A Guide to Mission Accompaniment

Kerry Thorpe

• Publisher: BRF
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780857467409
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Accompaniment.It is friendship, but it's more than that!It is mentoring, with a crucial aim.In this unique book on the subject, Kerry Thorpe argues that Christian accompaniment is a continuing relationship that helps those involved to function better in the things they do. He encourages church leaders and others engaged in mission to develop relationships that inspire, motivate and focus on the church's task of mission. Here is a book that will transform the life of the church.'This book doesn't just contain a whole lot of words; it is full of heart, mind, breath, eyes, ears and hands. And not just of the wonderful Kerry Thorpe, but the heart, mind, ears, ears and hands of Christ at work within and through his church, turning us inside out for the sake of the world he loves. Enjoyably engaging, deeply practical and personally challenging.'Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury'This is a superb guide – easy to read, vivid, biblically well-grounded, widely informed and immensely practical.'Revd Dr Michael Moynagh, Wycliffe Hall, Oxford'Cracking stuff – grounded, practical, inspirational and passionate. It's made me want to go and find an accompanier for myself!'Canon Lucy Moore, Messy Church Team Leader BRF'Kerry Thorpe, as the leading person in this area, has something vital to share with the church about mission accompaniment. His experience personally and as a church and diocesan leader means he has lived this book for the last 40 years.'Revd Canon Dave Male, National Advisor for Pioneer Development'Kerry Thorpe writes about what he has spent a lifetime doing. He has read widely and reflects honestly on success and failure. In an over-optimistic, self-promoting, goal-driven managerial culture that has entered parts of the church, I'm delighted Kerry writes out of seeing life and coaching in relational terms. So, he knows and describes coaching techniques, but holds them lightly. The book combines an easy style and deep insights.'Canon Dr George Lings, formerly Director of the Church Army's Research Unit, Sheffield

The Bible Reading Fellowship

15 The Chambers, Vineyard

Abingdon OX14 3FE

brf.org.uk

The Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) is a Registered Charity (233280)

MOBI ISBN 978 0 8 5746 596 2

EPUB ISBN 978 0 85746 740 9

Published 2018

All rights reserved

Text © Kerry M. Thorpe 2018

This edition © The Bible Reading Fellowship 2018

Cover artwork by Rebecca J Hall

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Acknowledgements

Unless otherwise acknowledged, scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Anglicised edition) copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, a Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.

Extracts from the Authorised Version of the Bible (The King James Bible), the rights in which are vested in the Crown, are reproduced by permission of the Crown’s Patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Scripture quotations from the Good News Bible published by The Bible Societies/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, UK © American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976, 1992, used with permission.

Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright owners for material used in this resource. We apologise for any inadvertent omissions or errors, and would ask those concerned to contact us so that full acknowledgement can be made in the future.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Introduction: discovering relational accompaniment

Setting up the engagement

Here is yet another book that could change your life! This time with the added bonus that it could also materially impact your church, your workplace, your diocese, your family and your friends. This book invites you to a journey. Together, we could significantly affect the quality of our living and working environments. Whether you are a professional coach wanting to be more effective in enhancing performance, or a colleague wanting to facilitate greater flourishing, or simply a friend wanting to be of greater value, making a bigger difference for those you love, here is an opportunity to explore.

So, first an opening question: what are you hoping for?

What single, clarified outcome would best repay time spent invested in reading this book? Put your answer into actual, specific words. Then ask yourself: what would that do for me? How might I be different if I actually achieved that aim? In what ways could my life and ministry be enhanced? Who might I be able to serve better? Who could I personally invest in, with what I have discovered here?

This book is an invitation to explore relational accompaniment together. I suggest that the whole experience will work best if we treat it as an actual accompaniment. See this as an engagement over however long it takes for you to read (and possibly reread) this book. I invite you to bring your own story to the table and take time, genuinely, to respond to what might otherwise seem like rhetorical questions. Be specific, make notes, keep a journal, perhaps. Take the risk of setting out, not entirely sure of the destination, but with a deep willingness to end up somewhere fresh and unfamiliar. That way, we can model together, incarnate the principles and try out the practices that are laid out here.

