Associates Sought by Lyonsdown for 2012/2013

Our Mission and Vision

Lyonsdown (formerly Holy Trinity Lyonsdown) is a people saved and gathered by God through Jesus. We’re a growing conservative evangelical Church of England church. Our mission is the self-perpetuating mission given to the church until the end of time by the risen Lord Jesus Christ: to make disciple-makers - that is to say, to make followers of Jesus who will make followers of Jesus. To that end we’re committed to sharing and proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ through the prayerful preaching and teaching of the Bible. Our conviction is that that when God’s Word is faithfully and prayerfully explained, God’s voice is heard and his supreme power is unleashed within our world.

As a church we work together to reach with the Gospel every section of our community. We believe that all church members should be makers of disciple-makers and we are thus committed to the biblical concept of every-member ministry (Ephesians 4:12). That means we favour vine-growing (the individual making of disciple-makers) to trellis-building (centrally-organized framework events). We therefore emphasize the individual training and equipping of our members for the task they have of making disciple-makers in all the places that God providentially situates them.

Our love for God and our Gospel-love for those around us is shown in our love for each other - and a warm and welcoming attitude towards guests and visitors. Our congregation includes all age groups and reflects a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds, typical of the North London cosmopolitan community in which we reside.

We seek to strengthen our links with other like-minded evangelicals. Our guest speakers at houseparties or missions have included Dick Lucas, David Jackman, Phillip Jensen, Christopher Ash and Tony Jones.

Our Location

Lyonsdown is located within an attractive area of North London, close to Oak Hill theological college, 20 minutes from the City, 30 minutes from Cornhill, 10 minutes from the M25 and 5 minutes from the open Hertfordshire countryside. Some Oak Hill students and their families choose us as their local church.

Our Staff

Our four-strong permanent staff team of Pastor-Teacher, Youth Worker, Families Worker and Church Worker are presently supported by five full-time Associates.

At Christmas, Oxbridge students are placed with us from Cornhill and Durham University students are placed with us from Christchurch Durham. Longer term placement students are sometimes allocated from Oak Hill. In the past we have also taken placement students from the Oak Hill’s youth and children’s ministry course and from the Cornhill training course.

Our Ministry

Training for ministry is our top priority in order to equip every member of our church to be active and effective makers of disciple-makers. We have found this to have a multiplying effect on our outreach, as well as constituting a powerful stimulant to the spiritual development of our own church members. Our priority commitment to training is shown in our ministry training groups at which significant numbers of men and women from our congregation are taught and equipped themselves to conduct active practical ministry. This training finds expression in FOCUS, a weekly mid-week outreach ministry that includes a centrally-served meal, small group Bible studies (led by members of our congregation as well as our staff and Associates), a central talk and open question time. More than a hundred attend this event each week. The detailed outworking of FOCUS is conducted through individual FOCUS table outreach events, prayer triplets and one-to-one ministry.

Our ministry also sponsors the widest range of activities and seeks to reach into every area of our community and wider afield. It includes sustained door-to-door work, open-air preaching and a wide variety of outreach events. Our regular, weekly ministry also includes preaching and teaching at nursing homes and a well-attended book group. Assemblies are sometimes taken at local schools. Many individual outreach events take place, sponsored by our many different ministry groups as well as by individual FOCUS tables. Much of our ministry is to children and young families. Our commitment to families and children is reflected in our crèche facilities, children’s slots within our meetings, a well-developed and growing Sunday School, children’s mid-week clubs, a football club, a youth group, thriving parent and toddler groups, a summer mission holiday club and other individual adult and children’s events at different times of year.  There is no event we sponsor that doesn’t have a carefully-prepared and boldly-presented Gospel message at its centre. We also actively support Iwerne, Lymington-Rushmore and CYFA summer camps.

But the greatest emphasis of our daily ministry is on sustained one-to-one work, something in which we seek to get everyone involved and in which every age-range and category of person is covered.

Lyonsdown also leads and coordinates the North London Partnership, a regional sub-grouping of the South East Gospel Partnership consisting of 30 evangelical churches. In 2010 the North London Partnership sponsored the A Passion For Life mission with Phillip Jensen.

