Training for those who disqualify themselves
During our two years of running Jubilee+ Voices focus groups, we met many people with recent or current experience of poverty who have very clear leadership gifting.
Every one of them we asked said they would rule themselves out of ‘leadership training’ because they don’t see themselves as leaders.
Why is this? It’s not about aspirations – one participant told us he wants to be like Spurgeon! It’s more because they see themselves as helpers rather than leaders and, I believe, because they don’t see many leaders like them in our churches.
That’s why we’re running Formed in 2025. Formed is a 4-day residential training opportunity for anyone in a Jubilee+ Partner Church who is or has recently been in poverty and would disqualify themselves from any of the traditional forms of church-based leadership training.
It's about being formed in the image of God, conformed to the likeness of Christ, and transformed by the Spirit.
It's going to be a different kind of course, because J+ Voices participants told us it needs to be! It’s residential because they said they’d rather come away from home and family once, not repeatedly, and all front-led speaking and teaching will be kept to 15-minute blocks.
If you’re in a Jubilee+ Partner Church and would like to nominate someone (or more than one person) for Formed, please contact rosie.hopley@jubilee-plus.org by the closing date of 2 January 2025.
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Written by Natalie Williams for the Jubilee+ blog
