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Introducing Travelling Well Together - Sustaining Ministry
In autumn 2026, we will begin a conversation about how we can be an enduring missional presence in Essex and East London in the times and context in which God has placed us.
Click the boxes below to find out more.
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Travelling Well Together
In 2023, after a period of listening and discernment that began when Bishop Guli became Bishop of Chelmsford, the Bishop’s Leadership Team began to articulate a new direction of travel for our diocese under the title of Travelling Well Together:
- Our purpose is to love God and to love our neighbour, to worship faithfully and empowered by the Holy Spirit, witness to the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ as we serve the extraordinarily diverse array of local communities in Essex and East London.
- Our approach is to enable and empower parishes and worshipping communities to discern how they are to be God’s people in their own very different local contexts as part of one diocesan family.
- Underpinning our approach is an invitation to a way of being articulated by shared diocesan values which might shape how we travel well together, support each other and provide mutual accountability.
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How Travelling Well Together has begun to shape our diocesan life
Since 2023, Travelling Well Together has begun to shape our diocesan life, in particular by helping us to address areas of significant challenge and change. Examples include the Parish Share Consultation, which took place at the same time as Travelling Well Together was being developed, our Church Buildings Support Conversation, a new approach to ministerial wellbeing, conversations about the Prayers of Love and Faith and the development of missional plans in each Episcopal Area to be supported by the national Church’s Diocesan Investment Programme. You can read more about these examples on page 10 of our Travelling Well Together booklet.
In each case Travelling Well Together has helped us to:
- Move beyond a top down approach and towards prayerful, local discernment and participative change; praying, listening, and working together with those who are most involved and affected locally
- Recognise that how we face challenges together is as important as the outcome. Many challenges remain, but by focusing on how we Travel Well Together, we can better discern what God is calling us towards.
- Be faithful, creative, courageous and open to the unexpected and surprising.
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Sustaining Ministry
Travelling Well Together - Sustaining Ministry will involve a wide-ranging conversation, addressing the challenges of smaller congregations, reduced financial income, fewer ordinands, clergy wellbeing as well as the changed nature of the communities we serve and the significant missional opportunities that are present in Essex and East London. You can read more about some of these challenges and opportunities in the Sustaining Ministry paper that was presented to the March 2025 meeting of Diocesan Synod.
In an approach developed by a team of clergy and lay people from across the Diocese, the Sustaining Ministry conversation will be shaped by Travelling Well Together. There will be:
- A focus on prayer, local discernment and participative change
- Encouragement to be open to what God is calling us towards with the resources he has provided – to think creatively and courageously and to ask brave questions about difficult situations where anxiety may be present.
- An emphasis on using existing structures for conversation, such as deaneries, rather than creating new structures
- Efforts to reach beyond those who normally take part in similar conversations, to involve a broader representation of people from our church communities
- Data and information to equip those who participate in conversations
- Time for participants to explore issues with the necessary depth and creativity and prayerfully discern together
100 Days of Prayer, 18 February to 29 May 2026
Between 18 February and 29 May, Bishop Guli invited people from across the Diocese of Chelmsford to join 100 days of prayer ahead of the conversation about how we Sustain Ministry in the Diocese of Chelmsford.
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Find out more about the 100 Days of Prayer
Everyone was invited to pray individually, in small groups or in church communities over these 100 days that began on 18 February 2026.
A collection of prayer resources, bible passages and videos, were made available and can still be used for prayer and reflection ahead of the autumn.
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Prayer Resources
Introducing the Weekly Prayer Calendar
For each week of the 100 Days of Prayer there was a theme to frame our prayers and some prompts to focus our prayers. To these, participants were able to add their own prompts based on their context, their churches, their challenges and their hopes.
100 Days of Prayer Course
This course was offered as a resource for the 100 Days of Prayer, as part of our discernment within the Sustaining Ministry work we are doing together. Its presiding scripture is the Emmaus journey (Luke 24.13-35), a road that is both a road of uncertainty and loss (those travelling it are mourning Jesus’s death) and a resurrection road (he is walking alongside them all the time). So, it is both a wilderness road and a resurrection journey.
As we discern our communal way, we also walk in a wilderness of difficult times and uncertain futures. Yet at the same time we walk towards and alongside the light and joy of Jesus’s resurrection, the one who accompanies us even when we do not know it, and who opens up the Word until our hearts burn with joy and purpose.
The scriptures offered for the course nearly all appear in the Lent lections for 2026, and each session is framed by a particular value drawn from Travelling Well Together. Reflections will offer ways of using the Travelling Well Together values as a lens upon the scriptures being studied. The Travelling Well Together values of generous collaboration and sustaining healthy rhythms are emphasised in the way the sessions are set up, facilitated and shared, rather than being themes for the scripture explored.
Bible Study Sessions
These Bible Study Sessions were offered as a resource for the 100 Days of Prayer. During Sustaining Ministry our presiding scripture is the Emmaus journey (Luke 24.13-35), a road that is both a road of uncertainty and loss (those travelling it are mourning Jesus’s death) and a resurrection road (he is walking alongside them all the time). So, it is both a wilderness road and a resurrection journey.
As we discern our communal way, we also walk in a wilderness of difficult times and uncertain futures. Yet at the same time we walk towards and alongside the light and joy of Jesus’s resurrection, the one who accompanies us even when we do not know it, and who opens up the Word until our hearts burn with joy and purpose.
Video reflections
The 100 Days of Prayer Lent course was supported by a series of six video reflections, based on our shared diocesan values in Travelling Well Together.
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Watch the videos
Reflection 1 - Awareness of Grace
With the Rev'd Canon Janet Nicholls, Diocesan Rural Adviser and Agricultural Chaplain
Download a transcript of this reflection here.
Reflection 2 - Open to the unexpected and surprising
With the Rev'd Dan Scott, Vicar of Christchurch Three Mills, and Estates Churches Mission Adviser for the Barking Area
Download a transcript of this reflection here.
Reflection 3 - Valuing the marginal; focusing outward
The Rev'd Funmilayo Vaughan, Rector of St Mary Magdalene, Frinton
Download a transcript of this reflection here.
Reflection 4 - Kindness, mutual respect, gentleness, humility
The Rev'd Dr Jonathan Pritchard, Rector of Witham and Villages
Download a transcript of this reflection here.
Reflection 5 - Awareness of grace; kindness
The Very Rev'd Dr Jessica Martin, Dean of Chelmsford
Download a transcript of this reflection here.
Reflection 6 - Creative, courageous; open to the unexpected and surprising
Canon Caroline Harding, Lay Ministry Adviser and Warden of Readers
Download a transcript of this reflection here.
100 Days of Listening - 6 September to 15 December 2026
After a pause for reflection, in autumn 2026 we will begin a conversation about how we can be an enduring missional presence in Essex and East London in the times and context in which God has placed us. Further details about the shape of the conversation and how worshipping communities and individuals can participate will be published here soon.
