People. Places. Potential.
Who will lead your local community?
Outside professionals can create dependency.
Too few local residents are left carrying too much.
Local potential lies dormant.
Seedbeds equips churches, schools and charities to FIND and FORM local leaders who release the potential of their communities to FLOURISH.
Your next leaders are already there.
Let's find, form & flourish them
HOW?
Our 3 part ecosystem for growing local leaders
Find
Discover local potential
Discovery tools that help identify local people, gifts and opportunities.
Inspiring books, films and videos
Local readiness surveys and assessments
Practical discovery workshops
Form
Develop local leaders
Learning pathways that grow confidence, capacity and practical skills.
Flagship learning cohorts
Communities of practice
Short courses and intensives
Flourish
Release local potential
Partnerships and resources that turn local potential into sustainable change.
Joint ventures and strategic partnerships
Strategic giving and project investment
Resource panels and local seed funding
Our flagship formation pathways :
Change Makers
For local residents ready to discover their gifts and put them into practice where they live. Three weekends or an eight-day intensive, ending with a pitch to a resource panel. NCFE Level 3 qualification available.
Explore Change Makers
Pioneering
For local Christians ready to start new communities of faith and discipleship where they live. Eleven months, six local practices, coaching throughout, culminating in a pitch to a resource panel. A route to denominational recognition including URC Assembly Accredited Lay Pioneer.
School for Shalom
For senior leaders ready to take on more responsibility for local flourishing where they live and serve. In partnership with NTC (validated by the University of Manchester) including the MA in Theology (Social and Community Transformation) and research PhDs.
Start where you are. Go as deep as you are called
Our Guides – meet Ash & Anji
Rev Dr Ash Barker
Founder, Seedbeds
Ash has spent over 35 years learning first-hand how local communities discover and release their potential for flourishing. Melbourne-born, he lived for 12 years in Bangkok’s largest slum before moving to inner-city Birmingham in 2014. He founded Seedbeds, which equips churches, schools and charities to find and form local catalysts who release flourishing where they live, working across six countries.
Author of ten books, he is a local minister with Lodge Road Community Church (URC) and lectures at Nazarene Theological College.
He is still learning.
Rev Anji Barker
Social Entrepreneur and Pioneering Minister
Anji has made her home in marginalised urban neighbourhoods for over 35 years, from Melbourne to Bangkok to Birmingham’s Winson Green. There she led and grew Newbigin Community Trust to thirty local staff across four sites. Today she leads pioneering for the West Midlands Synod of the United Reformed Church and walks alongside Seedbeds leaders in Myanmar. She is the author of Missionary, Not Just a Position.
Anji believes the margins have more to offer than anyone thinks.
“We are practitioners who have spent decades learning alongside local communities. We are still learning, and have developed a team and ecosystem to grow and multiply what is possible. ”
35+ years
3000+
6 countries
Where are you starting?
I lead a church, school, charity or network
Let’s grow local leaders and a learning pathway with your people
I want to see my local community flourish
Discover your potential and find your next steps as a local catalyst
Imagine what’s possible when local communities flourish
A STORY FROM WINSON GREEN
From seven faithful members to a local community hub.
In 2019, seven members kept Lodge Road chapel open. Today, local people gather, share meals and create a place of welcome. The work is real, and it is still growing.
Watch Shane Claiborne’s visit to Lodge Road ↗
Imagine churches, schools and charities working together with confident local leaders who know, love and belong to their communities.
Imagine stronger relationships, deeper trust, greater local ownership and more sustainable community initiatives.
Imagine local people discovering their potential, leading change and creating places where everyone has the opportunity to flourish.
Our vision is every local community flourishing in God’s love and Shalom.
It belongs to the place.
OUR PARTNERS, WALKING ALONGSIDE NETWORKS & COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE WORLD
”I’ve watched Ash and Seedbeds work up close for years. At the Scent of Water captures what I’ve seen firsthand: ordinary people, uncovered and formed into the local leaders their communities were already waiting for.”
Bishop Mike Royal, Churches Together England
“It has been stunning to see so many people ‘backed’ and invested in, who otherwise would be forgotten and overlooked.”
Tim and Rachel Hughes, Gas Street Church, Birmingham