We have two conferences toward the end of this year. As we move out of 'lockdown' you may want to consider booking on. 

October 19-22 is our Leading your Church into Growth National Conference
November 16-18 is our  Leading your Evangelism into Growth Conference 

Both of these take place at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire who are ensuring that those who use their conference centres will be able to ‘conference with confidence’. For more details about their policies and procedures see here 

A summary of the current procedures they will have in place is: 

• staff will be trained to ensure they can serve in a safe and welcoming way. They will all have PPE and follow guidelines for cleanliness.
• The conference centre will be deep cleaned before opening. All room cards or keys will be sanitised; disposable lanyards will be issued; a new biodegradable bag in each room for towel disposal will be issued; and the guest to staff ratio will be increased to ensure that constant cleaning will be provided.
• The large conference facilities at Swanwick will be set up in a manner that will allow for the current social distancing guidelines to be observed.
• There will be a one-way system which will be clearly marked and will allow for separation between guests as they move around the centre.
• Meeting rooms, coffee points, lounges, and dining rooms will be reconfigured to fully comply with social distancing guidelines.
• The conference centre will temperature check all guests on arrival with a simple non-contact thermometer and will have a supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) for each guest should they need gloves or a mask.
• There will be no self-service at meal times: staff will plate up the choice of meal behind a Perspex screen. Lunches, salads and desserts will be pre-packaged.
• CCT have indicated they are happy to answer questions directly. Please do contact them on 0300 111 4444 or at info@cct.org.uk

The results?

At Leading your Church into Growth, our team of practitioners have, as clergy and lay leaders everywhere have, found that these challenging and often difficult times have also been, at times, exciting. We have been learning new ways of doing and being church, ways that have fitted in very well with the simple principles of Leading your Church into Growth that have encouraged, equipped and inspired ‘ordinary’ churches for years.

There are lots of new online contacts; new opportunities have arisen from the extraordinary effort to not only continue, but to increase the work of foodbanks and, for example, to alleviate levels of loneliness of those who isolated, etc.

It is in this context that there is a need to pray for growth, to be a presence in our communities, to use that presence to proclaim the Gospel, and to help people who would like to hear more, to grow as disciples. That need has not diminished during lockdown – in fact the mission field seems to have grown not shrunk!

There may be some who won’t be able to come to a conference at this time. Leading your Church into Growth is working on a new version of our ‘Leading your Church into Growth Local Course’. We want to offer this resource to those not able to be on a residential conference – we recognise that those who do come along to the residential will be well placed to help run the ‘Local’, which has been designed to be able to be done online.

For those who can come along to Swanwick, and can ‘Conference with Confidence’, we think that the change of scenery, being able to discuss issues in a setting that allows social distancing, and the input of the Leading your Church into Growth team will help churches to consider mission, evangelism, and church growth at this time.