school under discussion

Janine finishes by saying: “To me, Croust is a model of church in another context, but it is still linking church and community. Amen to that.”

Republished with kind permission of the Diocese of Truro

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One of our 2024 MA graduates was Nik Stevenson, a pioneer minister with Multiply in the Diocese of York. Multiply made this video about Nik’s running ministry on the North York moors.

Nik combines walking, running and online ministry, building community on the moors, as well as nurturing a Facebook community Digital Saints.

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CMS Pioneer Mission Training graduate Fiona Mayne shared her story of growing a new church with the Pivot podcast of Luther Seminary in the USA.

Fiona Mayne is a pioneer minister for the Church of England and the leader of Haywood Village Church in Weston-super-Mare. She studied for a BA with CMS Pioneer Mission Training.

She was interviewed by Terri Elton and Dwight Zscheile for the Pivot podcast in November about growing a new church community right on her doorstep.

Audio version:

The Pivot Podcast is a production of Luther Seminary’s Faith Lead. Faith Lead is an ecosystem of theological resources and training designed to equip Christian disciples and leaders to follow God into a faithful future. Learn more at faithlead.org.

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Julie knew she had a tough call, even as she was studying for her CMS Diploma. A call some many people may find hard to understand. Her work with registered sex offenders leaving prison sometimes means following Jesus to the very edge of hell and back

Jack’s story

Jack was sexually abused by a family friend from age 9. At 15 he became involved with a controlling older woman who encouraged him to be sexually experimental. When this relationship ended, he was 20, isolated and depressed. He used drugs while exploring increasingly illegal pornography.

Through chatrooms he developed a friendship with a young teenage girl, which led to several contact sexual offences.

Jack served three and a half years in prison, during which he suffered further sexual abuse, which was not taken seriously by prison staff.

He was released on licence and his probation officer made an application for accommodation to C2C Social Action, where I am the men’s work manager.

A rabbit in headlights

Jack arrived like a ‘rabbit in headlights’, talking constantly about what he needed to get sorted. He was anxious, scared, struggling with change, and traumatised by his prison experience.

We drove him to the house, introduced his housemates and gave him his room which was clean, tidy and with a freshly made bed. We worked through his tenancy agreement and Code of Conduct, then drove him to the police station to sign the Sex Offenders Register. We provided a food parcel and left him to settle in.

Over the next week staff ensured Jack had sorted out a GP, medication, Universal Credit, a bank account and completed his Housing Benefit application. We encouraged him to attend our allotment session and our Hub (drop-in).

Walking the talk

Jack made immediate friends with my Labrador. We took him for walks in the park and talked. He started some counselling and sometimes shared with us the content of these sessions, occasionally with tears, often with anger and frustration. Jack’s story continues as we journey with him.

Throughout my CMS Diploma I knew I had a ministry with people with sexual offences, having received two very direct messages from God in early 2017.

As I worked through the modules and talked with many criminal justice professionals, the direction I was to take became very clear and I presented this proposal at Make Good in 2019 and began building a charity to establish a residential community for Registered Sex Offenders (RSOs) leaving prison. Along with some very experienced Trustees we took the plans to Northamptonshire Criminal Justice Partners in Spring 2021. They turned us down flat.

God in action

After spending a few days (weeks?) wondering what God was doing, I answered a request in a CMS blog for “a part time housing manager, to manage two properties in Northampton that house male sex offenders in the process of resettlement”. That’s what God had been doing – exactly what we had planned together, but with the support of an already long-established charity and awesome people to work with!

The C2C Housing Project provides short-term, supported accommodation currently for 12 men who pose some level of risk in the community and are being managed by the Probation Service and/or the police. 

People behind the pain

Residents often find it difficult to deal with their past actions. Embarrassed and ashamed, they feel they do not deserve to be treated well. Each one of them is someone’s son, brother, husband, father, grandfather who has made a mistake or a bad choice, and stepped over a line they should have stayed behind.

Our role is to show them that they are all God’s children. Just as God knows and loves the tiniest sparrow that falls in the street, God knows and loves them and wants the best for them.

