2026 Registration Closed. Stay tuned for 2027 announcements.

An online community for people who train church leaders, walking through the Formation for Enabling Ministry course.

When we train church leaders, we often focus on things like preaching, leading worship, and running church programmes – all essential for our time gathered together as church. But the mission doesn’t stop there. How do we equip leaders to empower people for their time scattered in the world – joining God’s mission at work, with family, doing hobbies, at the pub?

Church leaders are called to make disciples who follow Jesus in every part of life. Those of us who train them need to make sure they’re equipped for that whole-life disciplemaking mission – not just for gathered church activities.

If you’re a theological educator in a seminary, offer denominational training to church workers in your area, or teach leaders in your own church, this community of practice will help you do just that.

The Formation for Enabling Ministry (FEM) course will set you up to grow effective, resilient whole-life disciplemakers. From January to April 2026, study 12 modules in your own time, join regular Zoom calls to discuss with peers – and learn to equip church leaders for whole-life disciplemaking.

In the words of course author Revd Dr David Heywood, ‘Formation for Enabling Ministry will provide you with the skills and understanding you need go beyond simply teaching your subject to equipping the church workers you teach to become enablers of others, so that God’s Kingdom advances in every place Christians live and work.’

This self-paced course was originally designed for those training Anglican ministers as part of the Common Award, and we’re now pleased to make it available to all. As you work through the 12-unit course in your own time, you’ll get the chance to process what you’re learning and apply it to your context in five regular Zoom conversations, led by David and LICC’s theological education consultant Revd Jo Trickey.

This is a free course.

You’ll need to work through a few units before each conversation, allowing roughly four hours per unit for pre-reading and course materials. Altogether, you’ll get around 50 hours of high-quality professional development. You can log in as a guest to preview the course ahead of booking, and watch an introduction from the author.

Alongside the online pre-reading, you’ll need to purchase two books:

• David Heywood, Kingdom Learning: Experiential and Reflective Approaches to Christian Formation (2017)
• Jenny Rogers, Adults Learning, 5th ed. (2007)

‘To equip ministers to enable whole-life discipleship, we need to do more than simply teach our subjects. We need to show them how to draw on these subject areas to resource disciplemaking in every sphere of life. This requires an approach to teaching that is life-centred rather than subject-centred.

– Revd Dr David Heywood, course creator