CAPTION: Authors Greg Bakker and Tina Hodgett sign copies of the new Into All the Parish book at the launch in Exeter
Pioneering Parishes Book Launch Hosted by Diocese
A book launch for the new Into All the Parish book by the team behind Pioneering Parishes has taken place at the Diocese of Exeter’s Old Deanery offices.
The authors Rev’d Greg Bakker and Rev’d Tina Hodgett said the short book was designed for church leaders, PCCs and others to read and ponder on how they could be and do church differently in a way that included as many people as possible and offered a “compelling witness in their neighbourhood.”
The book aims to help churches form their missional DNA, one of the Diocese of Exeter’s five priorities
Rev’d Hodgett said “I have a passion that the Church of England would be as beautiful, varied and compelling as God is, so people would want to know more about Him.
“I hope the book helps church people to go where others are and be a beautiful, glorious presence in their neighbourhood.”
The Bishop of Exeter, the Rt. Rev’d Dr Mike Harrison, said “This is a wise, accessible and practical guide to helping Christian communities discern how God’s Spirit is at work inside and outside the Church. Tools are provided helping congregations to ensure principles eclipse preferences, abundance mind-sets hold sway over scarcity narratives, and different ways of doing and being church are held together synergistically. All this wrapped up in a missional understanding of being caught up in God’s sacrificial loving movement towards the world – personified in Jesus and inviting our participatory involvement. Recommended!”
Pioneering Parishes is a Church Mission Society project which receives funding from the Church of England. It aims to help parishes become more outward looking, enabling parish priests and their churches to extend the care of souls into all the parish and explore a mixed ecology of church by offering different forms of worship and regular events designed to fit the local context.
Rev’d Claire Reynolds with Rev’d Julie Wheeler at the book launch
The new book builds on training the authors have delivered over the past five years to curates, PCCs and whole mission communities.
Rev’d Claire Reynolds, vicar of Okehampton and Inclusivity Advisor for the Diocese took part in Pioneering Parishes during her curate training. She was interviewed at the launch and said “Pioneering is about giving space and freedom to people who have got those ideas and giving space to the Holy Spirit.”
Claire said she was taking small steps in her own parish – for example taking the Open the Book project into a local school and adapting it to enable the pupils to play the biblical characters themselves because she does not have enough adult volunteers to follow the usual Open the Book model of adults playing the characters.
The Diocese of Exeter has partnered with CMS to run a 12-month part-time Certificate in Pioneer Mission course which results in a commissioned role.
A number of lay pioneers have already been commissioned to work in their local parishes.
