Context-based training: practical and academic training for ministry
based in a local church context

• Trinity and mission
• Placements
• Preaching teams
• Context-based training
  • Bishopston
  • J18: Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston
  • St Matt's: Kingsdown
  • Training in context: some questions answered
  • What they say: some comments on context-based training
• Site map

Context-based training

Training while based in a particular community, or context, is one of the two tracks open to you if you are preparing for church ministry at Trinity; the other track is college-based training. Both gain the same academic qualifications.  (What's the difference?) We hope that you will feel a definite call to one track or the other when you come to study at Trinity.

Pioneered by Trinity in 2006, context-based training (CBT) is fully endorsed and authorized by the Church of England as a form of ordination training; full-time students from other churches are also welcome to take part.

How does it work?  

As a context-based student you...

• train as a group of 5-10 students in a particular community or communities
• live near other students in the context community
• become part of that community with your family
• work with the local clergy and other leaders in a variety of church and community activities
• reflect as a group on your experiences once a week, with the help of your Trinity tutor
• come to Trinity for teaching and community events at least two days a week
• gain the same academic qualifications (degree, certificate, diploma) as college-based students. 

What are the benefits?  

Training in context offers you the chance to ...

• Gain a thorough, comprehensive and integrated training in leadership, mission and practical skills
• Mix academic and practical training in a coherent way over the whole of your time at Trinity
• Be part of a small closely-knit unit for friendship and support
• Be rooted in a community with real needs, contribute to that community, and be involved in long-term mission
• Develop patterns of lifelong learning in the midst of busyness.

Where would I train?

You are free to choose where you would like to go, or you can leave it to us to assign you to the place where there is most need, or where we feel you would best fit in.  From next academic year there is a choice of three contexts in Bristol: J18, Bishopston and St Matt's.   St Matt's has an association with Woodlands Church, a large independent charismatic evangelcial church, where non-Anglican students can gain experience.