Community Development Pioneers Conference

Community Development Pioneers Conference: Friday 7 – Sunday 9 March 2025

Newbigin House & Lodge Road Community Church, Winson Green, Birmingham, B184PT

We believe that every local community can flourish, but few neighbourhoods realise their unique potential. Many local churches, charities, schools and enterprises find it difficult to move beyond “needs-based”, service provision approaches, and as a result, don’t get to see the joy of their local communities thriving as they are intended to.

If you are passionate about making a positive difference in your community, if you believe in the power of local community leadership and the transformative potential of Shalom, then we invite you to join us on this adventure. Together, we can help create a world where every local community can be a seedbed of hope, growth, and possibility.

This special weekend conference includes:

• Experienced practitioners sharing their hard won insights and approaches
• Exploring frameworks for local transformation: ‘Empowered Faith Communities’, ‘Asset Based Community Development’ and ‘Liberative Learning’
• Immersed in place-making community building in Winson Green with live local stories of hope.
• Exercises, questions and practices to discovery and release your local community’s unique potential.
• Can be done as a taster or for credit with the broader Newbigin Pioneering Hub programme in partnership with CMS, URC, CF and Seedbeds.

Facilitators:

Mark Matthews: Mark has over 30 years experience in community development in Melbourne, Australia. Since 2007, Mark has been responsible for the ongoing development of the COACH Community Mentoring program. Mark has developed the frameworks of Empowered Faith Communities (EFC). He team leads an EFC in Rosebud (Victoria) that is offered to people who don’t feel they could easily fit within a mainstream church, empowering them to become agents of influence and change in their own social space.

Noel Irwin: Noel is a Belfast boy and a Methodist minister. In 2000 he moved to Sheffield: firstly working for the Church of England as a community outreach worker, then as Superintendent of the Methodist Mission in the city centre. After working as Director of the Urban Theology Unit in Sheffield, he is now Tutor in Public Theology at Northern College Manchester and trains Church Related Community Workers for the United Reformed Church there. In his spare time, he enjoys running in the hills and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Anji Barker: Anji has spent the last 35 years intentionally living in poor urban communities in Australia, Thailand and the UK. Anji is a pioneering United Reformed Church Minister, leads on Seedbeds Myanmar partnership and has just handed over leadership of the Newbigin Community Trust in Winson Green. Her book, ‘Missionary Not Just a Position’, outlines her passionate commitment to social justice and grassroots transformation and a faith that has led her to jump in boots and all fighting for those who are pushed to the margins. Since 2014, with husband Ash, the Barkers have been based in Winson Green, inner city Birmingham, UK. They founded Newbigin House which started two new local congregations as well as innovative organisations such as Newbigin Community Trust, Red Letter Christians UK & Urban Shalom Society now led by others.

Tim Evans: Tim has over 30 years’ experience in youth and community work in the UK and for the last 20 years lived intentionally on an estate in east Birmingham connected with his local church (Anglican and URC LEP) sharing life with an asset-based community development approach. He co-leads Red Letter Christians UK, a founder and practice lead for Loconomy seeking social justice by developing local economies and community wealth building, and runs his own training, coaching and consultancy company, Curating Connections largely around asset based community development, youth work, working with trauma and attachment along with using thinking environments to help people have good conversations for social change. Tim co-founded and helps lead Seedbeds’ Change Makers programme, investing in the self-awareness and capacities of local people in neighbourhoods to be able to make change through community building, enterprise and campaigning. Previously CEO of Worth Unlimited, a small national Christian charity working with marginalised young people and also Senior Associate for Nurture Development specialising in asset based community development. Trustee and sometimes Chair of several organisations including Thrive Together Birmingham supporting churches to tackle poverty and build communities, Birmingham YMCA, UCC funding a school in Ghana, Firs and Bromford Community Development Trust, Talenton an academy trust running alternative education provision. Along with is wife Ria, they have fostered children and young people for 20+ years and host a Peace Meal for people who do faith and spirituality but are not engaged in formal church.

Programme Outline

Friday 7th March, Lodge Road Community Church

6pm: Dinner and connections

7pm Introductions and hopes (Ash Barker)

7:30pm: Panelists (Anji, Tim, Mark, Noel) and Local Stories of Hope

9pm Close

Saturday 8th March, Newbigin House

9am Empowered Faith Communities (A) - Mark Matthews

11am Asset Based Community Development (A) - Tim Evans

1pm Lunch

2pm Local Treasure Hunt - Anji Barker

4pm Liberative Learning (A) - Noel Irwin

6pm Dinner

7pm: Conversations to choose from:

* Anji: Stories of Hope - Anji

* Tim: Asset Based Community Development - Tim

* Mark: Empowered Faith Communities - Mark

* Noel: Liberative Learning - Noel

9pm close

Sunday 9th March, Lodge Road Community Church

9am Asset Based Community Development (B) (Tim Evans)

11am Trying an Empowered Faith Community experience (Mark Matthew with Lodge Road Community Church)

12:30pm lunch

1pm Debrief and next steps

2pm Close

Cost: £80 + booking fee (including meals)

Host or Publisher Seedbeds