Reaching your Community

Discovering your community

Reaching out to your community can mean many things: evangelism, mission, service, fresh expressions, community ministry - the list for churches is endless.

One of the first steps out from the church building into the community is to understand the community and making relationships within it. Obviously this is easier if members of the church congregation and leadership live in their community, and have relationships through work, leisure, schools, etc. 

A number of tools exist to help church members engage with, learn from and respond to their community's needs and aspirations. 
 

The Discovery programme 

Discovery was developed in conjunction with Tearfund and is a process of learning and sharing about the community and team building through developing a piece of social action.

It is a highly participative and visual process which lasts six months and is very suitable for those uncomfortable with the written word. It includes biblical reflections and many team building skills and activities. A facilitator is provided to help the church or group of churches work through the process of discovering more about Jesus, themselves and their community.

For more details contact resources.team@liverpool.anglican.org, 0151 705 2180  or follow the link below for a PowerPoint presentation about Discovery 

Discovery 
 

St Aidan's Speke

Discovery

St Aidan's Speke did a Discovery programme and found it very enjoyable. The congregation enjoyed how it made them think but didn't require too much reading and writing. They enjoyed the drama, the photography, group work and the challenge.

It helped them prepare to leave their "worn out" church building to worship in a local community school. They have set up new community activities, and are preparing to lease a local shop which after modification will be a community café and centre. The funding has been provided by the Church Urban Fund together with the Church and Community Fund supported by the diocese.

New! Local Facilitator Taster Session

Until now all Discovery courses have been led by an external facilitator. The next stage of development is to train and support Local Facilitators to run Discovery in their own churches or teams, to make Discovery more widely available and to develop skills within congregations.

We are running a taster sessions aimed at people interested in becoming a Local Facilitator, and any clergy or church leaders who want to find out more about Discovery and whether it would be right for their churches.  We are running two (identical) taster sessions:

1.00pm - 4.00pm OR 6.00pm - 9.00pm
Thursday 15 October 2009
at St James' House, 20 St James Road, Liverpool, L1 7BY.

Places can be booked using this booking form.  Booking is essential because food will be provided at both sessions and we will need numbers for catering purposes.

As well as enabling people to run a Discovery Course the training will build confidence in facilitating small group work and introduce a range of exercises, many of which can be useful in other situations. Once the training is completed, there will be ongoing support for the Local Facilitators from the Diocese and from an informal network of facilitators. Where possible we will be encouraging two people to attend from each church, although this is not essential.

Leaflet about Discovery