Diocesan Church Growth Strategies: Case Study - St. Albans

Paul Bayes, bishop of Hertford, talked us through what St. Albans are up to:

Under Alan Smiths leadership, the diocese has introduced Mission Action Planning. There’s been a lot of attention paid to the process of introduction: a year by the bishop listening to people, a working party studying MAPs and leading the discussion through various diocesan bodies over the course of a year. The result is a high level of buy-in, 85% of parishes have sent in MAPs for their first year -  “the time spent on getting ownership was enormously well spent.”

Have tied together vision and strategy in creative taglines: ‘a way of looking’ is the vision (transforming communities, making disciples, going deeper into God) MAPs are ‘a way of seeing’ – a review tool for parishes.

The diocese has consciously made room and created a role for stronger and larger churches: “if a church is growing it should not be taxed, if a church is doing something well they should be learned from, if a church is succeeding they should be respected.” I liked the term ‘cascading strength’ – helping the larger churches to find a way to bless the rest of the diocese, rather than feeling marginalised or treated as a cash cow.

Each benefice now has a ‘parish dashboard’ with key stats – membership, occasional offices, finance etc. It puts the facts in the public domain, and the Diocese has one as well. The challenge is to “look at the brutal facts without losing faith.”

There’s been hard work on the data, to work out what’s actually happening. Over 10 years, 1/3 of churches have grown and 2/3 have declined. In the past, diocesan resources would go into the difficult parishes, which would absorb most of the energy. The diocese is now working with failing churches mainly at the point of a vacancy, but the rest of the time is focusing on the churches that are growing, to support and help them. 

Comment: there's an excellent Bill Hybels talk on vision where he talks about how people 'buy in' to an inspiring vision of the future, and he spends a lot of time talking about 'process' - i.e. how important it is to take time with people, to listen, explain, reason and work things through. Simply delivering a presentation doesn't work. It looks like St. Albans have paid attention to this. I also like the way they've carved out a role for key churches in the Diocese, and want to be honest about what's going on as the starting point for changing it. 

click here for other posts from the conference

Diocesan Church Growth Strategies 6 - Mission Action Planning & Growth

Mike Chew on Mission Action Planning:
Experience in management at Philips electronics was very similar to his experience of the Diocese of Blackburn: a culture resistant to change, internal conflict, suspicion of top-down initiatives, intuitive rather than strategic leadership, falling performance, losing customers and best employees.

Change in both Philips and in the Diocese involved finding a common strategy process (not a strategy but a strategy process - Mission Action Planning is a process for discerning strategy, which looks different at each local level)

“the most important element of any strategy is actually desire…if someone doesn’t want to do it, it’s not going to happen, or it’s going to be done very poorly.” How do we generate the desire for change and growth within the church?

Training leaders and training them to train others "was probably the most powerful thing we did"

2 reviews, in 2007 (after 2 years) and 2010. On both occasions, showed that churches which had engaged most fully with MAPping had grown, those which didn't shrank. 

Of the 20 Diocese registering growth 2010-11, 15 are using Mission Action Planning in some form (the national total was 19 at the time, so of the 23 which were flat or declined, only 4 were using MAPs)

Bob Jackson on the national stats:

'it's a little bit early to relax and rejoice' - there's a 100 year long downward trend before the latest minor levelling out. 2000-10 is better than the 1990s, but it's still all negative numbers. 

CofE is looking at new membership measures: "church is not an attendance event, its an ongoing community" so things which measure belonging to the community, rather than attendance at events, are closer to the heart of what it is to be the church. 

Trialled in Lichfield: usual Sunday attendance of 26,000, worshipping participants 47,000 - on the new measure the Diocese is 75% bigger than the Sunday snapshot would suggest.

Joiners and leavers data: parishes in Lichfield asked to register membership, numbers joining (and why) and leaving (and why). This showed a net increase of 1300-1400 per year, with 50% of the joiners (roughly 4,000 in total) having no previous church background. Also helped the diocese to see how many were joining/leaving through transfers, births & deaths etc. 'Much more useful, richer statistics.'

There are now 1800 registered Messy Churches as of Feb 2013, the number is almost doubling every year, and there are many unregistered Messy Churches too, Jackson estimated 2 for every registered congregation. Average attendance is 55. That's 100,000 people in the registered ones, but membership will be more than attendance because people don't come every week. So there could be up to 400,000 people involved across the UK. 

