Church Growth and Planting Enabler - Chilwell with Inham Nook

Overview

Chilwell with Inham Nook is a shared parish of two sister churches with a hugely diverse demographic ranging from the largely affluent surrounds of Christ Church to the often-forgotten estate of St Barnabas. Whilst we have an encouraging and positive presence in our neighbourhoods and communities, most people we come across do not yet know God’s life-giving and life-changing love for themselves; and we want to change that.

The primary location of the role will be at Christ Church, Chilwell, with time spent at St Barnabas Church, Inham Nook (1.3 miles between the two churches).

Full-time, time-limited for 4-years (under Regulation 29), extendable by a further 2-years subject to further funding; under Common Tenure.

Interview date: 20 April 2020

Introduction

We seek to resource and catalyse further kingdom growth by adopting a model of establishing new, more culturally accessible, worshipping communities (NWCs). We seek to find new avenues to reach the unreached, unrepresented and under-served amongst us. To do this, we are looking for a dynamic, evangelistic leader and team player.

Main Responsibilities

The CGPE will:

Facilitate effective evangelism training and help shape whole-church evangelistic engagement; helping us ‘welcome at least 150 new followers of Jesus by 2025’

Take a lead in nurturing and equipping teams that will launch NWCs; helping us ‘release at least 15 new leaders in calls to ministry and mission by 2025’

Help identify, prepare for and establish sustainable NWCs; helping us establish a culture of ‘growing to give ourselves away’

The Ideal Candidate

Essential

Faith and Character:

A strong personal faith in Jesus Christ in accord with the Anglican Evangelical identity and core values of Christ Church and St Barnabas.

A commitment to growing in spiritual maturity, into ever increasing Christ-likeness, and fostering a similar commitment in those around them, especially those they lead.

Passionate about helping the church to grow wider, younger and deeper, in accord with the vision of the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham.

A willingness to balance both being a leader and a servant, recognising one’s own gifts and others’ gifts and encouraging all to use them appropriately.

A team player - At Christ Church and St Barnabas, a team player is: humble and ready to be open, accountable and vulnerable with colleagues; hungry for realising our shared vision as a team, hungry to grow that vision and hungry to see those around us grow in spiritual maturity; and smart in the way we engage with, challenge, enthuse and encourage those we lead and work with.

Experience:

Building, leading and managing teams of volunteers.

Personal and practical experience in preparing, planning, launching and growing NWCs.

Developing ministry in urban/outer urban estate communities, including evangelism

Knowledge:

In-depth understanding of current principles and practices in church planting and grafting.

Skills:

A highly effective collaborative team leader with a proven ability to inspire, mobilise, equip and bring out the best of the people they work with.

Ability to see the big-picture coupled with appropriate attention to detail.

Strong written and oral communication skills.

Able to relate to a diverse range of people and engage with key community agencies and stakeholders

Personal resilience to deal graciously with confrontation and the ability to find the optimum solution to issues and resolve conflict effectively.

A self-starter with a positive can-do attitude.

Able to reflect creatively on practice and adapt accordingly.  

An ability to design and deliver training events, courses and relevant materials and resources that are engaging, inspiring and releases spiritual gifts of service and leadership.

A good communicator, both spoken and written.

(Highly) Desirable

Experience:

Experience of developing successful funding bids and then overseeing evaluation, monitoring and reporting to funders

Demonstrable experience of working with children, youth and families

About us

Join our great adventure

We seek to be a diocese where every Christian and every church has a compelling vision and plan for 'growing disciples, wider, younger and deeper'

Wider as we seek to find fresh ways to speak about Jesus and grow disciples among the 1.2m people living across the diocese who are not yet engaged in the worshipping life of a local church (98% of population)

Younger as we seek to grow disciples and develop leaders among new generations in a young diocese (Nottingham is the fourth youngest city in UK with over 50,000 students)

Deeper as we seek to grow disciples with a confident faith in Christ who are making a difference in every sphere of life, helping shape the culture and character of society.

Working in Southwell & Nottingham is an adventure and a challenge – the opportunities for mission are immense, the people are open and friendly and forward looking; there are also areas where the church is desperately needed to work with, and be a voice for, the poor and needy.

We are not just talking about growth, we are praying and acting in new and exciting ways to make it happen; we launched a Younger Leadership College in Autumn 2016 (http://youngerleadershipcollege.org/) with the aim of developing 1,000 younger leaders to servce in the Church and wider society.

A new resource church has opened in Nottingham in an abandoned auction house that sits on one of the main roads into the city centre; Trinity Church is now a growing, diverse congregation working with our existing churches to bring Good News to the city.

Other new ventures are planned in the rural centre of the county – work is now under way to start a new, distinctive church - market towns and former mining communities.

However, it is in the development of our core ministry in every parish that we recognise potential for the most significant further growth. We have a programme over the next seven years to equip 25 resource churches which will be beacons of growth, supporting other churches in training for discipleship and leadership; also helping to plant and graft 75 new worshipping communities.

And we are aiming to welcome 7,000 new disciples into the fellowship of Christ and his Church by 2023, people who have realised that there is nothing better anyone can do with their life than to become a follower of Jesus.

Nottinghamshire

There’s a lot to discover in the fascinating county of Nottinghamshire: rolling farmland and quiet woods; a cosmopolitan city offering the best in entertainment; two first-class universities; world-leading design and technology companies; fine architecture – and Robin Hood.

Add to that it’s beautiful country parks, stately homes and sporting prowess – it’s home to Trent Bridge, the National Water Sports Centre, and Nottingham Forest  – and it’s easy to see why it is such a popular destination for tourists, students, shoppers and sports fans (and we haven’t even mentioned its literary heritage, the mighty River Trent so popular with rowers, sailors and anglers, and the modern tram network that whisks people around Greater Nottingham).

The Diocese incorporates the whole of Nottinghamshire and a small slice of South Yorkshire, and has a breadth of ministry that covers tough former mining communities and city estates, isolated hamlets and villages, and historic market towns.

Working for change

On any one day, people from our congregations will be feeding the hungry, finding shelter for the homeless, providing meals for the lonely, working with the elderly and supporting asylum seekers and refugees – in 2016 the Bishop’s Lent Appeal raised more than £12,000 to help refugees and asylum seekers.

We also support Nottinghamshire Rural Support, a charity that helps farmers and their families, and have pioneered work to reduce debt, including the launch of Lifesavers projects in primary schools, which encourage children to save and also teaches them about finance and budgeting.

We are active in protecting the environment through our Freedom of Creation group – many of our vicarages now have solar panels – and we have a group of Workplace Chaplains who work with employers large and small to support the wellbeing of employees.

Click here to find out more about our work

http://southwell.anglican.org/mission-ministry/seeking-justice/

Videos

Bishop Paul Williams explains our vision for Growing Disciples Wider Younger Deeper

http://www.growingdisciples.co.uk/