To tell us about a forthcomining event you'd like to see publicised here, do one of the following:
share to the facebook group "Chelmsford CMD"
or email Andy at agriffiths@chelmsford.anglican.org
Preying on the Sheep
Are you passionate and intentional about developing healthy Christian ministry? Are you keen to grow in care for others that is biblically oriented and Christ-centered?
The Centre for the Study of Bible & Violence is hosting a 3 day conference.
Preying on the Sheep – Finding Green Pastures after Pastoral Harm
6th May to 8th May, Bristol
Tickets now available for in person and online.
Speakers include:
Prof Dr Lisa Oakley, author of Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse
Aaron Hann, Counsellor and Advocate for Survivors of Spiritual Abuse
Revd Dr Tim Welch, Research Fellow at Bristol Baptist College
Ministers' Conference:
Strengthening Church School Partnerships for Flourishing Communities – 26th June 2025
Join us for an inspiring day of learning, collaboration, and practical insights to enhance relationships with schools. Experience the power of child-led worship with I-Sing POP, explore the Church of England’s ‘Flourishing for All’ anti-bullying guidance, and gain valuable lessons from the Diocese of Guildford on nurturing spiritual development in children. You can book your space at Ministers Conference Tickets, Thu 26 Jun 2025 at 09:00 | Eventbrite.
Session 1: Creating Cultures of Kindness: embedding ‘Flourishing for All’ in schools, Sarah Shreeve, Head of Education Policy, National Society for Education
Session 2: Growing Faith Together: Building effective Church-school partnerships for Spiritual development, led by Jane Whittington, School & Church Partnerships Advisor, Diocese of Guildford
Session 3: Leading with Wisdom: Governance in a Christian Manner led my Mike Simmonds, governance Consultant, Diocese of Chelmsford
Session 4: Insights from SIAMS: Lessons learned and next steps for Church Schools led by Richard Hopkins, SIAMs Inspector & Schools Adviser, Diocese of Chelmsford
Churches' Community of Practice 2025
Welcome to the Citizens UK Churches’ Community of Practice. Our purpose is to resource all those, across denominations, involved in Community Organising through their church institution. We aim to share stories, reflections, and practical ideas to make your organising effective and rooted in your faith tradition. We explore community organising as a spiritual practice, embracing themes of holistic missional theology: action for social justice, challenging unjust structures, discipleship, vocation, building relationships across difference, and strengthening our congregations from the outside in and the inside out!
Alison Webster
Mission Theologian in Residence, Citizens UK
There are four dates for your diary during 2025. Each meeting runs from 4 – 5.30pm. Please subscribe to the Community of Practice and you will receive further details of each session a week or so before it happens.
19th June, The Power of Strategic Partnerships – the role of churches in organising to stem the tide of institutional chaos of decline.
25th September, Integrity in Leadership – how can the Community Organising model of distributed leadership offer a corrective to ‘dot leadership’, which has had such tragic and unhealthy consequences for many Christian denominations?
6th November, Stories of Self and the power of lay leadership – organising as vocation and the call to a rich discipleship of contemplation and action.
Pastoral Ministry & Mental Health
Andy Campbell of Qawah helps us recognise the signs and symptoms of people struggling, and what we can do to offer help and support.
This day, Saturday 14 June 2025, is part of the continuing professional development of Pastoral Assistants, but all other ministers will be welcome to join for £33. It will take place at Holy Trinity Church, South Woodham Ferrers. More information and registration here.
Intergenerational Preaching: A video
Roots for Churches present a video by Mary Hawes and others
Our Common Home: Creation and worship
Saturday 7th June: 10am – 4pm
St Mary and St Michael’s Church, Trumpington
1a Grantchester Rd, Trumpington, Cambridge CB2 9LH
We find our Common Home both in God’s creation and in worship. This face-to-face event will offer the opportunity to discover fresh liturgical resources and provide opportunities to engage creatively with art and liturgy outdoors, in the beautiful surroundings of Trumpington, on the outskirts of Cambridge.
We will explore: How can we match our materials with our message, so that our worship is not at odds with the resources we use? How can we “tread lightly” in worship? How can we pray about climate change? What happens when we engage with the creative process ourselves? Where can we find musical resources to support environmental worship?
