Swanlinbar - Kildallon Group Office

It has been brilliant working with Phyll in the Group Office over the past number of weeks. What a blessing it has been to have someone who is able to help out in this important work of administration.

If you have any notices for either the Scribe or the Newsletter then please ring the office during Surgery hours or e-mail at any time and Phyll will ensure that your notice is included in relevant notes.

Growing leaders – A course which does exactly what it says on the tin!

“One of the universal cravings of our times is a hunger for compelling and creative leadership.” (James McGregor Burns)

Much is said in the world we live about the need for leadership, whether it be at local, national or world level. Everyone has something to say about leadership and whether it is effective or otherwise. Leadership in the church is no less subject to comment than any other area of life, indeed perhaps more so! But how are we facing up to the challenges of enabling existing leaders and encouraging emerging leaders in our Group of Parishes. Well, we intend to invest in our leaders through a course provided by the Church Pastoral Aid Society entitled Growing Leaders. In the introduction to the course the co-authors cite 6 reasons which have influenced the creation of the course;

1. Leadership at every level is one of the key factors in growing healthy churches. It isn’t the only factor, but it is a crucial one. Leaders shape the church for good or bad. Initial research findings of the Natural Church Development Network indicate that “empowering leadership” is consistently the lowest-graded characteristic of English churches.

2. People recognize the “world is undergoing a major leadership shift” with a corresponding need for a “new kind of leadership” (Leighton Ford). The report Mission-shaped Church calls for the “development of leaders” as a priority in the life of every diocese. Chris Edmundson, Warden at Lee Abbey, concludes his analysis of the temperature of the church saying, “Fresh imaginative leadership will be required and will need resources.”

3. Christians in leadership roles throughout society need resources so that they may show and share the distinctives of Godly leadership.

4. Most denominations face a declining number of “professional ministers” and increasingly rely on lay people to take on leadership responsibilities.

5. We’ve yet to go a church where the overall leader says: “We’ve got so many leaders we don’t know what to do with them.” We often hear the opposite: “How can I find more people to take a lead?”

6. There is a great deal of confusion about what a leader is and how one develops leadership in a Christian context.

Leadership matters in our church so it is our intention to invest in a group of people already exercising a leadership role and identify some with the qualities to become leaders at some stage in the future.
The course itself will run on a monthly basis with ten sessions over a 12 month period. 8 of the sessions will be evening, lasting 2 hours and hosted in Ballyconnell Parish Hall. The remaining 2 sessions will be more extended, lasting 24 hours each, involving an overnight stay in a nearby guest house/hotel. There will be no charge for the course as we are actually seeking to affirm folk in the role they already hold and invest in them so that they might become more effective in their particular realm of leadership.
We will be hosting a taster event on Thursday 19th June at 8.30pm in Ballyconnell Minor Hall. If anyone is interested in the course then please contact Geoff for a chat about it and what is involved rather than just turning up on the night, but please note that this is not some form of extended Bible study but rather an intentional use of a tool to grow our church.

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