Our Need

Our policy is to invest in people.  Our Associates are deliberately exposed to a wide and varied range of ministry experience. However, this ministry makes intensive demands and our Associates need to be willing to contribute to such work. We therefore seek Associates for 2012/13 of either gender with servant hearts, good characters and a willingness and ability to work within a team. Employment length would be one year with a possibility of extension to two.

What We Offer

We offer participation in the ongoing ministry of a Gospel-committed, flexible and growing church in a pleasant and convenient location. Ministry opportunities abound.

Our Associate Ministry Training Course (now in its eighth year) is well established and supplemented by the widest variety of ministry experience and service opportunities. It consists of:

• a training half-day run each week by our pastor-teacher in conjunction with Jonathan Prime (the minister of Enfield Evangelical Free Church). Apprentices from Enfield Evangelical Free Church join this training morning, as do apprentices from Bush Hill Park Community Church. This training is set within a pastoral context but founded upon the necessity of an ongoing close personal walk with Jesus. The morning sessions include practice preaching from set ‘gobbets’ (passages of Scripture). Specialists in other ministry areas such as youth work and overseas mission, are also invited as guest speakers and presenters.
• A weekly staff and Associates lunch and afternoon meeting also provides a forum for further training and discussion of ministry issues.
• Another period each week is set aside for more Staff and Associate training in New Testament Greek. We place a high priority on technical training of this kind and the creating of time and opportunities for the careful reading of good theological literature.
• Staff and Associates join the congregational ministry training groups we run for church members.
• Staff and Associates also receive the weekly FOCUS training package which has to be prepared for delivery at the FOCUS small-group Bible studies at which each of them will either lead or assist.
• All staff and Associates are required to undertake the M’Cheyne daily Bible-reading course that will take the reader through the entire Bible in a year with the New Testament and Psalms covered twice within that same year. Impromptu devotions are normally required from those readings each time we meet. The readings also form the basis of theological discussions throughout the year.
• All staff and Associates are also required to set aside a fixed daily period for serious reading of a ‘heavy’ theological book (for example by Jonathan Edwards or John Owen).
• The pastor-teacher also convenes weekly individual sessions with each staff member and Associate where a variety of pastoral and other issues can be discussed. A high priority is placed on individual personal godliness and growth. Female Associates have an opportunity to raise and discuss any issues or concerns they may have with a mature Christian woman who works with women in the parish.
• Professional training days (organized by the Proclamation Trust, the Good Book Company, All Souls Langham Place, TnT Ministries and the South East Gospel Partnership ) are attended at St Helen’s, Oak Hill and wider afield. The London Conventions for Men and Women are also supported.
• Two weeks are set aside each year during which the permanent staff team and Associates retreat together to a country house for reading. We call these our ‘Puritan Reading Weeks’ since these weeks are most commonly used to read books by leading Puritan writers. Recordings of international speakers are also listened to as a stimulant to the exploration and discussion of further perspectives of Gospel ministry - especially within the modern cosmopolitan urban context.
• Our ministry training is supplemented by a numerous and wide variety of preaching opportunities and real ministry assignments for which feedback is given.
• Associates are strongly encouraged to join the Oak Hill Library (subsidized by us to half-price for first year Associates and free for second-year Associates). The Oak Hill Library has proved a hugely valuable educational resource for us all.

First-year Associates may be invited to continue for a second year in our rolling two-year programme. Three former Associates are now full-time salaried staff members here.

Comfortable accommodation is provided for Associates free of charge. Living expenses in excess of £5,000 are paid over the period of Association in three advance termly payments. Associates are not asked to contribute to this or raise any kind of funding themselves. All business expenses are met, including travel, telephone and internet access. Vacation entitlement over the year (excluding August which is free) is five weeks and six Sundays. Associates are required to take one day off every week. Our next intake of Associates will start work on Thursday 6 September 2012 and finish on the evening of Sunday 28 July 2013.

We believe that our Associate training offers a unique service and development opportunity grounded within a live parish context. And we believe that the experience will serve our Associates to the end of their lives.

How Does an Associateship at Lyonsdown Differ From Training Offered by a Centralized (Ie Non-Church-Based) Preaching Course or Ministry Training Scheme?

