We are in the process of developing a wide range of learning resources for personal, spiritual and church growth, all of which will be open access and able to be completed online. These will include resources focused on life with God, community engagement, church life and worship, and church organisation. They will be the equivalent of six hours of in-person learning, delivered as six discrete units. Check below to see when we are aiming to launch these resources.

As well as being open and available online for individual learners to complete at their own time and pace, we hope that these materials will be picked up by parishes, benefices and deaneries to be run locally and in-person for groups of learners in a more blended mode of delivery, so that learners can benefit from learning with others, and especially others who are in similar contexts to their own.

Check back here as we bring new learning resources online and let us know what learning resources you think would be helpful by emailing learning@elydiocese.org.

Life with God

These resources are designed to help you grow in your faith by introducing some key sources, ideas and spiritual practices.

Bible

The Bible learning resources will help you to understand some of the different sorts of literature in the Bible. This includes the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – and the subtly different pictures they present of Jesus, his ministry, his death and his resurrection. The Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible and contain surprising expressions of joy, grief and anger that help us give voice to these feelings in our own prayers. The Torah – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – the five books historically attributed to Moses are at the heart of the Jewish faith and thus the faith in which Jesus himself was raised. The letters of Paul of Tarsus to various churches in Greco-Roman cities of the first century are rich in theological reflection on the meaning of the Jesus event for people of Jewish and pagan origin.

Christian Belief

Engaging with ideas about what we can and can’t authentically say about God enriches our relationship with God. This is especially true of the idea of the Trinity, arguably the distinctive claim about God in the Christian faith. Some aspects of Christian belief are less directly about God and more about Christian experience and practice. Central to the Christian experience is what we call ‘salvation’; the idea that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we can have fuller lives in our time on Earth and hope for what lies beyond this life’s end. Being a Christian, or a follower of the Way, as it was called before the word Christian was applied to disciples of Jesus, is never a solo pursuit. We are part of a community of faith that exists locally but is connected to all the other Christian communities that exist now, have existed in the past and will exist in the future. Our learning resources on the Church will introduce you to key ideas about this universal Christian community and its local expressions. A key event in the forming of the Church of England, as it is now, was the European Reformation. The Church of England describes itself as both reformed and catholic. Understanding the nature of the English Reformation then is helpful in recognising what is distinctive about our Church.

Spirituality

Christianity is a living faith, meaning it is not just a set of ideas about God and ourselves. It engages us in a spiritual life – a life of prayer. This is not just about asking for things from God for ourselves (known as petitionary prayer) or for others (intercessory prayer), but practices and patterns of living that enable us to be more conscious of the loving presence of God with us in our daily living. The learning resources here introduce us to ways that Christians in the past and today have found to develop this God-consciousness through stillness (Contemplation), imaginatively reflecting on God’s word (lectio divina) and developing committed patterns of prayer (a Rule of Life). All of this comes together in the practice in the Church of England (in common with other churches) of using set prayers with others and on our own to help us recognise as we pray that we are part of a worldwide praying community. Finally, there will be an exploration of the practice for Anglican Christians and others to enter into the story of Jesus through the different parts of the year.

Community Engagement

The Christian Faith is often understood, even by its adherents as a private matter, but from the outset, it has engaged Christians in a certain stance towards the communities of which they are members that sees God as active for good in the world and commits us to join in with what God is doing. The learning resources below on seeking justice, engaging with schools, and setting a framework for participating in mission and evangelism offer some practical and theological learning to help us engage with our communities.

Justice

It’s clear from Genesis to Revelation that God is a God of justice in its broadest sense; it matters to God that all people, all of Creation in fact, can flourish and thrive without restriction. Societies and individuals that oppress or limit the opportunities to thrive for others come in for the harshest condemnations whether that be the Pharoah in Egypt or the religious leaders of first-century Galilee and Judea. The learning resources below will engage us in thinking and action about how we can tackle the most pressing forms of exclusion in our communities today – food poverty, limitations on opportunities for people from minority ethnic backgrounds and those living with disabilities of all kinds.

Schools

The Church of England has long played a pivotal role in opening access to education for all. The state has taken over the responsibility for universal primary and secondary education, but churches can still support schools, especially in contributing to the diet of collective worship and learning about the Christian faith, not just in church schools but in community schools too. These forthcoming learning resources will be the start of a suite of practical learning opportunities to support members of churches and ministry teams in playing a full role in the life of their local schools.

Mission and Evangelism

The Mission and Evangelism learning resources below will introduce us to ideas about the scope of God’s action in the world and especially the distinct calling of the Christian Church to be a part of that. Since Jesus called his very first disciples and told one of them (St Peter) that he would catch people instead of fish, it has been an essential part of the Church’s way of being to share Jesus’s invitation to become one of his followers with all people. There will be materials introducing us to some of the more recent ways that the Church has sought to engage with people who are not already involved in the local church's life, even at its margins – fresh expressions of church and pioneer ministry.

