New £4.3m project aims to get more people in church
Downham is to share more than £4 million of funding in a new project, launched by the Diocese of Ely, which aims to encourage more people to attend church.
The Changing Market Towns project has received £2.13 million from the Church of England which has been matched by the diocese, bringing a total investment over the next five years to £4.36 million in a bid to raise church attendance.
The project will be focused on seven towns, including Downham.
At the moment average church attendance across those towns is 0.9 per cent, according to a report drawn up as part of its funding bid by the diocese.
The project, one of five ‘Levers for Change’ within the Diocese of Ely’s Ely2025 Growth Strategy – Targeting Resources to Key Areas, hopes to see 3.25 per cent of the population across market towns committed to involvement in the life of the church by 2025.
It will focus on enabling and sustaining church growth in small and medium-sized towns and will also see the training and nurturing church leaders.
It aims to work across whole towns, and not be constrained by parish boundaries.
The Rt Rev Stephen Conway, Bishop of Ely, said: “I am delighted that this major project has received support from the Strategic Development Fund.
“We hope that, through it, very many more people will be enabled to join a journey of faith and share in God’s work of transforming their communities. It is far-reaching, complex and ambitious and an expression of our faith in the power of God.”
It is hoped the funding will enable the diocese to transform its engagement with communities bringing in new congregations and fresh expressions of church.
The project will be supported by the organisational changes necessary to provide church leaders with the freedom to focus on town ministry. It will also help to pay for a network of community support workers with family, youth and other specialisms - leading the work of churches in transforming their communities.
The first step has been to appoint Mike Booker as Bishop’s change officer, with a brief to work with clergy and congregations to transform both churches and communities in small towns.
