Are you involved in your local ‘parish office’, whether in person, by email, web enquiries or on social media? Are you new to the role, want a refresher or looking at how it can be relevant in your local context? Then this is the course for you!

In it, we will look at the obvious things needed to book weddings, baptisms and funerals but we’ll also look at the theological part of the parish office. How do we welcome people well and give them confidence to engage with their local church? How do we care for people when they’re coming into church at liminal moments of their life and how do we use the parish office to share the good news of the Gospel?

There is a key missional opportunity with occasional offices and them being booked through the parish office. People have made a choice to come to their local church and they need to be welcomed as soon as they walk through the door, which in itself takes courage and can be a frightening experience. This first point of contact with new people sets the scene for their relationship with church.

There is also a pastoral element of the parish office which is often forgotten. Whilst the local church may well see the parish office as an administrative function people often need pastoral support when they attend of people may just drop in to ask for help at a point of crisis and pastoral support is a key part of our ministry to those in our parish.

Session Contents

• To explore what is needed when people ask to make bookings for baptism, weddings and funerals and when does a minister need to be involved.

• To think about the pastoral element of the parish office.

• To share best practice from each other.

• To look at the different options available for the Parish Office.

• To appreciate the theology of local policies in order to administer the parish office well.

• To recognise the value of the moment when managing a parish office and the missional opportunity this presents.

Occasional Offices Training part 1 - Introduction and Weddings