Gather your Team for Leading your Church into Growth

Greetings whānau,

One of the gifts of being part of God’s global family is the opportunity to learn from others’ experiences of following Jesus. It’s the way the early church worked too –Christian communities receiving coaching and encouragement from Paul, Barnabas, Timothy and no doubt a raft of others as they followed the Spirit across borders and states to help other Jesus people live into their calling in their local contexts.

Coming up on 17-19 October is the Leading your Church into Growth (LyCiG) hui. This is led by Archdeacon Rhiannon King (Diocese of Ipswich) and Rev Harry Steele (Chaplain to the Bishop of Sheffield) from the UK, who are LyCiG practitioners. This gathering is being coordinated by Vicar-General Stephen King and crew, and hosted by the wonderful team at the Anglican Chinese Mission.

I’m writing with a strong encouragement that I would love to see a team of leaders from each of our places present. LyCiG is particularly aimed for the people in each place who hold strategic leadership: wardens, vestries, parish lay leaders and clergy. If you’re on leadership team in any way, don’t wait for someone else on your team to bring it up! Check in with each other and ask “are we going?!”

Over the hui, expect to bring any strategic framework you are currently using to guide your day to day mahi in your mission unit, such as your Mission Action Plan. Or if you feel like you don’t have anything in place at all, this is also your moment! Take this opportunity to press pause together, to review, learn, pray, worship and receive encouragement and practical guidance, relevant to your context. You’ll be empowered to continue to shape and refine your goals and press onward with where you feel called by God, and to share this with all of the people of God that you lead together.

In our new Diocesan Mission and Vision tree, one of our branches is Parish Flourishing. We want all of our parishes and mission units to be healthy, strong and empowered to be the presence, light and life of Jesus in their communities. This is a key way to help support this.

We know finances are often tight and don’t want this to be a barrier so please get in touch if costs are prohibitive. And if you have any further questions or would like to talk anything through, ring up Stephen King. Tell him to convince you why you should be there!

Register your team by 30 September and see you there.

In Christ

+Justin