We do this in many ways. We provide houses that are homes, environments that engender pride and self-respect. We provide activities to develop our residents’ skills and confidence, help them find work and ongoing accommodation. We listen.

Ever present at the edge

We are sometimes strict, we are sometimes kind, we laugh with them and cry with them. We walk alongside them – sometimes to the edge of hell and back. 

The journey has not been an easy one – God never promised it would be – but his guiding hand is ever present and recognisable.

Faced with wrongdoing, Jesus always acknowledged the whole person and their story. People who commit offences often also struggle with deep trauma and pain.

While everyone has a choice about their actions, until we have walked a mile in their shoes, can we be sure that in the same circumstances our own choices would be different? 

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A stateside graduate of the CMS Pioneer Mission Training MA programme, Rev Shane Tucker is now one the leaders of a network aimed at uniting the church to catalyse change in the city of Columbus, Ohio. He tells more here, along with the reasons the MA prepared him well for this ministry.

Seasons of major transitions are a normal part of life. Whether you welcome or ward them off, they’ll arrive regardless. Some happen to you, and some you create yourself, but all by nature are unsettling (not necessarily in a bad way). While discomfort is to be expected during these seasons, you would be excused for not expecting unbelievable good to come from them…but it is possible. Taking a risk is just that – the opportunity to experience pain and loss, as well as the incredible fulfillment and joy. It’s only in hindsight that we can discern which our circumstances brought us.

The context in which I find myself ministering has recently changed drastically, and yet not at all. For the past five years I was serving as an associate Anglican priest in a fairly well-to-do suburb north of our state’s capital city – Columbus, Ohio. My remit therefore, was the people in our parish, as well as the immediate streets and neighborhoods around the parish. My duties were, as one acquainted with life in a local community of faith in a geographically fixed location, would likely expect: pastoral care, teaching and preaching, hospital visits, coordinating events, and celebrating Eucharist.

Three months ago I began a new season in an entirely new context. We didn’t have to move (thankfully) but ministry context certainly did. The call to this new season of ministry increased in scope and space. I now serve as Director of Lead with For Columbus, a “city gospel movement” which is dedicated to “Uniting the Church of Columbus to be for the city of Columbus”. This is no small task in a city of 2.2 million (predicted to increase by another million in 20 years!) with 1,200 local communities of worshipping believers, and nearly all of them dispersed everywhere across our great city, serving in roles representing every sector of city life.

From a 30,000 foot view, we desire to facilitate “the whole Church bringing the whole Gospel, for the whole City”. On the ground this often translates to us getting the right people, in the right rooms, having the right conversations. While this may sound somewhat prescriptive, it’s actually wonderfully simple and amazing to gather individuals from all across the city, provide some inspiration and encouragement, and watch the Holy Spirit motivate and move those in attendance into Kingdom activity for the good of the city. Working with church leaders, not-for-profit leaders and civic/workplace leaders, we pray and take action to address collective pain points (human-trafficking, education, racial tensions), while pursuing heaven-inspired hopes (evangelism, discipleship, welcoming new Americans) for the flourishing of our city.

My experience of pursuing an MA in theology, ministry and mission with a pioneering focus via CMS has been a great fit for this city-reaching work. The exposure to varying voices from different cultures and contexts, along with self-reflective readings and assignments, has been a good primer for building relationship, and exploring collaboration with, people from different denominations, and those who claim no faith at all.

Moreover, the pioneering spirit and culture which CMS fosters lends significant credibility and solid encouragement to a new frontier of kingdom work across a burgeoning city. I’m grateful to be connected to a community of believers possessing the creativity and courage necessary to follow the Holy Spirit into that ‘new thing’ the Lord spoke of through the prophet Isaiah:

“Forget the things that happened in the past. Do not keep on thinking about them. I am about to do something new. It is beginning to happen even now. Don’t you see it coming?” – Isaiah 43:18-19a, NIV

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We all see their work but not many of us see them. What they do is essential, but not considered valuable. This is the reality for many cleaners in the UK. Clean for Good wants to change that. Maritza’s story shows this is possible.

