Wonderfully Made

Download the slides from +Graham's keynote:

Post-Covid Church

Download the slides from Isabelle Hamley's keynote:

Living out our vocation in mission & ministry

Download the slides from Ian Parkinson's Leadership seminars:

Rekindling our sense of God's calling | Strength in weakness

Our venue is The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, Alfreton, Derbyshire DE55 1AU.¯¯

• Sat Nav Postcode is DE55 1AT
• what3words¯–¯///stated.times.walks

Registration opens at 10.00am. Tea and coffee will be available.¯¯When you arrive at The Hayes, please come to the main reception/front entrance of the conference centre where you will be met, registered, and given your conference pack.¯

The Conference opens with a Eucharist at 11.00am.

Once you’ve registered, take a moment to familiarise yourself with the layout of the site. View the site map.

You can access your room from 2pm onwards using the key card given to you at registration. Check out is by 9.30am on Thursday.

Staying offsite?

Some people have rooms at the nearby Travelodge (SatNav DE55 1HJ). See the joining instructions sent to you by email.

All your meals will still be provided by The Hayes.

We will supply a list of people staying at the Travelodge so that hopefully you can car share on each day.

Bedrooms at the Travelodge will not be available until after 3.00pm. There is a 30-minute break at 3.30 on Tuesday but that may not be enough time to check in and be back in time for our first keynote. However, there will be plenty of time after dinner when no other programme is scheduled.

There is ample car parking at The Hayes. The majority of participants will be staying in the Alan Booth and Lakeside Accommodation. We suggest you park in that area of the centre when you arrive.

There are two 7,4kw charging points suitable for all mode 3 enabled electric vehicles, and the centre charge £5 for a charge.¯Please let me know if you will need to charge your electric car while at conference so that we can manage the demand and timetable charging as required.¯

Once you’re settled in, be sure to sign up for the events and workshops you’d like to attend during the next three days. Sign-up sheets can be found outside the Derbyshire Hall. Please note some workshops and reflection spaces have limited space available. Sign up promptly to avoid disappointment.

Our opening Eucharist takes place at 11am in the Derbyshire Hall. Lunch is provided in the dining rooms from 12:30pm.

See Tuesday's timetable

See Wednesday's timetable

See Thursday's timetable

We’re pleased to welcome St Andrew’s Bookshop to the conference. Be sure to visit them in the Lounge from 12:30pm on Tuesday through to 10:45am on Thursday.

There is also a well-stocked bar which will be open before supper and each evening.¯

The Hayes is now operating as a CASHLESS site, so any purchases made at the bar or reception are CARD ONLY.¯

Chaplains are available throughout the conference. In the event of a non-medical emergency, call 0787 655 3882 or speak to a member of the conference planning team (red lanyards).

The chaplains at our conference are +David Jennings and Sr Elizabeth Jane. They are available for prayer, counsel and accompaniment or to hear confessions (if asked). They are available either by approaching one of them wherever they happen to be, or meeting by arrangement in one of the designated chaplain’s rooms (Quiet Room 1, which is between rooms 334-336, and Quiet Room 2, which is between rooms 356-357).

The Chapel is also available for most of our conference as a quiet prayer space, as is our reflective Prayer Space in Butterley 2.

We are asking everyone to take an LFT test prior to arrival. Please do not travel if you feel at all unwell.¯Do wear a mask during the conference if that enables your feeling safe.¯

Should you feel unwell and/or test positive while at the conference, please let us know as soon as possible.

Our conference ends at 3.00pm following a closing Eucharist.¯

If you have any last-minute issues or delays, please call, or send a text to 07876553882 or ring The Hayes main reception 01773 526000.

Father of mercies,
you set the treasure of the gospel
in jars of clay.
Guide and strengthen us through
trials and affliction.
Restore our hope in the ministry
to which you call us,
grant us a fresh vision of your
new creation and
fill us with the grace of
your Holy Spirit;
through Jesus Christ,
your Son, our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Dear friends,

The devastating consequences of the war in Ukraine, the lasting effects of the pandemic, and now the fastest rise in the cost of living for a generation have made for a tumultuous 28 months. I am in awe and deep appreciation for what you have achieved through these last two years. Thank you. You have done magnificently.

During my recent deanery visits I have seen signs of hope and energy returning, but challenges remain. This is a season of lament and healing, for seeking spiritual and vocational renewal through fresh encounters with the living God. A time to resist a return to frenetic activity and to pause and refocus on God’s heart for the world and seek the empowering work of the Spirit.

Our guiding passage for this conference has been Ps139, which invites us all to consider what it means to be human in these times: we are fearfully and wonderfully made, known and loved by a God who is faithful and for whom ‘even the dark is not dark to you’.

There are clergy present from every deanery of the diocese - it is good to have you here. I pray that this conference provides a time of spiritual nourishment for all, a return to the centre of your calling, and the opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and with God. Nothing is compulsory for our time together, so navigate the conference programme in the way that best nourishes you.

I am deeply grateful to the conference planning group, our conference contributors and keynote speakers. We offer this gift of time and space to God as we seek his blessing and refreshment, his grace and healing.

Bishop Steven

It has been my privilege to lead the planning of this clergy conference, as I did in 2018. Not surprisingly, this has been a very different and far more difficult journey to navigate. Each month of planning, the mood and needs of clergy have changed as we’ve all experienced the emotional, physical and spiritual roller coaster which has been Covid.

The shape of this conference emerged from dwelling in Psalm 139. Despite a constantly changing environment, a varied group of parish clergy and Church House staff prayerfully and carefully framed the conference’s flow and focus, which has served the planning process and, we trust, the conference well.

We sought to build on all that clergy said was good about the 2018 conference – part festival, part retreat with space for playfulness, creativity and refreshment. Our aim was for a varied but unpressured programme with the space to reconnect and acknowledge the reality of ministry over the past two and half years. Do let us know how we did when the post-conference survey arrives.

We hope and pray that this conference has been a time of blessing, a fresh realisation that you are ‘wonderfully made’ and that you’ve experienced a sense of renewal of your calling from God. Whatever your calling and context, we thank God for you and the precious gifts, skills and passions you have been given.

Andrew Anderson-Gear
Director of Mission & Ministry
On behalf of the 2022 Clergy Conference Planning Group

Watch Engaging with God's word: The God of all Comfort live on YouTube.

Catch up anytime

Salutation

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the church of God that is in Corinth, including all the saints throughout Achaia:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul’s Thanksgiving after Affliction

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,[a] of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again, 11 as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many will give thanks on our[b] behalf for the blessing granted to us through the prayers of many.

The Postponement of Paul’s Visit

Indeed, this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: we have behaved in the world with frankness[c] and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God—and all the more towards you. 13 For we write to you nothing other than what you can read and also understand; I hope you will understand until the end— as you have already understood us in part—that on the day of the Lord Jesus we are your boast even as you are our boast.

Watch Engaging with God's word: Treasure in clay jars live on YouTube.

Catch up anytime

Treasure in Clay Jars

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practise cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—‘I believed, and so I spoke’—we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Living by Faith

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

Watch Engaging with God's word: A new creation live on YouTube.

Catch up anytime

For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says,

‘At an acceptable time I have listened to you,

and on a day of salvation I have helped you.’

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours.

Looking back, what have been the main sources of your strength and resilience in ministry over the last two years?

How can we hold more closely to the pattern of Christ in our own ministries? What habits or decisions would help?