Rev'd Dr Mike Bossingham

Mike grew up in West Cornwall and still has family ties in that part of the world. He studied Computer Science at Hatfield Polytechnic and was awarded a BSc. He is also a Member of the British Computer Society and a Chartered Engineer. He worked in IT for 15 years initially for GEC and then for a company called Compeda. In the later years ran his own company supplying and maintaining design software for some of the largest engineering companies in the world. In those years he travelled all over the world, even into Eastern Europe. He was working with PCs within weeks of them being launched!

He was called to the ministry in 1987 and studied for a BD at Birmingham University and completed a PhD at the same institution in 1999. His PhD brought together his bibical and computer skills. He has served the Methodist Church in Maidenhead, King's Lynn and Cambridge. While in these places boosted the number of children and families worshipping in his main churches considerably!

Mike has worked with children, young people and families in a Church setting for the last 25 years. He has led in Junior Church and has run both 'fellowship' and 'open' Youth Groups. He was instrumental in setting up the 'Share Jesus' Family Missions, which saw many families working on mission together around the country. He has also line-managed children's work at Easter People for several years and also led the All Age worship at the Llandudno site.

Mike has continued to use his computer skills for the church. He has set up websites for both the London SW and East Anglia Districts and was part of the team that set up the Methodist Connexional website. He runs an IT training unit for the East Anglia District and has been seen at several Methodist Conferences running the cyber cafe or running the main PowerPoint display. Having been given an early data projector in 1997, he has developed skills in using projection in worship and has produced the beautiful PowerPoint version of At the Breaking of Bread for the Methodist Publishing House and used at the Conference Communion.

He has become increasingly alarmed at the decline in the numbers of children, young people and families in churches. He blames a church culture that does not generally encourage and nurture young people. It is this concern that prompted him to use his precious sabbatical to research this problem and visit churches that bucked the trend. The result of this work is his first book, Building Family Friendly Churches, published by the Methodist Publishing House. This concern has also prompted him to form the Family Family Churches Trust an organisation committed to helping churches of all denominations draw children, young people and families back into worship. He is also committed to the task of helping churches make effective and economic use of modern technology.

He is producing a range of CDROMs known as The Digital Hymnbook which now offers over 700 PowerPoint files of traditional hymns with photographic and artistic backgrounds. These are designed to match the words offered in a range of hymn and song books.

He is married to Ann, also a Methodist Minister, and has 2 children, both committed and active Christians. Ralph is a musician and talented worship leader and Sally is training to be a Methodist Lay Preacher. Ann is also well known as the author Ann Barker

He now works full time for the Family Friendly Churches Trust

He can run weekends on the topic and lead worship. He can also be booked in holiday times to run his popular Spies or Jeruslam TV Holiday Clubs. He also has a number of IT courses available and can advise in the task of purchasing the right IT equipment.

If you fancy a chat with him he can be quite often be found on MSN Messenger at RevDrMikeB@Hotmail.com and you can get him through email on Mike@Bossingham.com.

For latest news you can take a look at Mike's Personal Space on MSN.

You can view the latest list of Mike's Bookings here

On a totally different tack Mike is a member of the National Executive of the Faithworkers Branch of Amicus (the trade union) and is usually the voice offering help and support to faithworkers who phone the union's faithworkers help line. He regards this as a very important pastoral role. He has also represented the union on a DTI working party examining the employment status of clergy.