Inspiring Church Growth

On 8th October the ministry team and a number of our volunteers here at Ashtead Parish attended this year’s Church Growth Conference hosted by St Paul’s near Epsom, to enjoy wisdom shared by a host of speakers on going deeper in discipleship. The conference, is the Guildford Diocese’s largest annual event and brings together clergy, PCC members, staff and ministry teams for a series of inspirational talks and practical workshops.

Krish Kandiah, the inspirational founder of Home for Good and the Sanctuary Foundation, gave a talk exploring what it means to be ‘All in’ for Jesus, and how to inspire vibrant, world-changing faith in others. Then The Revd Dr Hannah Steele, Director of St Mellitus College (London) and author of ‘Living His story – how to become a community of missional disciples’ spoke on how to make disciples who in turn go on to make more disciples.

Following a networking lunch there were two afternoon workshops. One on community engagement and evangelism led by the Chief Executive of the Church Urban Fund, the Rt Revd Rob Wickham. The other on growing your ministry to children, families and young people, led by Krish Kandiah.

Those who attended from Ashtead shared some thoughts and comments following the day:

“An excellent, practical, relevant conference, encouraging us all to be relational disciples wherever we are, whatever we are doing and whoever we are with.”

“We were encouraged to learn as much as possible about our wider community in order to work out what kind of church we need to be in our parish. Discipleship needs to work in partnership with Social Action in order to have an impact.”