The Revd. Ally Barrett is the Associate Vicar at Great St Mary’s. Ordained in 2003, she has served as a parish priest and as a children’s minister and has also worked in theological education and in college chaplaincy in Cambridge. She has a particular interest in the relationship between creativity and creation, and between worship and everyday life. She is also a published author, hymn writer, and painter.
The Revd. Beth Joss-Pothen is the Vicar of St Andrews’ Romford in the Diocese of Chelmsford, and a part-time PhD student at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on facilitating communal art projects in churches on environmental themes and on how art can be an effective tool for building resilience and community.
Reconciliation Initiatives: Being Missional Today
Disruption, Liminality & Reconciliation Tuesday, 10 June 2025
A festival of ideas on missional thinking at Coventry Cathedral, with experiential learning opportunities, in dialogue with 22 different speakers and practitioners.
In dialogical pairs, speakers are invited to address one of these questions:
How might social and political disruptions, and disruptions within the church, aid or frustrate our work for the kingdom of God?
In what ways is this current season liminal, for the church and those amongst whom we serve? How might the church need to be reshaped such a season, and work differently?
How might practices of reconciliation enable us to engage fruitfully in our local contexts today?
Keynote speakers include: Rt Revd Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani Bishop of Chelmsford
Behold, I am doing a new thing: the first few years as a first time incumbent
A three-day/two-night retreat is being held at Ripon College Cuddesdon, near Oxford, for those in their first few years of first incumbency on 15-17 October. We will explore the transition from curacy to incumbency and offer space for people to share their experiences, both challenges and joys. As our conversation partners we will use the stories of Elijah and Elisha and selected poems by the priest poet R S Thomas. We will worship sometimes with the gathered community of the College and sometimes as a small group. There will be space to reflect and create with art resources provided for you.
Led by Revd Dr Sarah Brush, Vice-Principal, Ripon College Cuddesdon.
£175 all inclusive of programme, meals and accommodation.
3D Coaching presents: Effective Conversations
You know how to have conversations. You’ve been having them for a long time.
Using our learning platform FreshLearn, you will be able to watch this set of videos (approx. 85 mins).
In this video set we will be thinking about small practical changes you can make to conversations that will make them:
- Easier for you
- More effective for the people you talk to
Includes: ideas, practice, real-life coaching demo, coaching framework and examples
Claire Pedrick MCC has been coaching for over 30 years. A coach, mentor coach and coaching supervisor, she trains managers, leaders and experienced coaches across multiple sectors to reap the benefits of working more simply. Claire is the Founding Partner of 3D Coaching.
Developing Resilience
All ministry is demanding, and whilst clergy report high levels of satisfaction in their roles, stress and emotional exhaustion are also a familiar reality. Amidst all that is written about human flourishing, wellbeing, and resilience, how does one make sense of the plethora of advice that is out there? And how do we as clergy engage with the specific demands of our role?
These three days offer a way to explore wellbeing and resilience drawing on ancient wisdom and contemporary insights. They work as a series but are also standalone, so you can attend any combination of the three, although if at all possible we do recommend attending the first day as this lays the foundation for the remaining days. The days will be led by James Lawrence, CPAS Leadership Champion. James teaches and writes on issues of leadership and mission in the Church today. For the last 20 years he has worked with clergy in the area of resilience.
Day 1 Friday 28 March This introductory day explores a framework for thinking about well-being and offers a variety of practical insights into how to build resilience. The topics covered include: • Understanding stress and pressure. • Defining resilience. • Practical ways to improve resilience.
Day 2 Thursday 19 June The second day in the series reintroduces us to the spring and weights (a metaphor/framework for resilient ministry) and focuses on the role of clarity in resilience through the theological motifs of vocation and stewardship. The less clear we are about how to spend our time (our priorities) or the less able we are to order ourselves around those priorities, the more we will feel stretched. The topics covered include: • Clarifying call and playing to strengths. • Why a balanced life isn’t a good thing. • Living by priorities, healthy practices for an ordered life.
Day 3 Thursday 25 September The third day in the series reintroduces us to the spring and weights (a metaphor/framework for resilient ministry) and focuses on how to handle expectations. Too often we struggle with unrealistic expectations, both others’ and our own. How do we maintain healthy boundaries? The topics covered include: • Handling others’ expectations. • Handling self-expectation. • Developing appropriate boundaries
All three days will be at Bouverie Court in Northampton, 10am to 4pm. To book your place, please email Lesley-Anne.Marriott@peterborough-diocese.org.uk, specifying which day(s) you plan to attend
Ministry and Further Education ZOOM
Are you in ordained ministry in the Diocese of Chelmsford, and enrolled in further study, such an MA, MPhil or doctoral research?
