Friday 24 April 2009

What is an LLM


LLMs are theologically trained lay members of the church who hold a Licence from their Area Bishop to exercise their Reader ministry in their parish and in the Bishop’s Episcopal area.

Reader ministry is traditionally a preaching and teaching ministry and many Readers are also members of the College of Preachers. However, increasingly many Readers are finding their ministry spreading into other areas like prison or hospital chaplaincy and other pastoral ministries, particularly at their places of work.

The Diocese of Oxford Handbook for Licensed Lay Ministry describes the duties of Licensed Lay Ministers as follows:-
a) To read the word of God
b) To preach
c) To read Morning and Evening Prayer (with the exception of the Absolution).
d) To administer the elements at the Holy Communion
e) To take the service of Holy Communion using Reserved Sacrament
f) To visit the sick; to read and pray with them
g) To teach in Sunday School and elsewhere, and generally to undertake such pastoral and educational work and to give such assistance to any minister as the bishop may direct
h) To conduct Funeral Services with the goodwill of the persons responsible
i) To publish Banns of Marriage at Morning and Evening Prayer, (subject to the conditions laid down in the Marriage Act 1949)
j) Take a service of dedication after a civil marriage

If you would like to find out more then here is a link to the CofE Oxford Diocese sight for LLMs: http://www.oxford.anglican.org/ministry/licensed-lay-ministry/who-we-are.html

and here is the CofE central Reader website: http://www.readers.cofe.anglican.org/

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