Curacy Profile St Bede with St Clement Toxteth Diocese of Liverpool
Summary The Diocese of Liverpool is committed to nurturing and sustaining growing churches able to serve their wider community. We are committed to a blended economy of inherited and pioneer ministry, building on our rich heritage of presence and faithful service to the Gospel. We want to see people growing in Christ, able to discern and live out their God-given vocation. We want to enable our clergy to be excellent leaders of the churches of today and tomorrow. Curacy in the Diocese of Liverpool is designed to help ordained clergy prepare for this ministry. You will be nurtured, challenged and formed for incarnational, missional ordained leadership in a rapidly changing culture and environment. We are committed to ensuring that all curates are fully prepared for future leadership. You will be mentored and trained to nurture faith, develop disciples and enable lay people to be released in the mission of God. You will be supported and supervised by a training incumbent working in partnership with dedicated diocesan staff, mentors and local experts. You will join a creative community of peers in an integrated programme of learning to support your continuing development as a reflective theological practitioner. Each curacy will allow significant time and experience of inherited and pioneer ministry, although the exact balance will be determined in the local context and by the anticipated future ministry of the individual curate. A curacy at will offer an opportunity for a mixed economy post designed for a curate who has a passion for both inherited church and for creatively pioneering mission within the local community. In addition to this there will be a specific brief to encourage vocation to licensed ministries for candidates from BAME backgrounds as the diocesan BAME Vocations Project Lead. A wide experience of ministry will be provided allowing the curate to split their time during the first year between parish ministry and pioneering work with the work for developing BAME vocations being centred in the parish and local deanery. In subsequent years the curate will have the opportunity to develop the pioneering aspect of the ministry including the vocation work, in agreement with the Training Incumbent and Director of Vocations and taking into account the curate s training needs. Pioneer ministers in the diocese meet regularly together as a support network, and are given wide permission to explore new futures whilst being held in a flexible and accountability structure. We firmly believe that the diocese of Liverpool is an excellent place to pioneer fresh expressions of church and there are numerous untapped opportunities within the parish to creatively develop mission with a variety of people from different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds.
Nature of training offered The post will be supervised by Reverend Elaine Jones (the training incumbent) who is the vicar of, Toxteth. Having trained as a parish pioneer curate and having introduced a new ministry Lilyfield, that is still flourishing in her previous parish, for people who are experiencing unemployment and/or mental ill-health the training incumbent has had good involvement with the many challenges that can be faced in pioneering work. Using her experience from Lilyfield she went on to set up the Liverpool Diocese Mental Health Network, which comes under the umbrella of Church in Society and works towards creating awareness of the stigma and discrimination often associated with mental ill-health. As chair of the network she is also involved in regular initiatives and meetings with the Liverpool Time to Change network and inter-diocesan mental health network for surrounding diocese. With a passion for people who are most vulnerable in society she serves as a trustee for the Citizen s Advice Bureau and Josephine Butler Memorial Trust. The training incumbent has been in her current post since September 2014, prior to this she served her curacy with a pioneer training incumbent in Wavertree, Liverpool and regularly engages with other pioneer ministers and events. Before being called to ordained ministry she studied psychology and worked in public consultation carrying out a variety of consultation research projects for local authorities, police and primary care trusts. As a newly ordained curate, you will bring your own gifts and strengths to your first post along with the benefits of having recently engaged in theological learning and reflection. It is envisaged that this curacy will enable you to put into good use your experience gained so far, as well as providing opportunity to encounter a wide range of ministries to learn new things. With a strong emphasis on pioneer ministry, you will be encouraged to actively assist in the development of planting fresh expressions, gather and mentor a core team, and see vision realised, all within the context of a training post. You will essentially be trained as a reflective practitioner with weekly supervisions in the first two years, to reflect on experience and identify training needs, and continued lessfrequent supervision in later years. In addition to receiving training and experience in all aspects of general parish ministry (worship leading, preaching, occasional offices, pastoral ministry, church administration, etc.), you will be actively involved in developing new expressions of church with a particular focus on nurturing discipleship, leadership and vocation with those from BAME backgrounds. Complementing the weekly supervision meeting, you will meet with the training incumbent and other members of the church for an informal service of daily prayer in which we explore together the Bible reading for the day and pray for the parish and mission and ministry of the church. There will also be regular staff meetings to plan our work and discuss strategic vision. A priority for ongoing training is full participation in the gathered curate training programme provided by the diocese, and as a pioneer curate you will also join the pioneer ministers network in the diocese.