Comment: it's a mixed picture. Part of the energy for growth is coming from a dread of decline, rather than a positive theology of growth as the normal business of the church. Will more positive stats and good news lull us back into complacency? Can we find an engine for growth and change that isn't the prospect of imminent death (not a great motivator) but that is more to do with the love of God and the gospel of Jesus?

On a personal level, this thing about being trained to train others well keeps coming up. I'm not, and I know I need to be. 

When is a Plan Not a Plan?

Excellent post from Vic the Vicar! (his '!' not mine) on planning

As the Mission Action Plan season picks up speed (we need to revisit them and present them at our Annual church meetings) I would like to remind everyone else that they need looking at and revising where necessary. As I do I would like to remind you of the reality of planning church in that many who plan fail to plan success but merely plan to fail. If your plans are not realistic, not constantly revisited and not developed by long periods of praying then you're planning to fail. If you seek a church of one hundred and the reality is that you're experiencing a diminishing congregation than either God is falling you or you're merely sitting with eyes closed and fingers crossed hoping for a visit from the growth fairy!

What are you going to make your reality? Do you understand the needs of your community, know what they need and what you need to be 'Church' for them? Have you plans? If you do, when did you last revisit them?

Emphasis mine.

Anyone out there use Mission Action Plans? What's your experience of them? Or, to escape from the church context, any good/bad/other experiences of strategic planning in the workplace?

'How to Do Mission Action Planning'

There are roughly 20 CofE Dioceses now doing some form of Mission Action Planning, an approach to mission strategy pioneered by York and London under David Hope's leadership. But it's quite a faff wading through 20 sets of Diocesan documents, all of them different, to work out what MAPping is really about, how it works, and how to do it.

Good news then: 'How To Do Mission Action Planning' has just been published by SPCK. It's written by Mike Chew and Mark Ireland, and there's a bit more blurb here, along with a list of the Dioceses known to be doing Mission Action Planning. There's quite a handy dedicated website, which explains more about it, who's doing it, and has various examples from different churches, which is a good starter for 10.

Interestingly, our Archdeacon recently asked all her churches whether they'd be interested in developing some kind of parish action plan. Quite a few said yes. So this might be quite timely.

Mission & Leadership Training Events

Trying to pull various things together into 1 place:

Mission 21 church planting conference in Bath, November 17-19th

Christians Together in a Spiritual Age Churches Together in Somerset day conference with Steve Hollinghurst, Locking Castle (Weston super Mare) at 17th October

Mission Action Planning study day, run by the national Anglican MAP boys (Mike Chew, Tim Ireland, Peter Hill) in Telford. They have a book on 'how to do Mission Action Planning' in November.

Vision to Action conference on management and leadership skills, run by Holy Trinity Brompton

Lead Where You Are videocast of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit from earlier this year, at 16 venues around the UK in October/November. Most of this stuff is pretty high quality, and if you sign up for a year you get a discount for the conference, and on their teaching DVD's, which are normally very good.

Youthwork, the Conference at Eastbourne, 20-22nd November.

Growing Leaders, Youth Edition: Growing Leaders is an excellent lay leadership development course, developed by CPAS. They've just developed a parallel version for developing young leaders. Well worth a look, if this is a challenge in your church.

Fresh Expressions training days, including a day on Mission Shaped Church for Older People (29th Oct in London), something we're starting to look at in our church.

Did anyone come back to church?

Back to Church Sunday want to know what happened, you can relay your experiences here.

Thanks to Paul Bayes' Start the Week for this, which also has links this week on:
- Mission Action Planning - a new training day on Nov 12th, the week before the Mission 21 church planting conference in Bath. Don't expect to see me in Yeovil in mid-November!
- new Church Army/Christian Enquiry Agency partnership
- focus on older people
- Rowan Williams CD from York Courses
- a publication which covers topics like 'how to pray in board meetings' (apart from 'Oh God how much longer is this going to go on for?') and 'funeral evangelism'.


Comment is Free has a couple of pieces about Back to Church Sunday:
'What's the Point of Back to Church Sunday?' which wonders if it's fishing in the same pool as Alpha. Alan Wilson has responded, and debunks the myth that BTCS was dreamed up by a marketing department somewhere. If only we had one...


Meanwhile, 'You and Yours' is covering the topic tomorrow: this from their website:

*Call You and Yours: How relevant is organised religion in today's society?*

This weekend Christian churches in England and Wales are organising their latest "back to church" day to try and encourage people to return to Sunday worship; though their rap inspired radio advert has been criticised by some for being an embarassing attempt at trendiness.

