The Diocese has successfully bid for funding in the latest round of Strategic Development Funding under Renewal and Reform – a national Church of England initiative to increase the number of Christians.
Diocesan Secretary, Sam Pratley explains how the funding and bid system works:
“Due to changes in the way funds are distributed to dioceses by the Church Commissioners there is a greater emphasis on bidding for money and demonstrating that we can provide match funding from within the diocese.
“In this instance £525,000 is coming from the Church Commissioners which works out as £105,000 per year.
“The remaining money is coming from the six parishes where the Intergenerational Missioners will be based. Their contribution is £8,750 above what their annual Parish Offer would ordinarily be.
“The diocese is putting up the remaining £52,500, which has been made possible by refocusing resources following feedback from Mission Action Planning in our deaneries and stopping other non-priority work.”
The cash from the Church Commissioners is specifically ring fenced for the intergenerational growth strategy and cannot be spent elsewhere.
Strategic Development Funding aims to support major change projects that fit with dioceses' strategic plans, which have a clear evangelistic focus and are designed to lead to a significant difference in achieving numerical and spiritual growth.
You can read more about the Strategic Development Fund here.
The overall cost of the project is £1.05m. The Strategic Development Funding of £525,000 was awarded in June 2017.