People sometimes think that a centralized (ie non-church-based) preaching course or ministry training scheme offers more than a church-based Associateship. But this is misleading. What makes an Associateship here distinctive from such centralized courses is:

Intensiveness: An Associate will be immersed in real, active, ongoing pastoral ministry for six days a week. The training will include intensive classroom study, including technical training in New Testament Greek - but, unlike centralized non-church-based courses, it is not limited to that. None of the training received will in any way become detached from the pressing realities of authentic Gospel ministry. We strongly believe that academic reading and rigour must be accompanied by training that turns out seasoned practical operators, not merely theologically-educated academics.

Focus: Our Associate training focuses on pastoral ministry (ie Bible teaching and preaching) within the immediate and ongoing context of a church’s actual life. A big emphasis is placed on expository Bible preaching and teaching. But systematic theology and practical topics will also be covered and practised - all from the point of view of active ministry within a typical parish, applied into the lives of real men, women and children - and taught by people who are themselves doing that on a daily basis.

Speaking Practice: Whilst a centralized preaching or ministry training scheme might offer 20 opportunities to preach (mainly within an academic classroom context to fellow students), an Associate here is likely to have about 120 opportunities - a sixfold increase in ministry experience - and nearly all of them in ‘live’ environments where the experience will be ‘real’. Associates will receive constructive criticism and feedback from those who are themselves very experienced and actively involved in those actual ministry situations. And if they choose to join our corps of open-air preachers (such a commitment is entirely voluntary), Associates will find that the experience of preaching outside Sainsbury’s is somewhat different from a cosy classroom exercise in a protected and sympathetic environment! Associates will also often experience the sheer joy of taking the Gospel to the market-place - not merely practising such a thing within a classroom.

Preaching Taught by Preachers: Those who teach Associates to preach and teach are not peripatetic speakers without pastoral responsibility but experienced pastor-teachers (including Charles Dobbie and Jonathan Prime) with ongoing responsibilities of preaching at least twice a week to their own congregations - people for whom they carry the daily duty of spiritual care. Our commitment is to have Associates taught the ministry of the Word by active and practising pastors.

Dedicated Teaching Staff: Because our staff members are actively committed in real-world day-to-day pastoral ministry, the teaching Associates receive will be imbued with an urgent and highly practical concern to teach preaching and teaching that touches and changes lives within an authentic church-life context. This sharpens the edge of all the instruction Associates receive. Theory will be applied to practice. Instruction will continually relate to practice.

High Quality Speakers: Because we are situated in North London, we have immediate and convenient access to many central events with speakers of international standing. It is our policy for our staff and Associates to attend all events of this kind that will expose us to top-quality expository and ministry skills from around the world.

A Rich and Varied Peer Group: Since we recruit from overseas, including Africa and America, Associates are likely to have a rich and varied peer group. And within the congregational ministry training schemes and the congregation itself, Associates will be working with and ministering to the very widest range of nationality, ethnicity, age, background and pastoral need. This will widen the perspectives and boundaries of Associates - and challenge them with the huge range of communication and application required of faithful Gospel ministry. There is something very healthy, wholesome and practical in training that remains within the context of a real church with genuine needs.

Independent Information

Mark Birri, our Youth Worker, is the most senior member of our staff and a former Associate. Mark is willing to give a private independent assessment of the Lyonsdown Associate scheme to anyone interested.  His contact details are: mark@lyonsdown.org

Other independent assessments are also available from the following (they have been asked to tell enquirers exactly what they truly think!):

• Ben Graham (our Church Worker and former Associate): ben@lyonsdown.org
• Charlotte Cornes (our Families Worker and former Associate): charlotte@lyonsdown.org
• Rich Hall - a Senior (ie second-year) Associate: rich@lyonsdown.org
• Mei Shan Loh - a Senior Associate: mei@lyonsdown.org
• Katherine Anderegg - Associate: katherine@lyonsdown.org
• George Beverly - Associate: george@lyonsdown.org
• Amy Mason - Associate: amy@lyonsdown.org

Visits are welcomed at any time.

Taking It Further?

We are normally over-subscribed with Associate applications and we generally work on a first-come, first-served basis. If you think you might be interested, we recommend enquiring as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Contact Charles Dobbie: 020 8216 3786 or charles@lyonsdown.org