Dear Friends,
We are making some changes at NECN to help us increase the amount we can do and to make us more effective. This post is to update you on this and to ask if you can play a part.
People. Andy Delmege has stepped aside from our Board and is now our Executive Director. Our funding from Allchurches Trust means he is able to give two days a week to NECN and is concentrating on building up and supporting a national network of Estates and Urban Groups.
Christine McAteer is our half time Support Officer, ensuing that everything happens behind the scenes.
We have a new Chair and Vice Chair. Lynne Cullens is our Chair. Lynne is Rector of Stockport & Brinnington and a member of the C of E’s Selection Oversight Group, Estates Evangelism Task Group and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Housing, Church and Local Community. A former CEO, she was born in Ordsall, Salford and blogs on issues of culture and the Church at lynnecullens.com.
Sara Barron is our Vice Chair. Sara is an accredited Baptist minister and until recently she has had a pioneering ministry on a large council estate near Portsmouth where she lived for 16 years. Sara is a trustee of Incarnate Network, NECN and Estates Evangelism Taskgroup. Sara works half time as development worker for CURBS, which resources, trains and supports children’s workers in urban and estate areas. Having recently moved to Looe in Cornwall Sara is spending a year of missional listening in this new context before embarking on pioneer ministry in Looe. Sara is married to Barney, also a Baptist minister, and they have four children.
Structure.
In order to work effectively, NECN is structuring itself around a number of Workstreams. These are:
Groups; Partnerships; Resources (responsible for conferences, scoping resources, commissioning where there are gaps); Finance and Fundraising; and Communications.
Each one of these will be Chaired by someone who attends NECN Trustee meetings, and will meet several times a year, usually by phone or skype.
Each Workstream will be responsible for deciding how it will contribute to delivering the NECN Vision and Strategy.
In a year, we will review whether we have capacity to open new Workstreams around Children and Young People; Leadership; and Planting and Pioneering.
Playing a Part.
We need people who have estates and estate churches on their hearts, who have experience and skills, and who have time and commitment, to play a part in this. This is an important role in seeing estates enabled to become fully alive in Christ and in ensuring that there is a thriving, growing, loving church on every significant social housing estate in the country
If you feel drawn to helping NECN in this way, or can recommend someone who can help, please contact Christine on 0121 426 0436 or christinem@cofebirmingham.com and please keep us in your prayers.
Other News
Please keep an eye on the website https://estatechurches.org/ and Facebook and Twitter streams for updates on all things estate church.
If you have any estate church jobs or other news you would like us to share, please email Christine.
We will have news of our National Conferences for 2020 very soon.
If you have time, check out the first in a series of podcasts from the Estates Theology Group on Good News from the Estates
We are in the season of Advent and drawing near to Christmas, with all that brings. A friend wrote to me this morning:
Safeguard (jealously) those moments when you can go and find the space, time and place to be with God however limited in time you are.
I pray that you may have a blessed time. Thank you for who you are and all you do.
Andy
