23 October 2020
Churches Together in England has just launched the new Toolkit for A Flexible Framework for Local Unity in Mission.
This Toolkit provides an easy-to use framework helping local churches to collaborate with confidence and flexibility, developing the right agreement for their joint venture – such as a holiday club, mission event, messy church, homeless shelter or community café.
The Toolkit guides readers step by step, explaining a variety of different agreements you could use, and helping you decide which will work best for your group. Guiding you through the key questions to ask and the practical steps to follow, ‘A Flexible Framework’ will help your group to collaborate with confidence, prudence and flexibility.
The content was produced by the Baptist, Church of England, Methodist and United Reformed Church (URC) National Ecumenical Officers, working with a volunteer group of County Ecumenical Officers and CTE staff. The toolkit document was designed by the URC Communications Department.
Praise for the toolkit
- Andrew Edwards, Local Ecumenical Partnership (LEP) Co-ordinator for Churches Together in the Merseyside Region is delighted: “What an attractive, clear, useable Toolkit has emerged through the different stages of this careful process. I’m already thinking of conversations it could be introduced into round here.”
- Jacqui King, County Ecumenical Officer for Essex and East London, praises the Toolkit’s “professional format”, adding: “I hope it’s well received by colleagues and becomes a useful resource to those involved in ecumenical mission.”
Access the toolkit
Find all the resources for ‘A Flexible Framework for Local Unity in Mission’ on our website.
Resources include:
- A practical toolkit for your local group to work through
- Further information on A Flexible Framework and how it can help you
- A PowerPoint to explain the basics to others
Further details
A Flexible Framework for Local Unity in Mission was a response to a desire to focus on mission and not become mired in structures. It offers a lighter touch way of ecumenical working. At the launch of its first version, David Cornick, then CTE General Secretary, suggested that this framework “may well prove to be one of the most significant practical ecumenical documents of our time”.
The new toolkit speaks to areas of possible co-operation such as holiday clubs, mission events, messy church, homeless shelters, community cafés, outreach to new housing projects – to name just a few examples. The focus is how to work as churches together on such projects without necessarily setting up a new charity or spending valuable resource on writing complicated constitutions. Similarly, if a congregation wants to join with another church, the toolkit offers an alternative to setting up a Local Ecumenical Partnership, pointing to the much easier Formal Declaration of Ecumenical Welcome and Commitment.