“Without a doubt, cleaning is one of the lowest valued kinds of work in the UK,” says Charlie Walker, managing director at Clean for Good in London.

Every day an invisible legion of women and men set off to make Britain’s office spaces usable. Yet, many cleaners are not given time off or sick days. Some suffer verbal and sexual abuse from their employers and almost none are paid a living wage.

The dirty reality

Maritza was one of these unseen people. Growing up in Colombia and Ecuador, her family was close-knit, but her father struggled with alcoholism, which took a toll on them all. Maritza got married at 16, thinking life would be better with her husband. But he became abusive towards her, just like her father had been towards her mother.

Her father-in-law told her if she went to church, she would find God and he would help her. She went, but nothing changed at home. She was lonely and unhappy.

Maritza, her husband and their three children landed in the UK in 1995, planning to get some documents in order and emigrate to the US. But it wasn’t long before Maritza’s husband abandoned them. She was stuck, alone with three children in a country where she didn’t speak the language. She eventually met someone who spoke Spanish, who helped her find a place to rent, and she got some cleaning work.

Working Monday to Sunday from seven in the morning to seven at night, she earned £90 a week, and £80 of that went on rent. “I had £10 left to buy food and pay for gas and electricity,” she remembers. Life was miserable. She couldn’t see a way forward, and considered doing something drastic.

But one day, as she was preparing lunch, somebody knocked on her door. Maritza tried to ignore them but they wouldn’t give up. On the other side of the door was a local pastor who invited the family to church.

Realising he’d interrupted their lunch, the pastor offered to take the family out to a restaurant. Later that day, he brought the family to his house to meet his wife.

“She just cuddled me. And that’s when I found Jesus,” Maritza says. The pastor’s wife cried with her. “In that cuddle… it was like I was telling her everything. She knew everything. After that, I felt peace and joy again. And I went back home and things were different.”

Maritza and her family got involved with this pastor’s church and accepted Jesus into their lives. But her job situation grew more untenable. Maritza was now working for a cleaning company who wanted her to work relentlessly and always be available.

Not surprisingly, her health suffered and she ended up in hospital, completely worn out. The doctor said she couldn’t go back to that job. But how would she provide for her family?

When she came home from hospital, she received a phone call from Clean for Good. She had never heard of them, but they had read her CV (which her daughter had sent out to help find an alternative role) and wanted to offer her a job under very different conditions.

A different cleaning company

Clean for Good, officially launched in 2017, is a commercial cleaning company that chooses to value people and aims to provide a higher standard of service than their competitors, while still turning a profit.

The Christian company was started in response to the problem of low pay, exploitation and oppression in the cleaning sector. A small church in the City of London, St Andrew’s by the Wardrobe (coincidentally where CMS was born), did a listening exercise with their parishioners in 2014 and discovered that many of those who worked as security guards or cleaners were exhausted and underpaid. They longed for respect, dignity and a fair wage.

Church member Miriam Goodacre took the idea for an ethical cleaning company to a Dragons’ Den-style competition at Greenbelt festival and won a grant and a place on CMS’s mission entrepreneurship course Make Good, where she developed the idea further. CMS became a founder-investor of Clean for Good alongside two other groups.

Clean for Good employs each of its cleaners with a fixed number of hours from day one (no zero-hour contracts) and pays the London living wage for every hour worked. Clean for Good also gives their cleaners 25 days of annual leave and bank holidays off and runs an occupational sick pay scheme.

Calling working at Clean for Good a “miracle”, Maritza says she’s gone from being treated like a machine to being seen for her worth as a person. She is now a manager at the company.

Clean for Good is not just paying a fair wage, but is also fighting for everyone who is trapped in a system dominated by low pay and oppression. The company’s vision is to set an example of providing an excellent service to its clients while valuing its cleaners as people made in the image of God.

“Jesus… wasn’t scared to confront injustices. And in a sense, that’s what Clean for Good is doing,” said Charlie Walker, managing director.

