Deanery Briefing: 7.30pm Wednesday 10 November 2021
What links Network Rail and expediential church growth?
The answer: Richard Wightman the speaker for this Deanery Briefing.
Prior to becoming a fulltime Pastor with the New Life Church in Milton Keynes, Richard was responsible for developing and managing the strategy for the passenger business of Network Rail handling an income of £1.6bn each year.
So, he knows a thing or two about strategy, planning, resource management and developing leaders.
At a time when many deaneries are increasingly being called on to become a proactive partner in developing strategies to support our parishes in their mission and ministry we can learn a lot in sharing experiences with our brothers and sisters in other dominations.
So what can we learn from Richard’s experience?
In this Deanery Briefing Richard will look at the challenges we face in the new world post pandemic focusing on:
- Handling fear in myself and others
- Handling differing perspectives amongst church members
- Recovering lost connections and lost momentum
- What to do about technology given the plethora of choices and limited resources
Then in the second part of the evening:
- Identifying and developing leaders and leadership skills amongst lay members
- Practical actions for growing churches.
Richard’s Goal
Richards’s goal is to advance the kingdom of God and is passionate about equipping church members to be effective ambassadors for Christ.
It is this love of Jesus and bringing to bear the skills he acquired in the railway industry that, under his leadership, the church has grown from 175 to over 850 and co-ordinating a worldwide network of over 3000 churches.