The Diocesan vision is to grow Christian communities that are effective in making disciples. You are probably considering an activity or event to help you do this. In order to support you in this, we are offering an investment of Resourcing Mission and Ministry (RMM) consultation time and an injection of finance of between £500 to £2,000. The aim of both of these things is to help you develop the mission pathway that you are currently planning or undertaking. This initiative is supported by the Church Commissioners through the SMMIB.
The Small Sparks Grant Application Process
The grant depends on identifying a missional pathway and which missional activities the money will help to support.
You don’t have to have this clear in your mind before you get in touch. The most important part of the application process is the conversation with us to help you think through your missional pathway.
Here are the steps:
Step 1: Read this webpage 😊
Step 2: Think about your missional pathway and how the grant might help support it, using the examples below.
Step 3: Register your interest by emailing john.marsh@sheffield.anglican.org with as much or as little information as you have and we will arrange a call.
Step 4: Engage in a conversation with RMM to clarify your missional pathway and the missional activities the grant money will be used for. Agree with us how feedback will be given on the effectiveness of the pathway. You will then be provided with a Missional Activity Grant application form.
Step 5: Apply for the grant by emailing john.marsh@sheffield.anglican.org your completed application form.
Step 6: Receive of between £500 to £2,000 as a one-off Missional Grant investment (which can form part or all of your total expenditure).
Step 7: Spend the money and off you go.
Step 8: Give us some feedback (agreed in step 4)
Identifying your Mission Pathway
To be eligible for the Small Sparks Grant, your mission pathway should be clear. A mission pathway describes the faith journey that people are on and the missional activities that help them to make progress.
Advice to clarify or develop your pathway is part of the application process. This means we will talk you through developing a pathway and where on the pathway your missional event or activity fits.
Coming to faith in Jesus Christ is a journey. Therefore, we need to start where people are and provide opportunities for them to move from stage to stage, towards him.
Examples of mission pathways are given below.
- Unconnected – This is anyone in your local context who is not in contact with the church.
- Relational Fringe – This is anyone in your local context who you know and has some contact with the church.
- Worshipping Community – This is anyone who attends the church roughly twice a month and would describe the church as ‘their church’.
- Engaged Disciple – This is anyone who is committed to attending, serving and growing in the church community with a personal faith commitment to Jesus.
Disclaimer: The mission pathway is a tool to help focus your activities and should not be used or interpreted as an attempt to categorise or control a person’s faith journey.
Examples of where the Small Sparks Grant might help
The RMM support is intended to assist you in developing missional activities that help people make progress from one stage to another.
For Example:
The context of your church might be that there are a lot of young families living around you.
The vision for your church might be to have more children and families involved in the life of the church as disciples of Jesus.
So, the process should be to first of all to gather a team and agree the missional activites that make up your mission pathway. These missional activities might be one-off events or an ongoing process or a mixture of both.
Missional Activity 1. To help you get to know families who are currently unconnected to church, you might organise a Fun Day.
Missional Activity 2. To help those people you met at the Fun Day who you got to know (Relational Fringe) to find out more about Jesus, you might start a Messy Church.
Missional Activity 3. To help the people at Messy Church (Worshipping Community) go deeper with Jesus, you might start Messy Discipleship.
The RMM consultation time and a grant of between £500 to £2,000 might help towards buying fun day materials and developing training for Messy Church. This is visualised in the diagram below, along with two other Investment Examples.
If you are not used to thinking about this sort of pathway or would like anything clarifying, we will help you think it through as you apply. A key criteria to the awarding of the Small Sparks Grant is the conversation about how your mission pathway and missional activities fit together. Therefore, do not worry if this language and approach is new to you.
If you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate to get in touch.