“One single mother who works for us had been doing 70 hours a week. Now she works 35 hours, and gets to see her children. In coming to work with us, another woman got a 350 per cent pay rise from where she’d been. Being part of this and being able to tell our clients and investors about this difference makes me really happy.”

Six years in, the way Clean for Good treats its employees is starting to influence other companies for good.

Take part

Do you have dreams of making a difference at the edges? Check out CMS Pioneer Mission Training:

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Letting Photos Speak is a new book for anyone who takes photos, on standard cameras or smartphones, and who wants to explore personal meaning and well-being through their pictures. One of its authors, Steve Radley, a past participant on CMS’s Make Good course, explains how it came to be.

It all started with a meeting in the CMS tent during Greenbelt 2019 between Andy and me. Andy, who uses photography in the church he leads, had heard about my photography retreats and was a friend of Philip Richter, a Methodist minister and gifted practical theologian who had recently written a book on the spirituality of photography.

Our initial idea was to develop an app for creating a ‘book of hours’ but this proved fraught with difficulties. However, as we looked at our research, we realised we had the makings of a book, so Philip approached DLT with whom he had previously published. They loved our idea and commissioned us to write Letting Photos Speak.

Letting Photos Speak: Visio Divina and Other Approaches to Contemplative Photography by Stephen J Radley, Philip J Richter and Andy J Lindley is published by Dartman, Longman and Todd.

Our book is designed for readers of all faiths and none. We begin by exploring some of the common ground between Christian contemplation and mindfulness and the effects that photography can have on wellbeing. We outline some ways of exploring meanings in photos, ranging from theological reflection to visio divina, and consider how photography can function as a place of unrushed reflection or contemplation, involving the mind, emotions, and body.

Drawing on our experience of employing photography in sacred and secular contexts, leading retreats and running workshops, we include several practical exercises to ‘let photos speak’ and help readers connect with themselves, others, nature, and God.

The book also offers some practical examples of how images can speak effectively in group contexts, such as workshops and alternative styles of worship.

We believe photography can be an eye opener, helping us to see the beauty of the world in new ways, but we also believe photography can be deeply spiritual. By this, we mean it can help us reflect on the world, our place within the world, and what it means to be alive.

Stephen J Radley, Philip J Richter & Andy J Lindley

At the end, we invite readers to draw together their reflections in a personal photo journal, inspired by the ancient practice of keeping a ‘Book of Hours’, using reflective prompts and innovative bookmark overlays.

Our inspiration to write this book is found within our shared interest in photography and spirituality and the ways in which photography can be used to access the benefits of mindfulness and contemplation.

In a fast-paced society, it can be difficult to slow down and become aware of the present moment. We were keen to write a book which said, ‘Hey, let’s use some of the inventions from the attention-grabbing economy to help us appreciate the beauty of the world that we so often miss when we are rushing from task to task.’

You can purchase the book from most leading retailers. For a limited time, you can get a 60 per cent discount direct from the publisher by using the discount code – SUMMER – during checkout.

The CMS Make Good course has helped shaped my ministry. You can learn more about my work or book me to lead a workshop or quiet day on my website: www.soulfulvision.uk

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UK’s first NIV audio Bible voiced fully by women proclaims the message that women’s voices matter to God

The UK’s first NIV audio Bible voiced by solely by women will be launched on 8 March to coincide with International Women’s Day. ‘Her Audio Bible UK’ is the brainchild of Rev Katy Partridge, an Anglican curate based at Holy Trinity, Combe Down, in Bath, and features the voices of women drawn from across the country. Each contributor brings her own style, accent and interpretation, resulting in a unique blend of cultures, ethnicity, and church backgrounds, representative of the worldwide Church of God.

At a time when many women are struggling to see God as relevant, Rev Partridge hopes that that Her Audio Bible UK can bring healing to women who have felt the pain of exclusion and can bring alive the truth that God welcomes all. Rev Partridge explained: “The way women are treated in religious spaces impacts the way they see God. If they are excluded from leading, or speaking, or worshipping, the message they receive is that their voice does not matter to God.” 

