Dreamers Who Do –  Train to Become a Pioneer Enabler

Do you know someone who:

• Has three new ideas before breakfast?
• Gets deeply passionate about the lonely, the lost, the poor or anyone on the margins of society?
• Frequently asks to start new services, or start new events to invite others to?

If so, the Reaching New People team are delighted to be able to tell you about a new opportunity.

Designed especially to encourage the pioneer gift in different missional contexts and to nurture innovative mission on the ground, this lay pioneering training will be delivered in partnership with Church Mission Society (CMS) and based centrally within the St Albans Diocese. This forms part of  the restructuring of lay training within the diocese and on successful completion of this one year course the pioneer will be commissioned by the Bishop as a “Pioneer Enabler” within their sending parish.

Why Pioneer Enablers?

The Church of England currently defines “pioneers” as:

“People called by God who are amongst the first to see and respond to the Holy Spirit’s initiatives with those outside the church within a particular context, around which others will gather with them and together establish new Christian communities.”

Pioneer Enablers might work with a Parish, Chaplaincy or Bishop’s Mission Order (BMO) in partnership with clergy and other lay people. Pioneering will be the main focus of their ministry and most of their time will be spent with people outside of the local Church. Pioneer Enablers have a role in enabling others in pioneer mission. We are looking for those explorers and adventurers who want to follow their God-given dreams to reality; those who can see the culture gap between the church  and the local community context and want to bridge it.

Details, Details, Details!

The training will be delivered by recognised Pioneers and will look at six different areas of Pioneering Mission in the following modules:

• Pioneer Mission
• Reading the Bible
• Doing Theology
• Transforming Communities
• Mission Spirituality
• Mission and Church

Each module is a mix of 14 hours of teaching all together and small group sessions. The 2021/22 course will run from September 2021 – July 2022. Over the entire duration of the course, students will build up a portfolio which will include components for each of the modules. This is designed to be creative and flexible. For this reason all student work will be assessed and feedback given. The portfolio is for the students to keep as a record of their learning and how it is applied to their pioneering context.

There is no financial cost for the course as we want there to be as few barriers as possible. We will need a reference from the student’s incumbent and a statement of why they feel this course will be important to them in their particular context. Anyone is welcome to apply, regardless of family or work commitments, or educational background.

Questions and Applications

Applications for the current course have now closed. If you’re interested in learning more about the training and the possibility of joining the Autumn 2021 – Summer 2022 course, please contact Sue Hughes at the RNP office or you can email pioneer@stalbans.anglican.org.