THE diocese of Carlisle has been awarded £6.8 million by the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment (SMMI) Board for plans that include the creation of almost 90 “new Christian communities” across Cumbria over the next five years.
A press release issued on Monday said that there would be “a particular focus on helping local established churches to plant new Christian congregations in Barrow, Carlisle and in rural Derwent Deanery”, and investment in training more than 200 new leaders. Extra support would be offered to help under-25s to “spiritually flourish, grow in faith and become adult disciples”.
The latest award follows a grant of almost £600,000 agreed by the SMMI Board last year, some of which will be used to fund a new church-planting lead post in the diocese. Church-plants were “in the preparatory phase”, a diocesan spokesman said.
There are plans to support the growth of the church-plant St Aidan’s, Cumbria, which meets at St Bridget’s, Bridekirk. Part of the Binsey Benefice, it launched at the end of last year to serving the towns and rural communities around the A66 corridor in the northern Lake District, with a particular focus on those not currently engaging with the Church. It currently has a 3 p.m. Sunday service and has a children and families minister funded by the Norwegian Mission Society, a diocesan partner.
The almost 90 new Christian communities comprise five church-plants or revitalisations, 55 youth-, children-, and family-focused new worshipping communities (NWCs), and 29 other NWCs. The diocese’s reference to “new Christian communities” rather than Fresh Expressions follows a broader shift in language documented in a report by Cranmer Hall last year, New Things (News, 16 August 2024).
Only one of the 11 dioceses studied used “fresh expressions” or “pioneering” to describe what was happening, adopting instead language that allowed for “maximum breadth”, the report said. Under the Archbishop of York’s Faith in the North programme, there is a goal of 3000 new worshipping communities in the Northern Province by 2030 (News, 17 January).
The grant represents further national support for the ecumenical “God for All” strategy launched in Carlisle in 2015 as a “covenanted partnership” with the Methodist and United Reformed Churches. This involved establishing new ecumenical “mission communities”, which now number 34, incorporating 235 C of E parishes. The strategy was supported by a Strategic Development Funding (SDF) grant of £850,000, and sought to include the establishment of at least one new Fresh Expression in each community, leading to 1500 new churchgoers.
Between 2015 and 2019, more than 110 Fresh Expressions were established, and, in 2019, a Church Army study reported that they accounted for one in four people attending church in the diocese: 3100 people (News, 6 September 2019). In 2019, the diocese secured a £1.6-million SDF grant for its “Reaching Deeper” strategy, set to conclude next year, which sought to further the work of Fresh Expressions, particularly in deprived areas, including Barrow and Carlisle, and supporting the Northern Pioneer Centre: a collaboration between the diocese and Church Mission Society. The grant has helped to fund four “pioneer practitioner enablers”.
The statement of needs produced by the diocese, which is currently in vacancy, states that, “although impacted by the pandemic, new Christian communities continue to emerge and our latest report shows around 2600 people attend a Fresh Expression across 120 groups.” About 1300 young Christians are reported to be involved in Network Youth Church, which operates local groups that occasionally join in larger celebrations.
The document notes that numbers worshipping on Sunday in the diocese fell by 27 per cent, to 9500, between 2010 and 2019; the decline disproportionately affects churches of between 100 and 200. The total stood at 7000 in 2023: 1.4 per cent of the population.
The decline in parish share over the years has led to a substantial fall in the number of stipendiary ordained posts, from 115 to 75, between 2007 and 2021. Recruitment is a challenge, including finding people to lead and develop mission communities, who are expected to take on an oversight position. It also describes “a clear challenge in trying to implement a far-reaching vision and strategy with limited resources in a large and sparsely populated Diocese”.
About half of the 500,000 people in Cumbria live in rural locations. The new SMMI project includes a three-year pilot to support parish growth and leadership development in three “deeply rural” mission communities as yet to be named. Duncan Poundbury, a church-planting specialist, has advised the diocese on the bid.
The diocesan director of mission and ministry, support, and innovation, Rachel Head, said: “We have spent nearly two years developing and honing our vision for this bid — ‘The Cumbria Way’ — and for many months colleagues have worked intensively with local leaders and churches across the county to develop the detail of our locally owned plans for mission and growth. . .
“Our commitment to listening and working together will be an integral and vital part of our approach, as well as regularly communicating with people across the diocese about what’s happening. It is our intention to share both what goes well, and what we learn along the way, as together we strive to reach new people in a breadth of different ways. It is imperative that the new resources available to the diocese through this award are put to best use in the service of God’s work here in this distinctive and beautiful county.”
The Church Army Research Unit recently completed a study of missional initiatives across Cumbria, but only a one-paragraph summary has been published.