Rev Partridge is studying for an MA on Church Mission Society’s pioneer mission training programme. She first had the idea when she noticed a general lack of women’s voices in many of the Christian resources available. In response Rev Partridge and her team of volunteers auditioned over 60 women, and based on their tone, diction and ability to narrate, chose 17 women to record the New Testament. Voices include the Rev Prebendary Dr Isabelle Hamley, former chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rev Sonia Hicks, a previous president of the Methodist Church, and writer and teacher, Rev Canon Liz Shercliff.

The team behind Her Audio Bible UK recognised that the UK is rich in its diversity, and so wanted to involve a wide range of backgrounds and voices. As well as sharing their individual testimony, each reader speaks from a place of faith and adopts a personal approach as if they were reading to a friend, in order to engage listeners. Rev Partridge said: “Listening to the Bible not only has the potential to bring a new vibrancy to the words of Scripture, but also makes it more accessible to those who find reading a struggle, or those with visual impairments. A woman’s voice is particularly helpful to those for whom male voices can be triggering, such as women who have experienced domestic abuse, or human trafficking.”

Dr Cathy Ross, Head of Pioneer Mission Training at CMS, said: “It has been amazing to see Katy develop this project while she has been studying with us. She has a real passion for women being able to hear God’s word in a way that speaks to us, so I am thrilled that she has pioneered this wonderful audio Bible.”

Her Audio Bible UK is free to listen to. Rather than being accessed through an app, it will be available through digital audio services such as Spotify, as well as its own dedicated website. The initial launch will include the Gospels and the Book of Revelation, and more books will be released each month, with the complete New Testament available by end of the year. Recording of the Old Testament will start later in 2023.

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Maria Skoyles is CEO of the Dorcas Dress Project, a Christian UK based registered charity that supports people out of situations of poverty by sharing Jesus’ love, providing skills training, resources and pastoral care.

She is studying with CMS Pioneer Mission Training on the MA course in Theology, Ministry and Mission.

“My life has been a bit difficult, a bit like a hurricane, but this has given me more a feeling of self-worth. It gives me confidence in myself because it develops my creative side…

“My faith has helped me not to do anything crazy, to keep my balance… It helped me to hold on and not to give up.”

Carolina, Dorcas Dress Project trainee

Dorcas Dress Project has a project in Leicester, UK, as well as sewing hubs in Nigeria and Uganda, and soon in Tanzania and beyond.

Learn more…

with CMS Pioneer Training – from a single module to a PhD – a place for those who are called to the edges

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Tasked with turning a cafe space in Falmouth into a centre of mission, Ben Hudd, a graduate of the CMS Pioneer MA programme, explains that all he could do – and all he needed to do – was listen.

by Ben Hudd

2 December 2022

In fairness, the vision for Fairwinds Community Hub didn’t actually come from reading tea leaves, however perhaps it does signpost two key elements to the ongoing (and never ceasing) process of discernment; listening and watching.

Re-envisioning a cafe space in the centre of Falmouth as a ‘Centre of Mission’ with a specific focus upon ‘being with’ the poor, excluded, marginalised (forgive the term) and de-churched community with a tiny budget (£100 a month) and no initial dedicated team seems classic CMS stuff; who would have it any other way?

A studied neglect

Brother Lawrence I think coined the phrase ‘studied neglect’, a time in which, counter to perhaps a prevalent culture of ‘doing’, you simply ‘do nothing’ but watch and listen. I chose six months of inactivity as starting point to give space for old visions and expectations to die.

Fasting from the distractions that can present themselves in the early days of any pioneering venture – such as the temptation for quick success or being blinded by the seemingly obvious – is as unpleasant as not eating, but it had to be done.

Just one night at the Cornish Bank, the club opposite, built over what was the Museum of Witchcraft, yet ringing a clarion call every night for social justice and societal change, was enough to present a panorama of the challenges facing the church in the 21st century. How does it feel to sit anonymously in the midst of righteous anger (all be it expressed un-righteously) and realise that you represent elements of the very power that truth is being spoken to?