Come along and connect with other ministers, share your research interests and ideas and share in fellowship.
Time: May 27, 2025 07:30 PM London
Contact Andy for log in details
Matt White's new book, "Propelled into Wonder," is out NOW!
50 original poems accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations.
#poetrycommunity #writerscommunity
GoHealth: Rest and Reset
Engaging with new housing
Is there new housing in your parish or area? Do you have questions about *How to be Christlike in New Housing Areas, *How to Deal with Practicalities, *How to Work Together as the Body of Christ, *How to Plan and Evaluate, and *How to Engage in Different Contexts?
These are exactly the issues a new resource covers: Introduction to Engaging with New Housing: a set of How-to Guides – Housing Justice.
We've been building a bit of a library of videos about various spiritual movements, and how they can influence us as ministers in East London and Essex in the 2020s. This evening, Emma Wylie helped us think about Franciscan spirituality. Part 1: https://youtu.be/0le_KH5FjsA Part 2: https://youtu.be/YliURNTcqWw
Past sessions have looked at Benedictine Spirituality, Dominican Spirituality, two different varieties of Evangelical Spirituality, Ignatian Spirituality, Community Organising Spirituality, and Moravian Spirituality. Browse all this and lots of rubbish at:
http://www.youtube.com/@andygriffiths7654
Parenting as a Church Leader
Lucy Rycroft from BRF writes: "We have a Parenting as a Church Leader day coming up in June, and I wondered whether you might be able to make the clergy in your diocese aware of it. For parents who are also church leaders, it is an enormously positive, reassuring and practical course, complementing the fantastic training that you already offer your clergy by helping them maintain wellbeing in the home and family. As a vicar’s wife myself, and a vicar’s daughter, I can vouch for the extremely helpful truths and ideas contained in the course.
The day is held over Zoom between school hours for ease of accessibility. It features video teaching from Rachel Turner, pioneer of Parenting for Faith, and discussion in small groups. We have run this day for several years now, and it always gets very positive feedback.
New this year, is that we are offering up to 50% discounts when churches or dioceses book as a group."
I've been reading Thrive by Pam McNaughton (London: Church House Publishing, 2023), and I thought I'd post a review.
The subtitle of the book is "Helping your multi-parish benefice to grow", and this is an area the author has serious experience of, having been the incumbent of three different multi-parish benefices (MPBs) in three different dioceses, and having developed a course on the subject (also called Thrive) for CPAS.
The book isn't rocket science, and you won't be surprised to hear the list of things listed as keys to a thriving multi-parish ministry, around which the book is built:
*Prayer
*Mapping and relating stories
*Enabling leaders and great teams (for what it's worth, this seems to me to be the strongest section, and if you did nothing else any MPB would profit from taking this wisdom to heart)
*A culture of discipleship - "shaping the life and activity of our churches around the Great Commandments and the Great Commission." I liked this section, though the community organiser in me would have loved there to be a recognition that we don't just worship God, serve our neighbours and share the good news (crucial as these things are), but also listen to our communities to see what they care about, and enable them to take action for justice. I don't for one moment think that Pam MacNaughton is inward-looking-except-with-regard-to evangelism, but that's such a danger for MPBs that I would want to flag it up.
*Faith sharing. This may be the most challenging section for a number of our MPBs, but it's introduced with gentleness and realism.
*Vision for the future
The value of the book lies not so much in the choice of these topics, which will be familiar, as in the clear, approachable way they are explained and made relevant to multi-church contexts. I liked the way the book often gives several options, rather than a single authoritative template: for example, when starting to move towards vision, we are given
*a template for a formal review of church life, but also
*permission not to use it because there may be one or two areas that clearly need to be worked on first, before the review is encouraging, and
*permission to start with one big project that will get people's imagination firing and raise morale, so that when it is time to review the church(es), the momentum of the project will help people look at possibilities with newfound positivity.
I also liked the way the author often chooses to ask questions rather than to give advice.
I could imagine this being a book that a whole PCC, or a standing committee, looked at together; or perhaps, the wardens and ministers drawn from all the churches in a benefice. There are online materials available as well.