There are also suggestions that British Mosques are failing to connect with young Muslims in the UK and there's been a steady decline in the numbers of people attending traditional Synagogues.

Those within the organised religions continue to debate whether it's time to modernise - so that they reflect society's more liberal views on homosexuality and the role of women.

In times of hardship and changing circumstances people supposedly look for meaning in life - are we more inclined to turn to spiritualism or the humanist movement rather than tradititional religions?

Let us know your thoughts ahead of Tuesday's programme.

details of how to call are via the link above.

Update: a search for Back to Church Sunday on Twitter throws up one or two successes, people tweeting about a decent number of guests in church. We had 2 (I think) one who was there not because it was BTCS, but because she 'felt a need to go to church' and really enjoyed it. We split it over 2 weeks to include our Harvest service next Sunday, so there may be others at that.

Idea for next year 'Back to World Sunday', where churches close their services and Christians spend the day hanging out with their non-churchgoing friends.

Mission and Fresh Expressions Resources by Diocese: St. Albans - York

The final post of 4 surveying the 43 diocesan websites for useful resources on mission and fresh expressions that could be useful for anyone.

Previous posts covered:
Bath and Wells - Coventry
Derby - London
Manchester - Rochester

I'll also be doing some follow on posts: a 'top 10 resources' post, and some suggestions about what resources could, pretty easily, be held in common across all diocesan sites, and perhaps a summary of the best Fresh Expressions stuff, and how the picture looks nationally for FX based on what Dioceses have (or haven't) got on their websites. (Update: now online - follow this link for these extra posts)

so here we go.....

St. Albans: what looks like a chunky mission section, fronted by a picture which we all know is the outline of a font, or possibly a commuion cup, but might also be the outline of a toilet. I'm just telling it like it is.... However, it flatters to decieve: many of the 25 subsections are blank pages, and the first one with any content spoke of a mission training event being cancelled. The Fresh Expressions section links to two reports on Vision Days, both hosted on the national FX site.

The website is new, so I guess they've not sorted out all the content yet.

The only thing of note was a link to a Workplace Ministry project for Herfordshire and Bedfordshire - interesting to find another regional group doing this, as well as the After Sunday project in the North-East (their website is also being renewed!).


St. Edmunsbury and Ipswich Oh dear, more pop-up windows. They're about to have some events thinking about their mission as a diocese, but slim pickings in terms of mission/evangelism resources. Links worth a visit:
- 1 page style guide for powerpoint slides. Nothing really to do with mission, but v helpful.
- 'Open churches week', good idea for opening up church buildlings to the community, and some interesting things being done by churches taking part, from family tree research to fayres of various kinds.

The only FX thing on the site was a chunky powerpoint presentation (3 meg) given to their synod in Feb. It'll be familiar to anyone who's seen a presentation from the FX national team, but blends the generic stuff with some local examples. Looks like they're planning to give this more of a push in 2010.


Salisbury The only Mission link on the homepage (which has the full SiteMap) is a back to church Sunday page. Nothing on FX. There are a couple of Area groupings which are designed to resource the local church, which have their own web pages. Nothing here worth linking to, in terms of mission resources or ideas.


Sheffield Ok, we've not given Steve Croft long to make his mark, but he's already there on video on the home page with his challenge to the Diocese. 'Eat less chips'. No, not really.

There's a mission section, but the content is a bit patchy. Some good stories of mission in action from around the Diocese, and they train 'Lay Parish Evangelists', which is good to see.

Sheffield is also encouraging people to vote on 4th June to counter the BNP, and have a parish magazine article on the subject.


Sodor and Man has a website. That's about all I can say. No sign of Thomas the Tank Engine, thankfully.


Southwark clearly has a webmaster with a sense of humour, with a prominent 'what we do' menu on the home page.
- some good Communications tips via the links there (e.g. 'what are the media interested in').

Otherwise not much in the way of downloads or shareable resources, though it looks like plenty is going on in the 'real world' of the diocese.