Comfortable with discomfort

Days spent sitting sharing lunch with street sleepers, listening to the cries of rejection from sectors of the community that have been pushed to what we see as the margins but now form the centre of a very different and rapidly shifting culture, were more than just informative; this was holy ground, this middle class white guy didn’t belong.

Completing a masters (I highly recommend it) at CMS brilliantly prepared me to be comfortable with the discomfort of listening to the neighbourhood in places that are contested and contradictory, and in ways that take the time to listen well and allow ourselves to become broken enough by what we experience to lift the veil and see God at work in places that, like the Pharisees, we often find so difficult to accept.

And so when envisioning Fairwinds in order to find a starting point (for vision is so often just that) with those that had joined me on this journey from the most unlikely of places, and from across a wide breadth of church traditions, my priestly call to be a sentinel, breaking the silence of oppression, ignorance and apathy (in Archbishop Stephen Cottrell’s words) became the dominant tone, driving a vision for seeing compassion and justice right at the heart of who we would be, echoing what the stones on the cobbled streets of Falmouth were already crying out.

Just listen

So how do you start? Well after six months of neglect I opened the door and in walked a young person, in their 20s, who asked if they could have a cup of camomile tea. As we sat together, alone, with the door open to the bustling Falmouth High Street, I listened to their story. Thirty minutes later, after having listened to them offering their life to Christ, I realised that I had just witnessed the incarnation of a vision that has been slowly rising like the Cornish tide: “Listen!”

Thus ‘The Listening Post’, our Tuesday and Thursday drop-in was born. A warm space where this week, my eclectic team of post-church, de-churched and love-church followers of the Way sat and listened, talked and ate toast with those from the highways and the byways, the street angels who are just waiting to be entertained.

Gospel making itself at home

Veterans, the lonely, the elderly, the homeless, in fact anyone who wants their voice to be listened to, not just heard, join the conversation around the long kitchen block table. Each one a psalmist in their own right, creating a narrative from their suffering that welcomes the presence of the God who understands.

And sandwiched between these two slices of wholesome gospel goodness sits the St Anthony’s Community that, over soup and more tea, is there to listen to students, partnering with Just Love Falmouth whose student Christian community embodies our call to Isaiah 61 in ways I have only perhaps glimpsed before.

Perhaps our launch says it best, an open mic night with a theme of Justice and Poverty. Jayne Kirkham, our local councillor, came and spoke about her heart for justice for the most disadvantaged and how we can all work together for the community. There was a performance of Tony Walsh’s poem ‘Poverty is Many Things’ and a poem about being an LGBTQ Christian. Not forgetting some memorable Billy Bragg cover versions, ‘remastered’ to reflect the Christian message of downward mobility.

Contributions from the community and church alike contextualised a gospel that was always for the people, because God came to be with the people.

Ben Hudd is an ordained minister in the Church of England, a member of the Archbishops’ College of Evangelists and has just completed a masters in Pioneer Ministry with CMS. He lives near Falmouth with his wife and four daughters.

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Maria Skoyles joined the MA course this academic year. She is the CEO of The Dorcas Dress Project, a Christian UK based registered charity that supports people out of situations of poverty by sharing Jesus’ love, providing skills training, resources and pastoral care. Here, she shares her story…

by Maria Skoyles

13 December 2021

When I was in my early teens I was given a prophetic word about being Dorcas, this has influenced much of my career in the fashion industry and then in teaching.

Ten years ago God called me to take voluntary redundancy and re-examine this prophetic word. As part of this shift I did a part-time theology course and responded to an assignment focusing on social transformation, writing myself a design brief that integrated kingdom values around creation, justice and transforming people’s lives. The outcome was a size-adjustable dress that could be made to a high standard, even in remote parts of the world where access to electricity and resources were difficult. The dress had the ability to make a prophetic statement against the greed and exploitation that infests our global fashion industry.

