i have liased a bit around a new job that has been created in portishead around pioneering. I really like what has been created. i am not in the habit of posting job opportunities on the blog so please don't inundate me as i won't oblige. but because this one is in my view showing the kind of imagination that is needed i thought i would add it. it goes in the church times this week. the working title is team pilgrim and i attach some blurb on it to download below but here's a few extracts:

It has to be recognised that traditional church has only a limited reach and the majority of the town’s population will remain untouched by our presence no matter how attractive we make our Church’s life. We therefore wish to develop a new approach to ministry focused not on drawing people in to our existing activities but on meeting people where they are. We need to discern new ways of being and living the gospel within our town’s communities and meeting people at their point of need. This requires a Kingdom-focused rather than Church-focused ministry…

…The appointed person will need to be freed from what can become the all embracing demands of traditional church to forge new ways of revealing and sharing the gospel. Whilst being fully integrated into the church life of the parish they will need to have sufficient protected space and support to focus on the new.

This appointment lies within the emerging sphere of pioneer ministry. However we are wanting to resist an “off the shelf” solution and instead seek a new and distinctive response to our particular situation. Our vision for this new role comes from an affirmation of people’s innate spirituality, however expressed, and seeks ways to awaken this. It affirms God’s presence in the world and celebrates people’s existing experiences of God (linked or unlinked to anything we may perceive as Christian), seeking to add to that experience. It places the emphasis on growing God’s Kingdom rather than growing the Church. Our working title for this new role is “Team Pilgrim”.

As a fellow pilgrim, it involves meeting people on their way/journey as part of following the Way. There is similarly a sense of the nomad, valuing encounters without needing to forge institutions, pitching a tent and moving on, journeying with people and, where appropriate, signposting them on. Evoked too is the spirit of the adventurer, the one who is willing to take risks for the gospel. As a true pioneer it seeks to explore new territories and prepare a new road for ministry away from the familiar territory of inherited Church.

you can download the extract i was sent which has contact details at the end