PCC News

But growing the Church is where we often feel ill equipped and inadequate. It is not that we don’t want to do mission and evangelism, it is just that we struggle to know how. The Leading your Church into Growth (LyCiG) programme can really help.

LyCiG is about helping us to deal with the practical stuff – the nuts and bolts of doing mission. It doesn’t do the work for you, but gives you a tool kit that any church, of any size, and in any context can use. The LyCiG method encourages us to start where we are and create missional connections in the context of what is already going on in our parish and community. But it is one thing creating a missional activity, but what next? The LyCiG team have already thought this through and there are tried and tested materials for that next step as well.

Saint Andrews Church, Lowestoft, sent a team to a LyCiG conference to engage with and learn about the process. We realised that we were not engaging with people who already used our church, in fact we already had a mission field and had opportunities to engage that we had not realised were there. This changed our outlook and refocused our efforts. Not everything we tried has worked how we would have liked it to, but LyCiG gave us the confidence to try; and where we have not had huge success, we have learned, changed and tried again. Going to LyCiG helped to change our mindset and our attitude to doing mission and evangelism. Since attending LyCiG the idea of doing things to help grow the Church has become a part of our everyday thinking and something that it frequently prayed for and discussed by all parts of church fellowship. In short, then:

• The LyCiG programme can benefit any church, of any size, in any context.
• The programme will give your church the confidence to try. Finally – if you want to grow – go!