A network of fresh expressions of church in Liverpool is breaking new ground by becoming the first to conduct Readership training.

Readers are lay people in the Church of England who are theologically trained and licensed by the Church to preach, teach, lead worship and assist in pastoral, evangelistic and liturgical work.

Until now, the training of lay Readers in the Church of England has been conducted in traditional churches but now the Dream network in the Diocese of Liverpool is opening the way for Readership training to be conducted in fresh expressions.

Andy Wain is half way through his three-year course with the Southern North West Training Partnership.

He could have chosen to do his training at Liverpool Cathedral but decided upon training with the Dream network.

“In the end I decided on Dream and I’m very glad I did because it has raised lots of very interesting questions about how the established church interfaces with fresh expressions of church on a new level,” he said.

“It also sends a strong message to say that as much as we are a fresh expression, we value, respect and want to work with the inherited church. That strong message can only be a positive one.”

After completing his training course, Wain will be licensed by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev James Jones, to be a Reader at Dream.

He said the training had been good for Dream because it had challenged the network to wrestle with issues already affecting the established church but which had been “easy for the emerging church to avoid”.

One such issue, he said, related to whether fresh expressions were missional or not.

He said: “One of the challenges we face as the emerging church is that we can attract existing church members who want to experience something new. We have to look very seriously as to whether we are really being missional in our outlook. If not, are we really being emerging church?”