Areas of particular responsibility for curate in training You will have responsibility for working with the Director of Vocations and the DDO Team in the diocese to foster discipleship, leadership and vocation in people from a BAME background. This work will be focussed in the parish and deanery of Toxteth and may be connected to new pioneering expressions of church. In addition to this pioneering component, you will share with the incumbent and two readers in leading worship and preaching and in helping to shape the future of the church. There will be opportunity to become involved in the links we are forming with the Iranian congregation who also worship in the church. Along with this you will participate fully in the life of the Deanery, through Chapter and Synod, and in building relationships with other local churches. The context: parish setting The parish of St Bede with St Clement was formally constituted in July 2012, after several years of increasingly close cooperation between the two congregations. There is now one congregation and two church buildings. The parish is located close to the city centre, within inner-city Liverpool, with good bus links and only a brisk 15 minute walk to the historic river frontage at the Pier Head, or the Anglican Cathedral. The parish also lies on the border of one of Liverpool s best Victorian parks, combining open space, woodland and lakes, which hosts various large events through the year, including the first Liverpool International Music Festival, the annual Food and Drink Festival and the November firework display. Africa Oye is an annual parade and concert celebrating the African and Caribbean heritage of Liverpool, and is held either in Sefton Park or in the neighbouring Princes Park. The largest mosque in the city sits on the border of the parish, and serves many people in our community. Accommodation in the area comprises a mix of Victorian terraced housing and new-build homes, many owned and well maintained by a thriving housing cooperative and one or two large housing associations, with some owner-occupation. The current population is approximately 8,500. Child poverty and unemployment is significant, and the Church Urban Fund cites Parish as ranking high in deprivation being 12606 out of 12660 parishes. Nevertheless, it remains a vibrant and active community, with a long tradition of ethnic, faith and cultural diversity. This includes a long-established population of mainly Caribbean origin, with newer arrivals particularly from Yemen and Somalia now forming a major presence in the area. The parish is bisected by a busy local shopping street, Lodge Lane, with a large number of Arab and Somali businesses, including a very successful greengrocer and supermarket, which reflects the diverse ethnic mix of the area. There are two primary schools in the parish, Kingsley community school, which has a Muslim ethos, and Princes Special School, which caters for primary-age children with disabilities. There are also several care homes for older people, and some sheltered accommodation, including a brain injury rehabilitation unit and a complex serving the deaf community. In addition there are two youth clubs, the Unity, which provides mainly for older children, and the Greenhouse project for younger children. At the bottom of Lodge
Lane is the Granby Toxteth Development Trust, a charity which runs a variety of projects to support people in the area. Lodge Lane Credit Union is a thriving concern, which has grown steadily over the years, having been started by the then Anglican vicar and Roman Catholic priest 25 years ago, in 1989. There is a local health centre, just off Lodge Lane, and many cafes and fast food outlets. Our average congregation on a Sunday is between 35 40 people and the electoral roll currently stands at 53. The parishioners are quite diverse in terms of age, ethnicity and economic circumstances, and this very much contributes to the character of the congregation. The congregation includes a core of members with a long-standing commitment to the area, though many have moved away for a variety of reasons. In addition, we have recently been joined by significant numbers of new people, particularly younger African families and individuals. This is a very welcome development, and offers good opportunities to explore how we can continue to shape our worship to meet the varying needs of our community. Currently we have one service on Sundays, at 11.00 a m. which rotate between Holy Communion, Morning Prayer and an All Age family service. Services on the first Sunday of the month take place at St Bede, and the remaining services are held at St Clement, with special events during Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter divided between the two. We also have an Iranian congregation who come to worship in St. Clement during the afternoon. Relationships between the two congregations are growing and we recently enjoyed a jointly led Alpha course and have a