The Leading your Church into Growth team has a track record in encouraging and equipping local church communities in mission from across the different traditions within the Church of England.
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Leading your Church into Growth (LyCiG)
LyCiG is aimed at all kinds of churches; Catholic or Charismatic, Evangelical or Liberal, Rural or Urban, Big or Small. It offers ‘doable’ practicalities, enthusiasm and wisdom as we work together for the flourishing of God’s church. It’s also fun!
A LyCiG conference is for teams of between five and eight people (clergy and lay people) per parish or benefice. The aim is to get a group working together to explore the principles and practicalities of church growth in their context.
Dates and Booking
We are delighted to announce that multiple LyCiG conferences will be taking place throughout our diocese in 2026. We sincerely hope you will be able to join us at one of these conferences and be part of an enriching experience.
Dates for 2026:
For the Bradwell and Colchester Areas
October 17th to 18th: Chelmsford two-day Conference
This conference runs on Saturday 9:30am - 5:30pm and Sunday 1:30pm - 5:15pm
Conference Day 1 takes place on Saturday from 9:30am, beginning with arrival and breakfast, followed by a welcome and opening worship led by the Bishop of Bradwell and the Archdeacons. The programme then covers five sessions with breaks and lunch. The conference concludes with a closing act of worship at 5:30pm
Conference Day 2 begins on Sunday from 1:30pm with arrival and lunch, followed by a welcome and opening worship. After two further sessions with a refreshment break in between, the day concludes with a commissioning service led by the Bishop and Archdeacons, bringing the conference to a close at 5:15pm.
Location: The Salvation Army Chelmsford Citadel, 70 Baddow Rd, Chelmsford CM2 0DD
For the Archdeaconary of West Ham:
Save the dates: 7 - 9 May 2027 for the LyCiG Conference in West Ham Archdeaconry.
Booking details will follow shortly. In the meantime, if you would like to express your interest, please email: ProgrammeManagementOffice@chelmsford.anglican.org
For the Archdeaconary of Barking:
Archdeacon Chris would like to thank everyone from the Havering and Barking & Dagenham Deaneries who attended the 2026 Leading Your Church into Growth residential conference at St Katharine's. He is grateful for the time, energy and commitment they have invested in the LyCiG programme.
Save the date: The virtual follow-up session for the 2026 cohort will take place on Wednesday 13th January at 7.30pm. Details to follow.
Leading your Church into Growth: Taster Session
A video of the taster session can be watched below and may be of interest to people considering participation in the course.
Resources
This page contains information and resources to support participants in the Leading your Church into Growth course. We hope that by sharing these resources, organising follow up meetings and by providing the opportunity for participants to support each other online via our Facebook Group, we can take what we learned and discussed on the course and help each other use Leading your Church into Growth in our own contexts.
The course manual
Useful websites:
Books
Jude Simpson, poet and performer
The Joy of the Gospel, Paula Gooder
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Worship resources from Archdeacon Ruth
There are a few resources that I’ve found useful over the years, both as a lay person (and a church musician) and as an ordained person. One of these is a very short book called “Worship Changes Lives” (edited by Paul Bradshaw and Peter Moger): It’s sadly out of print, but you can find copies via Amazon and other suppliers. I’ve been in a parish where we ran a course based on this and in another we used it to shape a series of sermons/talks.
Another resource I found helpful for conversations with Ministry Team members about worship is “At Heaven’s Gate” by Richard Giles. It has a great checklist at the back that can be used for reflection and review, very similar to the one on pages 52 and 53 of the LYCIG book:
I’ve also heard good things about “Inspiring Music in Worship” by Helen Bent of the Royal School of Church Music.
Do contact me via a.colchester@chelmsford.anglican.org if you’d like more info as I have some pdfs that I could share with you.
The Leading your Church into Growth Facebook Group
The Leading your Church into Growth Facebook Group has been set up to provide course participants with a space to share ideas, and to ask each other for advice and support.