What is the Cultivate Course? 


In June 2022 a gentleman in his mid 70s started attending church for the first time in years. His wife was in a care home suffering with dementia, and he wanted to experience some peace. Within a couple of weeks of being there, he was invited to join the Cultivate Course. Over the next couple of months he listened, asked questions, prayed and started to dream. By the end of Cultivate he had a strong sense that God was leading him to start a worship community in his wife’s care home.  Over the following year he built a team, set up a ‘carers group’ within the home, began running monthly worship services for the residents and workers, and built strong relationships between the home and the church. 

This is just one story amongst many of those who have come through the Cultivate course.  In Cohort 1 (the deaneries of West Derby and St. Helens), over 200 people have been on a Cultivate course, and we have seen 20 new worship communities started, in a range of different contexts.  The vast majority of these worship communities are led by lay people, ordinary people who would not have imagined themselves as worship community leaders, but who sensed a call from God to start (or join) something, in the places they already inhabit, amongst the people they already encounter.  

The Cultivate course is designed to introduce people to the idea of new worship communities, to begin to explore their own possible sense of call to either start a new worship community, or join in with a new (or existing) worship community.   The course is only six weeks long, and we explore the reasons (and the need) for new worship communities, we start to explore the missional contexts that we all exist in, and examine the nature of these new worship communities.  Crucially, we also explore the idea that God calls ordinary people, even (and especially!) those who don’t think they are able and capable.  For those who begin to feel a sense of call to start or join something new, we work with you beyond the end of the course, in conjunction with your local vicar.  

There will be two courses (a daytime and an evening course) running in our deanery:  at

St. Mark’s, Gateacre, starting Wednesday September 11 (7-9pm)

and at

St. Anne’s, Aigburth, starting Monday September 9 (9.30-11.30am).  

Come and explore what God might be calling you to…   Really look forward to seeing you there!