Download tools

The Challenging Church report is now available in full as a pdf for downloading

Community Development tools:

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New online: Faith in Community Work: a Christian Perspective

A practitioners manual that looks at the distinctive foundations of faith-based commmunity work.

Download now (pdf 360k)

New online: Faith Makes Communities Work

Findings from a two-year study on good practice in community development.

Download now (pdf 1.4M)

Getting to Know your Neighbours - short and long version

A practical guide for Christian groups who would like to engage with their community.

Download now (pdf 3.2M)

New online: Why Social Action

Four Bible studies exploring why we should get involved in the community.

Download now (pdf 1.1M)

New online: The Social Action Journey

A step-by-step guide to pursuing church-based community involvement that focuses on project development.

Download now (pdf 120K)

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Engaging our Communities

A series of three training sessions for church-related community involvement.

Download now (word 272k)

Resources to Introduce Community Development

Basic Guide: Networking

The purpose of this guide is to equip people to start, sustain or participate in a network.

Download now (pdf 198k)

Resources to Introduce Community Development

This Basic Guide is a list of helpful resources.

Download now (pdf 103k)

Introducing Community Development

This sheet introduces community development as a way of creating change in your local community.

Download now (pdf 160k)

Challenging Church powerpoint presentation

A clear and concise introduction to the Challenging Church Campaign, ideal for use with a whole congregation or a smaller group.

Download now (powerpoint presentation 304K)

Basic guide: mobilising Christians to serve in your community

This sheet offers practical guidelines to help you mobilise a group of local Christians to get involved in their local community.

Download now (pdf 89K)

Ways of engaging with community
A table comparing the strengths and weaknesses of three different models of church community engagement.

Download now (pdf 448K)

Basic guides

Basic guide: Prayer Action Reflection Cycle
Shaftesbury encourages Christian congregations and groups involved in their communities to maintain a cycle of a prayer-action–reflection. This is important, particularly for local congregations seeking to build authentic and lasting relationships together.

Download now (pdf 86K)

Basic guide to prayer walking in your area
This sheet offers practical guidelines for people interested in developing a network of prayer walkers in your area. It offers some simple steps and ideas, with suggestions for finding out further information.

Download now (pdf 80K)

Basic guide to running a community engagement Course
This sheet offers practical guidelines into setting up and running training sessions in community involvement for churches and individual Christians in a local area. The aim is to encourage Christians from different congregations in the same area to think about how they can work together in their community and to decide on action.

Download now (pdf 45K)

Basic guide to creating a pamphlet advertising activities run by local churches
This sheet offers practical guidelines into creating a pamphlet of all the activities and services that take place in the churches in a local area. The aim is to give people in the community easy access to information about the church in their area and to show that local congregations run lots of weekly activities as well as Sunday services.

Download now (pdf 80K)

Basic guide to mapping your networks
This sheet offers practical guidelines to help you understand and use the networks of relationships that you and your group are involved in. It is flexible and can be used by individuals, small groups and local congregations. Using it as a group exercise can be most beneficial, as in this may you will discover many new links.

Download now (pdf 88K)

Basic guide to creating a local church covenant

This sheet offers an introduction to making a covenant between Christian congregations in an area, such as a neighbourhood or estate. The aim is to create a statement that puts on paper a commitment between congregations and denominations to working together for their own good and that of their community.

Download now (pdf 47K)

Living examples

Living Example: Running a Community Engagement Course
Jeremy Sharpe has been working with Woodley Lookout, a community development scheme run by a local Baptist Church. Here he explains how contacts with other Christians and groups in the area led to them running a community engagement course, to explore how they could work more effectively together.

Download now (pdf 80K)

Living example of creating a pamphlet advertising activities run by local churches
This pamphlet was created by the Langney Help and Advice Centre, Eastbourne and it details activities running in the local area.

Download now (pdf 1.69M)

Living example: Churches of West Streatham Covenant
A copy of the COWS Covenant signed by 4 local churches committed to working together.

Download now (pdf 156K)

Living example: Melksham Churches Covenant Paper
A copy of the Melksham Churches Covenant paper signed by 9 local churches committed to working together.

Download now (pdf 148K)

Living example: Upper Coquetdale Covenant Paper
Sample covenant agreement from Upper Coquetdale

Download now (pdf 228K)

More free resources are available to order via our online resources order form

The resources on this page are all freely available for downloading as a pdfs and can be viewed using Adobe's Acrobat Reader 6.0. This software is also free and can be found at: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat