A more Christ-like Church: Growing your church

We have already more than 800 parish churches in the Diocese of Oxford. Why on earth would we want to grow still more congregations? This is an extract from one of the Mission and Evangelism sessions on our learning hub - learn.oxford.anglican.org "Here’s why I think growing congregations needs to be a key part of the life of the Church of England if we can in every place. – the Church has always grown by establishing new congregations in different places – there are scores of new housing estates being built right as our population expands – there is a wide gap between the culture of the church and the culture of society – Anglican parish churches have always been a collection of different congregations – Establishing new congregations has been enormously fruitful. Did you know that Anglican fresh expressions of church accounted for around 15% of Anglican congregations before the pandemic? Where there is a faithful witness to the good news, a sowing of the seeds of the gospel, then there will be in time new Christians who are to be encouraged and built up in the faith. Sometimes this will happen through people joining existing congregations – but sometimes it’s right to develop the missional community into a fresh expression of church in its own right and to seek to draw that church to maturity and sustainability. We are evolving again into a seven day a week church with many different communities to connect with the whole of our culture." – Bishop Steven Find out more and access the resources to help you at oxford.anglican.org/growing-your-church