News
This page includes news items from the past 12 months and an archive of earlier items. Click/tap on any red heading to see the full news item.
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Church Administrators in Edmonton Area of London Diocese
Material for 23rd June 2021
I am looking forward to working by Zoom with Church Administrators and Operations staff in the Edmonton Area of London Diocese. You have a vital, creative role to play in your church, and work at the heart of its spirituality (though you won't hear that view from many people!).
In my short session with you I want to prepare us all for the lifting of Covid restrictions (said in hope!) by looking at how we work with people who visit the church office, whether in person, by phone, from the website, or through social media. I'll base it on Training Notes TN102 in the Resources section of this website but give you a direct link below.
What you look for in your Minister
2nd June 2021
Just uploaded for June is a set of ten features that fair, perceptive, generous church members tell me they delight or long to see in their Minister.
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Church trustees are responsible for the staff they employ
2nd April 2021
'Many church Trustees fail to appreciate the responsibility they carry for the selection, employment and management of their staff.' This situation is addressed in Training Notes TN130, Appoint a 'Staff Action Group', just uploaded to this website.
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New training aid for all lesson readers
1st February 2021
Published in the Resources section of the website today is a new training aid for all who read the Bible to the congregation in church services. Article A49, How to read the Bible out loud, enables any church to run its own training session. Sixteen hand-out sheets are also provided for participants.
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Advice for church staff meetings published
1st December 2020
One of the two new sets of Training Notes uploaded yesterday offers advice on how to conduct church staff meetings. Many staff members are frustrated at how these meetings are run and the Notes provide a case study to demonstrate some of the common problems.
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Diocese of Portsmouth Minister/Administrator event
Material for 17th November 2020
Here is the handbook for the event next Tuesday. We shall work through these pages in our two morning sessions. The second file has notes to explain how the Zoom breakout rooms will work.
Administrator advice for the small church
28th September 2020
A new set of Training Notes has been uploaded to the Resources section of this website today. The small-church administrator shows how a typical Church Administrator appointment might be adapted for a small church.
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Small group organisation - choices you can make
3rd August 2020
Detailed advice for reviewing or setting up a small group structure in your church has been published today. Organising your small groups - Choices to be made is the title of Article A48, just added to the Resources section of this website.
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Diocese of St Albans IME2
Material for 11th July 2020
Here is the handbook for the Year 2 Curates and Readers training morning on 'Managing yourself'. You will need this either printed out or on screen as we shall work through these pages in our two morning sessions.
What's the point of church?
29th May 2020
A new set of Training Notes on church purpose has been uploaded to the Resources section of the website today. TN124 is available free of charge for anyone to read, download and print.
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creative organisation for effective christian ministry
New items are added to the Resources section of the site every other month.
For shorter nuggets, follow John on Twitter (see icon near top right-hand corner of each page). If you do not have a Twitter account simply keep using this link on a regular basis to see all John's tweets. He adds several new ones each week.
You have made what could have been a challenging process a pleasure.
A church leader at the end of a major consultancy - December 2020