Southwell and Nottingham ok you can wake up now. The following can be found in their Mission section.
- Bob Jackson presentation summarising some of his 'Road to Growth' findings, a powerpoint presentation you can actually understand without hearing it given in person. Good summary of Jacksons work, if you've not read his books.
- Section on Sports Ministry, good starter for 10 if you're thinking about this sort of thing.
- article on Car Boot Sale ministry, again, gives you plent of ideas if you're thinking about a church stall at a CBS.
- under Back to Church Sunday, some handy tips for welcoming children
- the Diocese had a celebration event for mission projects. Excellent way to recognise and promote what people are doing at a local level.
- Mission Development Fund material is presented in an attractive booklet form, good way of promoting it.
- 'On Course', a downloadable booklet doing a survey of what courses are on the market for Finding Faith (evangelism/nurture), Growing Faith (discipleship) and Sharing Faith (um, sharing your faith). Excellent resource, there are a few other dioceses which have a similar resource, but it should be all of them.
- a link to iChaplaincy (an internet chaplaincy) and workplace chaplaincy in the Nottingham area. Interesting idea, I'd be interested to know how well used the site/chaplaincy is.

If you're interested in where the Diocese is going, their 'Shaping the Future' vision has a good outline of what their key priorities are.
Not really on mission, but the first diocesan website where I've come across a liturgical resources section. Not just section, entire website.

After all that, nothing explicitly on Fresh Expressions, which is intriguing, though it's mentioned as part of 'Shaping the Future'....


Truro
- the Mission page gives a brief list of projects which have benefited from mission funding.

- they have a Fresh Expressions page! It mentions Tubestation (church plant for surfers) and several other projects, but the descriptions are quite brief.
- again, nothing to do with mission, but a very well organised library of downloadable forms. Everything from AGM announcements to child protection.

update: see the first comment for an ecumenical fresh expressions network in Cornwall.

Wakefield
- Some simple and attractive pages for enquirers, good layout and links, including a link to egodparents (new one on me)
- communications page links to national CofE advice on use of the
media, promotion etc.

Winchester (sorry, formatting starting to fall apart a bit! good old Blogger..)

- Evangelism page has summaries of the most popular nurture courses, as well as a summary of Lost for Words, (evangelism training course from CPAS). I do like the look of their Discipleship Department, which is focused on making adult disciples and enabling other to do so. By the look of this, they have a newly appointed Fresh Expressions enabler, who came into post in Jan '09, so watch this space.

- Has a FX page, which summarises what they are about, but no local stories or examples, and all the links are to external sites. But it's there, which is good.

- another page on Growing Churches summarises the Growing Healthy Churches and Mission Shaped church materials, but points people back to the Discipleship Department for getting into them in depth.

Worcester has a mission page, but not really any resources here to link to. Nothing on fresh expressions, apart from a couple of mentions in news stories.

York has a report on the uptake and effectiveness of Mission Action Plans in the diocese (York adopted these as part of Diocesan strategy in 2002).

- there are clearly some Fresh Expressions things going on, but not organised into a specific place on the diocesan website (do a search for 'fresh expressions' and it raises several articles). The best way to navigate the site appears to be the 'search' facility - 'mission' also brings plenty of results, but most of them seem to be news items on local projects.

So there you have it. Unless you're interested in following some of the niche links (e.g. Workplace ministry) the only site here really worth a browse is Southwell.

After all that, I hope this is some use to someone!! Follow up posts on the best resources etc. in the next week or so.

Mission Resources and Fresh Expressions on Diocesan Websites: Derby - London

Following on from the Bath and Wells - Coventry survey yesterday, a list of useful mission and fresh expression resources to be found on the 43 Anglican diocesan websites.

If I've missed something from from your site, it means that I couldn't find it after quite a bit of searching, so you may want to look again at how the website is structured!

Here we go....

12. Derby The stated vision of the diocese is to develop mission, ministry and discipleship, but there's no section on mission (or fresh expressions). Considering that it’s the first of the 3 Diocesan priorities this is very odd.

Their in the middle of a review process, which is asking some good questions and may deliver some fruit. Early days. Nothing on the site to really merit a visit from outside the Diocese.


13. Durham Colourful front page, nice.
Has a mission section, but without any spectacular content.

Oddly, the Board of Education has its own website! Not quite sure what this says… There you can find a list of children and communion resources, and some comprehensive guidelines on collective worship in schools, which is a bit chunky.

Beyond this, not much the visiting missioner to chew on.


14. Ely Good layout, substantial Mission and Ministry section, which in turn has a Fresh Expressions section. Dave Male, the FX missioner for the Diocese, publishes a monthly newsletter for them, which is brief, to the point, locally based (would apply to pretty much anyone in E Anglia) and easily skimmable.

The Mission Resources section is very brief, and could be expanded. Mission Action Planning, by contrast, has plenty of material, part of a Diocesan strategy to have a MAP from every parish for their 900th anniversary this year. Most of it is for diocesan consumption, rather than for visitors, though if you're doing MAP's, there may be something helpful.