commitment to developing other opportunities to share in discipleship, worship, mission and ministry. We have two lay readers who both lead and preach in the main service, and a number of other people regularly read lessons or lead prayers. The worship at different times has incorporated traditional and more modern music, and we have an organist who plays at both churches. There is a strong commitment to making families with children feel welcome, both by including them in church services, and by offering activities to children in a Sunday school. We make generous use of our buildings to serve our local community, and the two church buildings offer different and complementary resources. In St. Clement we are currently planning and developing a café, run by volunteers for our local community. The Liverpool Community Spirit use the kitchen and meeting area for their project, which uses food and cooking to build understanding among different culture and faith groups. In St Bede the Liverpool Citizen Advocacy project has rented office space in the building for a number of years, and has a strong commitment to the area. In particular, one of its activities, the Agnes Woodford Project, organises a well-attended monthly Neighbourhood Lunch, which some church members also enjoy. Space2Play, a parent and toddler group, meets on Monday mornings. This is an opportunity to offer space and a welcome to local families, as well as to some child-minders in the area, and it now has a good number of regulars. On Tuesday afternoons a mix of church members and local people get together for Craft & Chat. This is an informal drop-in group, which has included a time of quiet reflection. The Picton Children s Centre host a parent and toddler session for people in the local community. The Alzheimer s Society runs two very popular Singing for the Brain groups which each meet twice a month. We also welcome periodic public meetings, for example for local housing associations, and we have responded to requests by local Muslim women for events for themselves and their children. The congregation supports the local Foodbank with regular donations, and a small group of volunteers also receive and sort clothes and other gifts for projects working with homeless
people in Liverpool. Special collections are also held at key times such as Harvest and our annual Thanksgiving service for different charities, both national and international. The Deanery Mission Plan identifies four key areas: developing leadership engaging with the community a vision for spiritual and numerical growth a mixed economy church, recognising the cultural diversity of the Deanery and working together to provide a variety of expressions of church and worship. This provides a framework for collaboration and support within the deanery. In particular, collaboration with St Margaret s church, which serves the adjoining parish. Along with this we form part of an informal grouping known as Churches Together in Granby. This brings together five Christian churches, including Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Greek Orthodox, as well as four other independent groups, all with black African leadership.
Church Vision and Priorities In 2009 the church completed work on a shared Parish Mission Plan for 2010-2013. We expressed our vision as Worshipping, welcoming and working together, with God, with our community, with each other. Within these headings, we identified three area to focus on: making sure the church family of all ages knows what is going on, and has opportunities to learn, pray and share together improving the buildings and encouraging community use developing work with children and young people. The vicar leading this vision left the church in January 2014 and the church entered into a period of interregnum. Reverend Elaine Jones came into post as the vicar of the church in September 2014 with a vision to build a multi-cultural, multi-congregational church in St. Clement and to plant a new congregation, through the creation of a Fresh Expression of Church, mainly consisting of local residents in the St. Bede Church building. The current Sunday worship fairly traditional in style and is framed around Common Worship and the Roots material. Our intention is to maintain this style of worship but to also develop through the Fresh Expression a style of worship that will attract local people and people who are not part of a worshiping community. Accommodation Suitable rented accommodation will be provided within the deanery for the entirety of the curacy. Your ministry with us The Diocese of Liverpool is an exciting, challenging and stimulating place to be. We serve a wide mix of communities in urban, rural and town parishes. We are innovative, seeking new ways to further God s mission while respecting cherished traditions. Pick up a copy of our profile or visit the website for more information. www.liverpool.anglican.org facebook.com/liverpooldiocese twitter.com/livdiocese