The CMS Pioneer MA in Theology, Ministry and Mission covers topics like anthropology, church history and leadership. I pray God will use these to stretch and grow my understanding of his purpose for the Dorcas Dress Project.

A few years ago we started a project in sub-Saharan Africa, I judged a situation poorly. I was asked by the matriarchal figure in the community who I wanted to pass leadership responsibilities onto as I returned to the UK. I read the situation wrongly. I thought she wanted me to choose from people she had gathered to participate in the project. She had mentioned how busy she was with all her pastoral responsibilities. I’ve since realised this was not the case, her air of busy-ness was her demonstrating her worthiness for the role. In asking the question she was wanting me to see her value. In not affirming her for the role I was casting her aside. It took a few months to realise this, at which point she had used her influence in the community to disband the group and shut the project down. I realised I was ill-equipped to manage the situation well. I needed training in how to read different cultural settings and respond well to them.

As the Dorcas Dress Project has slowly grown I have reflected on how it doesn’t just help and support our trainees; our volunteers also grow in faith and confidence. In Acts 16 we read about this Asian lady called Lydia and her workforce. They were by the river, it’s nice to imagine them washing yarn that had been dyed an opulent purple. Lydia was a successful business woman, travelling to source and sell the high quality textiles she traded in. She was a disciple and led, it would appear, a predominantly female church. God is growing something church-like in the Dorcas Dress Project.

It was really reassuring to see the seven-year timeline that Jonny presented on our September research day. We’re in year six and we’re still very small. The last six years have been about realising all the things we needed to do to be a worthy charity and responding to it. Now is a really exciting point in our growth. We’re in the process of setting up a new sewing hub in Uganda and a new venture in Leicester which we’ve realised over the last few weeks has the potential to make the project financially self-sustaining, God willing. We’re looking to set up three more UK hubs and up to three more hubs in sub-Saharan Africa over the next 12 months, so do get in touch if the idea of using sewing as a mission tool excites you.

If you’d like to know more about The Dorcas Dress Project then head over to our website dorcasdressproject.org and keep in touch through social media. We also have a WhatsApp prayer group who are vital in digging into God to see things shift as God wills and in his timing. Email me if you’d like to be added to it: maria@dorcasdressproject.org

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The post Sustainable fashion: Meet entrepreneur Maria Skoyles appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Janice Hamilton studied at CMS on the Pioneer Leadership Course from 2014 and was ordained as a Pioneer Minister in Gloucester Diocese in July 2017. Four years on, she speaks about the impact her training had in helping her to establish a Community Centre in a rural village.

by Janice Hamilton

14 June 2021

Before studying with CMS I served as a youth and children’s minister in the parish of Tidenham, a rural suburb of Chepstow on the Welsh borders. At Soul Survivor 2011, God planted in my heart an overwhelming compassion for the community of Sedbury, a village within our parish that had significant deprivation but with which, as a church, we had had little connection.

In response to God’s call I began prayer walking the area daily for six weeks trying to discern how best to actively love and serve this community. Very soon, all sorts of opportunities began to arise, including incidental meetings with the Village Agent and local police officer, a couple of the ‘people of peace’ that God brought across my path. I also had the chance to get involved with the community youth club which operated two evenings a week in premises owned by the local housing association. I began to re-imagine the future of this place, thinking how this underused venue could be developed for wider community use.

Learn, reflect, apply

Around this time I started training with CMS, having followed the C of E discernment pathway to become an Ordained Pioneer Minister. My home church employed me part time as a community minister two days a week to serve as a placement alongside training, which was invaluable for reflecting and applying all I was learning at college.

With the local police officer, I gathered together a group of local residents and facilitated a community consultation, based on the model of Asset Based Community Development. This was followed by a feasibility study into developing the premises as a community hub. Our aim was to provide an attractive and welcoming space to draw people together and encourage volunteering and participation, and hence develop greater community cohesion.

Building foundations

We established some collaborative partnerships, including with the District Council and housing and care agencies and recruited nearly 50 volunteers with whom we were able to begin setting up some much-needed support groups to supplement the community youth work, including a homework club and memory cafe.