15. Exeter 'Growing churches sit down for big lunch' turned out to be about churches which grow their own food, rather than in number!
- Substantial Mission section, including Fresh Expressions in Devon, with details of specific local fx's. Only the 2nd diocese so far (after Bristol) to list these...

- Some great mission work going on through the Cathedral: Life on the Beach is a mission partnership between Exeter Cathedral and local churches, using the Cathedral green for a Saturday open-air outreach/festival. Nightchurch is a fresh expression based in the Cathedral on Friday nights, aimed at Gen X and Y. We need more missionary Cathedrals!!!

- In the mission Downloads section you'll find a Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts questionnaire (just printed it off!), and (clever idea) examples of presentations on mission and fx which could be given to your parish/deanery by the Diocesan Missioner. There's also a very good paper on what Pioneer Ministry involveds, and changes in the way the church needs to see mission.

There's also material about 'Moving on in Mission and Ministry', the diocesan strategy, which looks like a version of Mission Action Planning.


16. Gloucester A few bits and bobs on mission. The resources section has some good titles, but some of the 'downloads' consists of just 2 or 3 sentences (e.g on 'science and religion'). It's interesting that the Vision of the Diocese is hosted in the mission section of the website. Also has an FX page with a link to feig, a local project.

Best bit: an entire website devoted to youth ministry, with sections for young people, and for youth leaders. Great resource both for them, and for any parish thinking of taking on a youth minister. Lots of stuff here that could be used by any diocese.


17. Guildford Looks to be plenty going on, the Mission and Parish Development page is well done, with a list of what they can advise on and help with, makes it easy for parishes to relate to what they're doing. It includes resources on:

- Fresh Expression: full marks to Bonnie Appleton, who's put together a concise list of every fx in the diocese, grouped by type (alternative, workplace, cafe etc.) with details of when and where. I love the idea of Songs of Rage, a church for people who like punk rock. For those with a bit more time, there's a 20 page thesis on the difference between fx and traditional outreach.

- Back to Church Sunday, with info on what's happened locally

- some very helpful profiles of team members and what they do - gets past the normally faceless view of 'the Diocese' and should help people relate more easily to what's being offered.

- A brief Sports Ministry page, great to find one of these!

- the mission deparment have produced a colourful booklet which explains what they do. Again, an excellent idea.

Finally, a booklet summarising discipleship resources (finding faith, growing faith, sharing faith, leadership), which I think is based on LICC materials. Good brief summary of each course, mirrors similar documents at Southwell and Chester. But why couldn't it be linked from every Diocese?

Well done Guildford, the kind of site you leave feeling encouraged.


18. Hereford Hides its mission resources in the Development and Training section, they took a bit of finding/guesswork.

Worth a visit:
- the first 'Christians at Work' section I've seen on a Diocesan website, with (bingo!) a free, downloadable 4-session small group course on the issue. Well done Hereford. Now on my hard drive.

- Stewardship resources under the title 'resources for mission', which is a good approach!

- a course developed by the Diocese to hep people share their faith: £5 for the DVD's and leaders notes, with a full outline of the course here.

- a fascinating page on using Mystery Plays (obviously a big thing locally) for mission.


19. Leicester Quite a few bits and pieces under mission and ministry, including the guidance notes for applications for mission funding from the diocese, which many Dioceses don't publish through their website.

Main bit of interest is the 24 page guide to nurture courses, which takes in Nooma as well as Alpha, and comments on strengths and weaknesses. Also has a section on discipleship and faith sharing courses.

Buildings for Mission, also hosted by the Diocese, might be a rebranded Diocesan Advisory Committee (planning permission people), but even so, I like their style. Oh no, they have a DAC as well.

The ongoing Diocesan strategy, Shaped By God, has a substantial mission element. 60 page booklet here, if you're interested. It's actually quite good, and peppered with case studies and diagrams. Interesting to compare and contrast this with that of my own Diocese....


20. Lichfield 'Going for growth' proclaims the headline, and the first link on the sidebar is to find out more about Jesus. However, Jonathan Gledhills head is still the first thing you notice as the site loads!!

Lichfields 'vision for growth' is spelt out elsewhere, however, none of the diocesan departments have anything on the website, and there is nothing related to mission or fresh expressions. Peculiar.


21. Liverpool This is one monster of a website, the sitemap is huge, and within it you can find:

- Good 'what does it mean to be a Christian' section, brief but comprehensive.
- Very helpful communications section, with concise and good advice on publicity, leaflets, noticeboards, photographs, magazines, new media etc. Yet another example of what could be on every Diocesan website, if only people talked to each other.

