Church of England Press Officers Gather for Annual Conference

The Annual Conference of Church of England press offices will take place this week. Gathering more than 30 Diocesan Communicators from dioceses across the country, a three-day conference will be held under the title 'Challenging Perception: Developing Mission-Shaped Communications'.

The gathering is set to take place in Telford, and delegates will hear from Mark Berry, the pioneering Church of England Missionary to Telford; Paul Bayes, the Church of England's national mission advisor; and the broadcaster and writer Elaine Storkey.

Diocesan Communicators will also have a chance to take part in direct development works by visiting various community projects run by the Telford Christian Council.

One of the organisers is Gavin Drake, the director of communications for the Diocese of Lichfield.

He said: "The annual conference for Diocesan Communicators gives us a chance to learn from the experiences of our colleagues across the country; to hear what's working and what isn't working and to develop our thinking together on a specific theme.

"This year we are looking at 'Mission Shaped Communications' - or how we can make what we do as communicators help the mission of the church.

"The Church of England - and the wider Christian church - is developing fresh expressions of church for people who are deeply interested in spirituality but who have little interest in established Church structures. We will be exploring how we can develop the work we do to ensure that our communications activities are mission focused."

Drake concluded, "The annual Diocesan Communicators Conference is hard work, but we hope to have a bit of fun as well. So much of what we do is about using new technology and forward thinking; so it's going to be interesting to go back in time for a Victorian-style Songs of Praise using the music of Moody and Sankey in the Blists Hill tin chapel. It won't be all old-fashioned though - that service is being recorded for later broadcast on BBC Radio Shropshire - a communication tool that the Victorian Church did not have available to them!"