Home » Synod Mission Strategy Discussion Paper March 2009

3. Ministry Deployment

    Ministry
    Deployment

    We
    all share in the ministry of God's people. Our members are
    dedicated and faithful and there is a lot of goodwill amongst
    friends that are not yet members. So we need to encourage and equip
    all the saints and learn how to use wisely our ministers, CRCWs, Lay
    Preachers, Local Church Leaders and elders. We share our ministry
    resources across the whole of the United Reformed Church. Our share
    of stipendiary ministers for 2009 is 39 (full time equivalent -
    FTE). But we know that it is not a good plan simply to have fewer
    ministers covering more and more congregations. So we would like to
    create Associations of Churches served by ministry teams, which
    could include ministers, CRCWs, local church leaders and others.

  • Each
    congregation would have at least one local leader - someone who is
    recognised by the wider church, has some training and who has a role
    description and is appointed for a period of say three years.

  • We
    would like to have specialist ministers serving local churches
    (Special Category Ministers - SCMs) and more Church Related
    Community Workers (CRCW).

  • We
    also want to encourage vocations and value each person's gifts. We
    need more people to respond to the call to be Lay Preachers or
    ministers.

  • We
    will need helpers to run a programme to attract people to vocations
    and to train them through TLS Lite, Certificate of Christian
    Discipleship, TLS or other courses.

Submitted by ichthus on 3 March 2009 - 5:33pm