Kirk's £1.5m fund to boost new approaches to church

At this year's General Assembly from 15 - 21 May, the Church of Scotland's Ministries Council will outline plans to devote £1.5 million over five years to a new Emerging Ministries Fund.

This fund, which is available from 2009, would be made available to Presbyteries and charges through a grant making process specifically for new models of ministry and the establishing of new approaches to church.

As such, the Emerging Ministries Fund will be supporting projects that engage with people in new ways where they are. In many cases this may mean less of a dependence on buildings and getting people to come in.

The Assembly will hear that the Emerging Ministries Fund will support work in three areas: missional work that focuses on new church growth alongside or beyond the existing congregation; ecclesial work which is about establishing church from the ground up and exploring what that means for the given demographic and cultural context; experimental work that looks at experimenting with new approaches to ministry.

The hope is to spread the funding across a range of approaches to maximise the learning experience for the Church at large.

The processing of applications and general management of the fund will be carried out by the Council's Emerging Ministries Task Group, who are dedicated to working with the other Funds of the Church to ensure that applications are dealt with by the appropriate body.

Emerging Ministries Fund grants would be made at a maximum level of £30K per annum for a three year period. In addition, Presbyteries and congregations will be expected to demonstrate that they have explored potential sources of matched funding - either private or public sector, or from ecumenical partners - although there is recognition that such assistance cannot always be secured.

Ministries Council staff will be able to offer advice and support to applicant organisations at all stages of the process.

It is anticipated that this substantial investment in local church work will have a significant impact in the initial 5-year period of the fund, and beyond.