Representatives from our diocese recently attended the Hope-Filled Conversations conference, organised by the Archbishop of York Mission Enabler’s Team in partnership with Emmanuel Theological College, and funded by Racial Justice Unit.
Clergy and lay leaders from intercultural congregations came together to worship and hear from notable guest speakers including Rt Revd John Perumbalath, Bishop of Liverpool, Rt Revd Smitha Prasadam, Bishop of Huddersfield, and author Harvey Kwiyani, along with representatives from the Racial Justice Unit and Antioch Network.
The key topics covered included Theological Education, the challenges and opportunities for growth within communities where people are new to Christian faith, and church planting. Anecdotes and analysis were shared by different church planting projects, with inspiring news of new congregations being formed all over the country.
Canon David Onabanjo, Intercultural Mission Enabler for Manchester Diocese, was involved in a panel discussion around Ethnolinguistic Church, which is growing congregations with specific language and cultural backgrounds. He shared his belief that we must encourage culture-based congregations to develop and flourish, which requires a collaborative strategy and strong leadership to ensure all strands are brought together as multilinguistic and intercultural churches.
The conference highlighted several ways in which we can achieve interculturality through church planting and growing existing parish churches across the Northern Province.
David said, “It was inspiring to see so many leaders from different traditions and cultures come together to discuss interculturality. I believe that everyone at the conference might have hung onto these two words the most: collaboration and leadership. Collaboration in sharing wisdom and gifts from other cultures, and leadership to help us guide, steer and facilitate planting new churches and grow emerging Intercultural worshipping communities.”
Find out more about Intercultural Mission in our diocese here.