Andy Freeman is joining the team to help develop a hub for pioneers in the region.
This is a really exciting development that has happened much quicker than we expected (o ye of little faith!).
Who is Andy?
Andy lives in Reading, is a pioneer minister part of a local community Reconcile of the 24/7 prayer movement. His particular brief nationally with 24/7 is to develop the Just 24/7 part of the movement developing intentional social justice. 24/7 have become a national partner recently in Fresh Expressions. You may have spotted Andy leading prayer at the recent Changing The Landscape Fresh Expressions day in Oxford. He used to run a boiler room (no not an engine room – a venue that is a new monasticism type venue for prayer), has been a youth minister, and is currently studying theology at St Melitus to be an ordained pioneer minister in the C of E. And he has 5 kids to keep him busy!
What’s the role?
These are the sorts of things we hope to see happen in the next three years in the region:
- a network of pioneers
- an annual gathering of some sort
- develop a network of mentors/coaches
- development of good practice and policy for pioneers in dioceses and districts
- collaboration between training providers so that pioneers get best training possible
- practitioner sessions at cms
It’s only 9 hours a week so it will take a while. But it’s exciting and wonderful that the region has agreed to fund this post and great that Andy has been appointed. He starts on 1st June. (The South Central RTP – Regional Training Partnership is the region set up to work together on training which covers 5 dioceses – Oxford, Portsmouth, Winchester, Guildford, Salisbury and colleges and courses in them. It’s this body that has made the appointment and seconded Andy to be in the pioneer team at CMS ).