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| Everybody’s Welcome: A Training Day for Pastoral Leaders |
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October 15th 2005
Bishop John Hine introduced the day by referring to the expectations raised during Listening 2004. The Bishops of England and Wales had responded to families’ concerns by approving a three year plan of action of which Everybody’s Welcome was the first stage. Today was about reviewing some very practical resources that dioceses might find useful in their local planning. Elizabeth Davies then outlined the aims and objectives of Everybody’s Welcome within the context of the overall plan of action called Celebrating Family: Blessed, Broken, Living Love.
Mike’s research and findings plus many practical ideas are written up in his very readable book Building Family-Friendly Churches (comes with a CD-Rom). The Family Friendly Churches Trust offers a process of parish membership, a family friendly churches charter and a monthly e-newsletter as well as a range of other services to congregations. Comments about Mike’s presentation from the evaluations include:
The final session of the day was led by Patricia Cox from the Diocese of Portsmouth. Participants were all given a copy of a Ministry of Welcome parish training resource which the Departments for Collaborative Ministry, Evangelisation and Catechesis and Liturgical Formation had jointly adapted from an original version produced by the Anglican Diocese of Winchester. The resource is designed for all parish groups to help them understand why welcoming visitors and strangers matters and that all parishioners need an on-going welcome. It also enables parishes to improve their own welcome policies. The material is divided into 13 sections which can be covered over four evening sessions followed at a later date by a review session. Some of the material is aimed at group reflection and some is aimed at group action, both observation and change. Groups can facilitate the course themselves and do not need external support though this is available to them in Portsmouth. Comments on Patricia’s presentation from the evaluations include:
The day concluded with a liturgy on the theme of 'I am with you always' including a Litany of Listening 2004. Overall the evaluations reflected a high level of satisfaction with the day’s content. Feedback on the highlights mentioned:
Suggestions for future improvements included:
Requests for further advice / investigation by the Everybody’s Welcome Working Group included:
Speakers Contact DetailsKaren Holford Paul Godfrey (co-author of EW resource) Mike Bossingham Patricia Cox |
Leaders in 17 dioceses and other organisations attended a training day at Hinsley Hall on October 15th to evaluate existing resources for parishes wishing to become more friendly, family-sensitive and welcoming. The day was part of the preparation leading up to the launch of Everybody’s Welcome and provided an opportunity for networking as well as for information sharing. 
Karen Holford, former Chair of Churches Together for Families, introduced the Everybody’s Welcome resource produced by CTF to help churches think about ways of becoming more family-friendly. Within her own work Karen and her husband Bernie travel widely across the country and she illustrated her presentation with examples of churches that they had experienced both as especially friendly and especially unfriendly. Karen mentioned one church in particular where every member has their own name badge and if anyone new turns up one Sunday a badge is made for them ready for the next time they attend a service at that church. Participants then divided into groups to experience a practical application of the Everybody’s Welcome resource: a reflection on family needs based on a series of case studies, all of which incidentally came from the Listening 2004 feedback. Groups were asked to identify the needs of the families in these situations, what their hopes might be of their church and what their parish could do to help them bear their burdens more easily. Feedback was recorded on flipcharts which have now been collated (see attached). Comments about Karen’s presentation from the evaluations include:
Mike Bossingham, founder and director of the Family-Friendly Churches Trust talked about his own experience of family-friendly churches and the research he had undertaken as part of a ministerial sabbatical. This research involved visiting many different churches for Sunday worship to find out if there was anything special about those church communities that were thriving. Mike discovered that there was indeed something common in these congregations, that they were all essentially what he described as family-friendly congregations with good numbers of young people present and that they generally shared the following characteristics: