Chester Diocese
News Item
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‘Back to Church Sunday’ campaign launches in our Diocese
PARISHES across our diocese will be asked to take part in the exciting campaign for growth, Back to Church Sunday, later this year. The campaign involves church members being given prayer cards with a space to fill in the name of a friend they would like to invite to come back to church – or to try services for the first time. The card is a personal invitation (usually coming from a friend) to come to a special church service on Back to Church Sunday, 30 September. The idea originated in Manchester Diocese in 2004, where it has been found that an average of 12 people per parish come to the Back to Church Sunday service. How many of those continue to attend church and become active members of a parish can vary. Much depends on the quality of the follow-up work by church members. The campaign is now spreading to other dioceses. Returners to church, and any that are new to church, get a welcome pack. Our Parish Mission Development Officer, the Revd Richard Burton (pictured above right) will co-ordinate the campaign in the Diocese of Chester over the next few months and prepare resources for the launch. He said: “Back to Church does two things. First, it motivates the whole congregation in evangelism, and second, it works by using the most important element of evangelism, which is friendship. “Like many of the best ideas really it is a very simple one. People are inclined to respond positively to an invitation to ‘come back’ because the invitation comes from a friend. I do hope as many parishes in our Diocese as possible will take part.” • Back To Church Sunday has already been tried on a limited scale in our Diocese previously – for instance at St Michael and All Angels, Mottram. As a result of that, Kevin and Patricia Hall, have returned to regular church experience after a gap of some 20 years. The married couple – both teachers – were introduced to Back to Church Sunday by a friend of Mrs Hall in the Guiding movement. Mr Hall said: “ We are from Christian families but we had fallen out of the habit of going to church. After we went back we found the church at Mottram to be a wonderful community, a really welcoming place, everyone was so friendly from the word go. So now we go to church almost every week.”
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The Revd Richard Burton
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