Ichthus Newsletter - Autumn 2023 Autumn 2023

Supporting the Next Generation of Preachers

We ’ re still going through the data from the findings . It is clear that people feel very passionate about LWPT , what it currently stands for and how its work is vital in supporting churches across the UK .

A key part of this process is research . In late June we held a Focus Group Day in central London to give us face-to-face feedback from LWPT supporters and beneficiaries and get answers to a number of key questions .

We held three different groups , split roughly by age and experience , and each group was asked the same questions to enable us to conduct a comparative analysis . Group One was of older and experienced preachers and worship leaders . Group Two was of younger preachers and students . Group Three was between the two . Different denominations were present in all groups , as

were people from across the country . We achieved our aim of fairly representing our audience in the research .

We ’ re still going through what is extremely valuable data from the findings but what is clear from the sessions is the passion that people feel about LWPT and what it currently stands for and how its work is vital to support churches across the UK , those who work in them and their communities .

We identified both common and differing needs across the groups , which will make it challenging to satisfy everyone . That said , there are a number of clear priorities , which we will be addressing .

Our sincere thanks go to everyone who responded to our recruitment emails for the groups and especially to those who attended on the day . There were many early starts , late finishes and long train journeys in between .

We ’ ll be hosting more Focus Groups in the future , so if you would like to attend please look out for our email invitations , or you can let us know via email at lwptoffice @ lwpt . org . uk . Please put FOCUS GROUP in the subject line .

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