Church Life and Worship

Where the learning resources above will offer learning about our personal faith and our participation in God’s mission, we will be turning in the resources below to learning some of the skills and practices that enable us to even more fully participate in the inner life of the church – in groups that support our journey as disciples of Jesus, publicising our activities, in the ways that we seek to communicate our love to God and hear from God and in caring for all the members of the Christian community.

Leading Groups

It is a privilege and joy to be invited to lead the groups that meet to enable people to deepen their faith, support each other in prayer and consider some of the challenges life throws up in the light of faith. It is also a challenge to ensure that all can hear and be heard, that everyone gets to play a full part in those groups. The challenges are different in some obvious and some subtle ways when leading groups for people of different ages. These materials will help you to even better facilitate those groups in your church when invited.

Communications

Working out the best way to get information out to people about what’s going on in your church is challenging. This learning resource will set out some initial strategies for identifying how people seek information and how we can channel what we need to say in the most effective ways.

Worship

Worship is a whole-life activity. It describes our orientation towards God and God’s love and where we locate ‘worth’ in our lives. We also use the same word to describe the shared and focused activities we participate in on Sundays and at other times to reconnect with God and our belonging together. These learning resources introduce us to some of the key practices of the Church of England in our gatherings. They are intended to enable fuller participation as a worshipper.

Because we are an established church, governed by law, the leadership and conduct of some of these practices are reserved for those who are authorised, licensed or ordained by the Bishop of the Diocese for those purposes. The learning resources on preaching, especially, will not, therefore, convey any authorisation to become a preacher. It is a helpful foundation for those who may go on to exercise that sort of ministry after further training, or for those who simply want to understand better what is going on in this aspect of the Church’s ministry so that they can get the most out of the preaching of others.

The materials on all-age worship and leading intercessions are designed to help those who will take part in these aspects of the church’s worship be more effective in those roles.

Pastoral Care

These learning resources will offer entry-level training for members of congregations who are joining pastoral care teams in a parish, benefice or deanery to enable them to better support others in times of need in their personal lives. People leading such teams will need the more intensive training offered by the Authorised Lay Ministry pastoral specialism or through training for licensed or ordained ministry.

Church Organisation

The local church is a number of things at the same time. Fundamentally and theologically speaking, it is a local expression of the Body of Christ, a Christian community. At the same time, it is also largely a voluntary organisation, a charity and perhaps even an employer. As well as being characterised by engaged mission, passionate worship, attentive learning and growth, it also needs to be effectively run. The learning resources below help people involved in its administration, governance and safe operation to fulfil those roles even more effectively.

Administration

Whether you are a volunteer, church officer, or paid administrator, there are some things about the laws of the Church of England that make the task of administration somewhat involved. In these materials, as well as offering some training in general good administrative practice, we will be offering training around managing buildings and churchyards.

Governance

Running a parish church in England involves some of its members taking specific areas of responsibility, whether that is as members of its legally-constituted trustee body, the Parochial Church Council, or the Bishop’s officers in the parish, Churchwardens or one of the other roles shown below. In these learning resources, we will offer an overview of the responsibilities of each role as well as some guidance on best practice.

Health and Safety

Safeguarding training is a category in its own right and so is covered elsewhere on this site, but in the life of the local church, there are other ways we need to keep each other safe and these learning resources will enable church officers and others involved in the life of their local church to identify and minimse risks from fire, accident and food preparation.

Training for Trainers

Finally, we are developing some learning resources to help people who are developing or delivering the learning opportunities on this website to do so even more effectively. The learning resources below will help you better understand your role and task whether you are accompanying learners through their studies, leading the delivery of learning resources, or designing learning resources that we will make available on this platform.

Last modified: Wednesday, 17 April 2024, 12:06 PM

	Introduction to the Gospels
	Introduction to Psalms
	Introduction to the Torah
	Introduction to Paul

	Introduction to the Reformation
	Introduction to the Trinity
	Introduction to Salvation
	Introduction to the Church

	Introduction to Contemplation
	Introduction to Lectio Divina
	Introducing a Rule of Life
	Introduction to the Daily Office
	Introduction to the Church Year

	Introducing 5 Marks of Mission
	Introducing Evangelism
	Introducing Fresh Expressions of Church
	Introducing Pioneer Ministry
	Introducing Social Enterprise

	Introduction to Liturgy
	Introduction to Preaching
	Introduction to All-age Worship
	Leading Intercessions

	Starting a Food Bank
	Racial Justice
	Disability

	Collective Worship
	Supporting RE
	Open the Book

	Children
	Young People
	Adults

	Publicity and Social Media

Learning Resources for Growth