We formed a management team, negotiated a 10-year lease from the Housing Association on a peppercorn rent and secured over £2,500 seed funding for initial start-up costs. A significant proportion of this came as a result of my pitch at the CMS Mission Entrepreneurship week at Pickwell Manor, a valuable experience which helped to refine and crystallise the ideas.

The building was well suited to this enterprise but after years of neglect and use as a youth club, it required significant refurbishment, as well as some remodelling to make it welcoming and accessible. We began a fundraising campaign to raise over £60K. Inspired by the Mission Entrepreneurship training this included a crowdfunding campaign encouraging local stakeholders and business sponsorship.

Creating a space

By the time I’d finished my three-year training at CMS, we had formed ‘Sedbury Space’ as a company limited by guarantee, registered as a charity and were well on our way to raising the necessary funds to realise our dream. Building works began at the end of 2017 and we re-opened the following June with a big community event.

The video below was produced by Barnwood Trust, one of our funders, soon after the re-opening, using Sedbury Space as an example of their ‘Beautiful Spaces’ programme.

Following ordination as Pioneer Minister in 2017, the Diocese of Gloucester agreed to my staying in Tidenham Parish for curacy to further develop the mission project with ‘Sedbury Space’.

Ministry in full collar

Throughout, it’s been important to remember my role is that of community minister not simply a community worker.

When first ordained I wore my dog collar just to get used to it, assuming I’d ditch it after a fortnight. I was surprised at how useful it was, actually facilitating relationships and conversations rather than closing them down as I’d feared, so it remains a permanent part of my apparel.

Now, I essentially serve as a chaplain to the community centre. I have often been asked to offer a listening ear and to pray for and with those who engage with Sedbury Space. I have blessed a golden wedding anniversary ring, mediated between a rowing family and reassured someone facing a major operation that I’d be on standby for their funeral if required! I have also actually taken funerals for three families who, as one claimed, are part of ‘my flock’.

The Well – fluid church

Eighteen months into my curacy, I felt led to launch a fresh expression of church called ‘The Well’ at Sedbury Space. This is a monthly, drop-in style of church with a short creative act of worship on the hour every hour, interspersed with chat and deeper life conversations, prayer, crafts and games, preparing and eating meals together. This fluid form of church emerged from reflecting on the ecclesiology module completed at CMS and its application to this particular context.

The Well ran for a year, with six folk, otherwise unconnected to church, becoming quite regular. And then we entered the national lockdown and it was put on hold as it didn’t translate easily online. In its place, to continue to minister to those who had begun to engage, and to reach out to others in need of spiritual support, I introduced a weekly Chaplaincy Chatroom, another drop-in session. It began on the pavement outside Sedbury Space as the second lockdown was imposed!

Clearly God’s story

My curacy is now drawing to a close, due to end in July 2021 and over the past year my focus has been on succession planning so the pioneering work can continue in a more settled manner. I identified three roles that I’d inhabited that needed to be passed on – centre manager, chair of trustees, and the chaplaincy role. As we went into lockdown last year, Sedbury Space was in a position to recruit a part-time centre manager who has made a significant difference. A couple of months ago someone stepped up to become chair of trustees, an important role to hold the vision and team together. These last few months I am negotiating with my sending church to consider the future of the chaplaincy role and ‘The Well’ and we hope to recruit a part time community chaplain soon, depending on raising necessary funds.

Over the course of this venture, God, in his faithfulness, has provided all we need and raised up individuals with the gifts and skills to serve in different capacities as the need has arisen and I am trusting him for the future of what is clearly his remarkable story.

My future is now confirmed as I leave in August to take up a Community Pioneer Role in West Cheltenham. Reflecting on the past seven years, I get a sense that I’ve done a lot of preparing the ground and sowing of seed and I look forward to hearing the next chapters as others take a lead in the unfolding story of Sedbury Space and we see God continuing to work in this community.

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The post Sedbury Space: a case study in rural pioneering appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).