There’s something for everyone: not all ministers are ‘reverends’….
But all disciples can be ministers in some way:
The Church of England encourages all people in the church to find the gifts they are called to use to serve others in church or in the community. That is lay ministry. Below are three examples of some ways of being a Lay Minister. Reader/LLM ministry is a particular ministry among many callings.
Called to be:
Churchwarden
Reader/LLM
Parish Officer
Finding your calling to lay ministry: three routes
Serving
Deepening faith
Where’s your calling
Welcoming people to church before a service or serving coffee and tea afterwards can be just as much a calling to a lay ministry as wanting to become a children’s or youth worker, a preacher or leader of services and more.
Finding a way to serve can itself be a means to deepen our discipleship with Christ and may even lead us to want to deepen our faith in other ways – such as through study and learning. Here’s one way to do that:
There are many roles to which we can be called: youth or children’s ministry, churchwarden, Reader/LLM, many chaplaincies, evangelists, missionaries, pioneers: are all lay ministries. Some are locally recognised, some authorised and some – like Reader/LLM ministry, licensed by the bishop.
I want to help in my parish with teas, welcoming or anything
I want to deepen my faith
I want to explore Lay Ministry
Ask in your parish, church or community. Find church contacts via achurchnearyou.com
A calling to Reader Ministry or Licensed Lay Ministry?
Reader Ministry or Licensed Lay Ministry combines several roles: teaching the faith, enabling mission in the ‘everyday,’ and leading in church and society.
Readers (LLMs) are uniquely equipped to enable Christians to live out their Christian faith in the places where they spend the majority of their time. As people who daily move between the worlds of work, home, social networks and church, Readers (LLMs) can teach the faith and play a part in leadership such that all God’s people grow in confident and humble witness to God’s kingdom. This ministry involves working together with an incumbent. It can also include pastoral care, funeral ministry, and involvement in many other aspects of leadership in church and society.
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