As the author, I will need to share something of my own story. This will serve as both introduction to, and exploration of, some of the key principles in our relational accompaniment journey. It will, of necessity, be rather personal.

The mother of invention

I had no idea what to do. It felt overwhelming. I don’t think I had any illusions about full-time ministry being a bed of roses, but this was way beyond anything that I had anticipated. Like so many of my colleagues before and since, I found myself asking if I had in any way been adequately prepared for what I now faced. Life, never mind ministry, makes demands. It is an inescapable component of the human condition to find ourselves confronted by challenges that look to be hopelessly beyond our capabilities. This, for me, was where the story of relational accompaniment starts.

I had spent four years in theological college. Previously riding racehorses for a living and later qualifying as an embalmer in the funeral trade had taught me much about life (and its opposite). Now I had a degree in theology to add to the resources. This was my first curacy, and a role as a junior member of a large staff team in as busy a parish church as could be found in the late 1970s. One thousand people per week came through the doors to services, community events and children’s work that spanned all ages. My specific responsibility was for the teenagers. There was already a flourishing group, between 20 and 50 strong, that well predated my arrival.

Now the vicar had taken ill. Roy Barker, the much-loved man in charge, was no longer on the scene. After 18 years of transforming mission, the team leader and driving force was suddenly absent. This was the unanticipated crisis in what already looked like a massive challenge. It was clearly going to be all hands on deck. The remaining four full-time staff would have to share out responsibilities. The neat division of labour so far envisaged would be shot to pieces. Much more would be needed of us. (No one knew how long this was going to last. In the event, the vicar was ill for about a year. Then he announced a move and the parish was in interregnum. Finally, a new appointment was made, and quite naturally the new man needed adequate time to discern his own priorities. All in all, the situation continued for about three years.) This was going to be not so much a crisis, more a way of life.

So, how could we continue to see growth? How would we conserve the gains already made? Or, more realistically, how might we even survive?

For me, the great insight that would urge me on through the next 40 years of ministry was born not out of a deeply spiritual season of prayer and discernment, nor out of a highly structured management planning session, but out of crisis, out of sheer desperation.

The only sustainable way forward that I could envisage would need other people, many other people. If they had already known what to do, then presumably they would have been doing it by now. This was going to require some fresh thinking. It would mean breaking new ground and many of us doing what we had not previously imagined. More people involved, more gifts harnessed, new skills developed and old reluctance and barriers overcome.

From where would this amazing army of volunteers emerge? How could we recruit, train, develop and support a brand-new tranche of effective leaders? The answer was quite simply that we couldn’t. That would be a dream too far. We would have to work with what we had already got. And that was it. That was the breakthrough.

My main responsibility was for that blossoming group of teenagers. They were of course as remarkable, capable, trying, disruptive and annoying as any bunch of kids that you might wish to meet. Within the pack were some natural leaders. There were others who might be encouraged to develop those gifts. There were kids with bright ideas and some who could just as easily be trouble. They were capable of great disruption, or perhaps they were young adults just waiting to blossom. Either way, they were potential on legs.

Sheer survival determined that there would be little time to run anything like a selection process for what lay ahead. My wife and I, with two other couples from the congregation to help, sat down with our list of teenage participants. We prayed, of course we prayed. Then we simply divided up the list into groups, using our scant knowledge of personalities and proclivities. Within each group we identified a potential peer-group leader. For each leader we nominated an associate from within that same group. To each group we allocated one of the adult couples as support. And so, for us, the concept of relational mission accompaniment was born. In effect, the teens themselves would do the ministry. They would run the small-group meetings. They would keep in touch with each other betw...

Table of contents

• A_guide_to_mission_accompaniment_eBook