Church:Space Project Director

Tollington Parish is a lively Anglican church in Islington. They are setting up an innovative social enterprise to manage their three church sites and hire out the spaces within these to the community. The project will serve the local community and generate income and missional opportunities for the Parish. Their ambition is to expand the project to offer the service to other churches in north London.

They are looking for a Project Director to set up this project, get it running and make a success of it – providing a service which is professional, missional and enterprising. If the Project can achieve financial sustainability within the first 12-18 months their intention is to extend the Project and possibly to expand its services to other churches. The Project Director will manage a small team of staff and volunteers, be accountable to a Project Board and will work collaboratively with them to achieve these outcomes.

The ideal candidate for this role will:

  • have practical experience of managing properties;
  • be enterprising and able to market and sell, including through social media;
  • have a passion for good customer service and high quality service delivery;
  • be a confident, organised and experienced manager of people and budgets;
  • share their vision for local churches growing and serving their communities.

This is full-time post, with a salary of £27,000-30,000.

Launch of first ever Centre For Pioneer Mission

In a joint initiative between CMS and Chelmsford Diocese, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Stephen Cottrell, has launched the first ever local Centre for Pioneer Mission at a special commissioning service in Romford.

The St Cedd Centre for Pioneer Mission, which takes its name from St Cedd, a 7th century missionary to the East Saxon people, will act as a focal point for locally based mission pioneers and entrepreneurs seeking to reach out into their local communities.

The Centre will be based at The Church of the Good Shepherd, Collier Row as an overflow of the local mission taking place there. The vision for it has emerged from Chelmsford Diocesan Synod’s decision that every Mission and Ministry Unit should have at least one fresh expression of church.

In a service also attended by the Bishops of Barking and Bradwell, Bishop Stephen commissioned the Rev Vernon Ross, the Rev Canon David Hague, David Harrigan, Julie Clay and the Rev Canon Martin Wood alongside the Rev Johnny Sertin and Debbie James from CMS, to implement this new initiative.

Bishop Stephen said that there was a need to shift more resources towards mission pioneers whose focus was 'the world as it could be' rather than 'the church as it is'. The Centre aims to provide an environment that identifies, equips and supports Christians across the Chelmsford Diocese to serve as pioneer missionaries.

Celebrating the launch of the new centre are (left to right):

  • Debbie James, CMS Director of Church and Community Mission;
  • Rt Rev John Wraw, Area Bishop of Bradwell (hidden);
  • Rev Vernon Ross, Mission and Ministry Adviser for Barking area;
  • Rev David Hague, vicar of the Church of the Good Shepherd and Area Dean of Havering;
  • Rt Rev Peter Hill, Area Bishop of Barking;
  • Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford;
  • Julie Clay, St Cedd Centre coordinator and integration leader for the Church of the Good Shepherd;
  • Rev Canon Martin Wood, Mission and Ministry Adviser for Bradwell area;
  • Rev Johnny Sertin, CMS Pioneering Mission Adviser;
  • David Harrigan, resident pioneer at the Church of the Good Shepherd and currently on the CMS Pioneer Mission Leadership Training course preparing for ordination.