Our society has changed, the church is changing and our role as a Christian church is to discern what God is up to and support and help nurture it. A few years ago, the Methodist Conference recognised that across the connexion, increasing numbers of lay people were providing pastoral care in a significant way, that people were looking to them as their church leaders and that God was working through them to bring care and transformation. The Conference took the bold step to embrace this vocation and provide the structures needed to equip and enable it.
Gary Hopkins, officer for Local Lay-Pastors
