Barnabas: Encouraging Confidence has built strong platforms during its first year from which to support our clergy and lay leaders in many ways.
Confident Leadership for Missional Church is now in its second year, with 19 individuals in the first cohort and 21 in the second.
The CPAS-designed course is a 10 month leadership development journey for clergy seeking to be equipped for new leadership challenges they will face.
The Revd Tracy Milne, Priest in Charge at St James’ Bolton, said of the course: “I was able to talk about the examples that the course brings us to people at my church, and from that we had a parish weekend away, and I'm very pleased that we were able to take some of the content of the course and implement it into the parish within four or five weeks of discovering what the course said.
“The course has taught me how to talk to and encourage, enable and empower people so they can be who they're called to be in the context of growing the church.”
In the Diocese of Leeds we use mentoring in a variety of ways in order to support groups and individuals, to encourage those facing challenging circumstances.
The primary purpose of the mentor is to listen prayerfully, helping the mentee to explore their options and find a way forward for themselves.
35 mentors have been trained in the last year, offering encouragement, support, perspective, challenge, accountability and prayer to provide the mentee with a safe environment for exploring important issues.
To find out more about mentoring, please click here.