In this Diocese, there are two networks for incumbents (and other ministers) with MPBs or the equivalent - "Four or more" and "More than one". If you'd be interested in being part of such a network, do get in touch with Janet Nichols or Andy Griffiths.
Theological Reading Group
Susannah Brasier writes: "I set up an online theological reading group about 18 months ago. We meet monthly, on Zoom, on the second Tuesday of the month at 2pm for 45 mins-1 hr.
So far we have read a wide variety of books, of varying genres and intensity, and had some very good discussions.
The idea came from one of my own MDRs, where I lamented (not for the first time) that I wasn't getting around to theological reading - so Jill Mowbray suggested I started this group and certainly, even though previously I often thought I didn't have time to read, I now have a discipline whereby I am always reading at least one theological book a month!
It is however not only open to clergy - ordinands, licensed or authorised lay ministers are also welcome, as well as other lay people who have an interest in reading theological books."
Do contact Susannah Brasier if you'd like to get involved.
The next Motherhood and Ministry seminar is now being advertised - do spread the word. Rev Lizzy Holland will open up with her own experiences and then there will be time to share with one another and more time for Q&A. Booking and more info here.
These seminars are specifically aimed at women thinking about ministry/ ordination in the CofE or in the early years of ordained life, who may have children or have questions around balancing motherhood with ministry.
The institutions and providers below all offer courses relevant to the development needs of Chelmsford clergy.
The Anglican Centre in Rome
The Anglican Centre offers a range of residential courses. Go to www.anglicancentreinrome.org for more details.
The Arthur Rank Centre
A charity that supports and resources the rural church. It offers twice-yearly Rural Ministry Courses and Multi Church Ministry Workshops
It also has resources for the creative use of church buildings
The Buck Stops Here: Leading in MIssion and Ministry in Your First Incumbency
This residential course is offered by CPAS for those moving from a curacy to a first post of responsibility, or for those moving from overseas or sector post to an incumbency or team vicar post.
Los Olivos
A varied programme of courses and retreats in southern Spain, some of which will be eligible for CMD grant – check with your Area CMD Adviser before booking. Travel is not eligible for grant. Go to www.haciendalosolivos.org for details.
LYCIG Leading Your Church Into Growth
A training programme which takes the mystique out of growth and makes it ‘normal’ and do-able. It is likely that a LYCIG course will be run in Chelmsford Diocese in 2013.
LYCiG is a four-day residential course for lay and ordained leaders. Now in its thirteenth year, the course was pioneered by Robin Gamble and others, and is led by a team drawn from many different backgrounds, traditions, and ministry contexts. All are practitioners who can speak from personal experience of leading churches into growth. "The most valuable training we’ve ever done", is a typical comment from some of the 70 churches represented on the course.
For the current Conferences programme click here.
Transforming Worship
It offers a series of training events, mostly regional, for those who lead worship - website here
Sarum College
In Salisbury is an ecumenical centre for Christian study and research. It offers a variety of short courses and study programmes in theology, culture, Christian leadership, liturgy and worship, biblical study and sprituality; also singing, music and the arts. Many of these are eligible for CMD grant. For upcoming events or for their whole programme go to www.sarum.ac.uk.
The Society of Mary and Martha, Sheldon
The Society of Mary and Martha in Devon has a varied programme of residential weeks and workshops, including Myers-Briggs and Enneagram, and specifically for clergy, some of which (but not all) will qualify for use of CMD grant. Go to www.sheldon.uk.com.
How to obtain your CMD grant…
Many of these courses are eligible for funding from your CMD grant.
If you have questions about these or other training courses, contact your Area CMD Adviser or the CMD Administrator Sue Denham (01245 294450) .
For information on Sabbatical Leave and Study contact your Area CMD Adviser.
When requesting money for CMD grants, which are available for active clergy (including PTO with a working agreement) and Licensed or PTO Lay Ministers, applications must be received at least a month prior to the event and before booking or attending. To do this fill in an electronic grant form and send it to your Area CMD Adviser, Andy Griffiths, Jane Richards or Ian Hilton who will authorise and send to Sue Denham who will raise the payment. You do not need to send a copy of the brochure. It is preferred to make payments by BACS. See CMD Funding.
For consultation in advance of applications for any CMD events not included here, please contact your Area CMD Adviser. Please note that where a CMD Adviser, MDR, Archdeacon or Bishop has recommended coaching, this will be funded by a £230 grant, which will not deplete your CMD grant rights for the rest of the year.