- the engine room for mission is the Vision, Mission and Growth section. There are primer pages on several topics - fresh expressions, community, ecumenical partnerships, work in deprived areas, developing your building etc.

- Liverpool also run a Going for Growth programme, at the core of which is a 'School of Leadership' for clergy, an intensive 11 week course. This looks like a great example of joined up thinking - growth and change is a process, and here is a diocese which has taken the process of moving into mission and growth seriously. (one slight glitch: two of the links point to the same page 'how do we grow our church?' has lost it's direction! There are some mission pages you can get to through the site map, but not from the mission pages!)

- Finally, a superb mini-site within the site on ACTS : a joint initiative with TEARfund to take parishes step by step through embarking on a new project for the benefit of the community, from building a community centre to running a fun day. Again, something which could be used anywhere. It includes stuff on setting up as a charity, recruitment, publicity, etc. Excellent.

The diocesan strategy includes identifying resource churches for specific ministries - their latest report (p6)talks of one for liturgy and worship, and another for pioneer ministry. Great idea - designated churches which can resource the whole diocese in specialist areas. The report also lists a number of church plants and pioneer projects: which makes it an encouraging and dynamic document, rather than a dry presentation of facts and figures.


22. Lincoln links the blogs of both bishops from its home page - the first website so far to give any profile to the blogs of its own people.

But that's about it: no sign of mission on the site map, and the closest thing - the U2charist, has been colonised by the Millenium Development Goals. Nothing on fresh expressions either.


23. London the top left hand corner of the home page starts 'Regulations and Policies' - not a promising start! However the site map is very easy to use (the best so far), and soon you'll find things like:
- A Capital Idea: study by Bob Jackson on the causes of the church growth experienced by London since the 1990s. The only Diocese so far with a research paper on its own success or otherwise in mission, the paper is an applied case study of Jacksons writing in Hope for the Church and The Road to Growth, and is well worth reading.

- nice introduction to baptism, for people enquiring about it.

- A Funding page, with the guidelines on applying for mission funding, plus other links to funding sources, and a summary of what they cover (e.g. Lottery community buildings fund).

- a substantial Mission Action Planning area, which you'd expect from the Diocese which pioneered this 15 years ago, with plenty of downloads of what it is, how to do it, worksheets helping folk to analyse their situation, a chart to plot your MAP, and 5 sample MAP's to show people what they look like. If you're looking for a good template, this is it.


Top Tips: Guildford (especially the Fresh Expressions bits) and Liverpool (both the leadership training and the ACTS process). Again, the picture is incredibly patchy, and there is plenty of scope for generic web pages which could be used by all diocesan sites.

Mission Resources and Fresh Expressions on Diocesan Websites: Bath and Wells to Coventry

Occassionally I stumble across a real gem on one of the 43 Diocesan websites around the country - most recently it was Bristols' section on Fresh Expressions (see below). So I thought I'd try to gather together all the useful links on mission and fresh expressions from the Diocesan websites in one place.

It's proven to be a bit more work than I thought, so I'm going to break it up a bit. This is the first of 4 posts, the others will cover:
Derby - London (12 dioceses)
Manchester - Rochester (8 dioceses, hopefully in 2 weeks time)
St. Albans - York (12 dioceses, ditto)
A full list of diocesan websites can be found on Anglicans Online (remember them?)

Basic Ideas:
1. This is a survey of what's on a diocesan website related to mission and fresh expressions
2. If I couldn't find it in 5 minutes, it's not listed - sorry if I've missed something important!
3. Of particular interest was anything which could be used by folk outside the particular Diocese. There is a heck of a lot of reinventing of wheels going on, and plenty of scope for a common core of mission material which could be hosted in common on every diocesan website.

1. Bath and Wells: has a mission homepage, mostly centred around the 'Changing Lives' diocesan strategy. Most of the info is contacts, though an article on 'mission in our culture' is a useful summary of the mission challenge, with a brief 'starter for 10' booklist.

Main highlight of the site is a great 13 page resource booklet on how churches and schools can work together, packed with good ideas on mission and engagement.

Nothing on fresh expressions, and the 'Back to Church Sunday' link was broken. Aside from the schools booklet, there'd be little of interest if you weren't in the Diocese already.


2. Birmingham: A website which clearly expects non-Christian visitors, with a substantial section for enquirers called Exploring Faith. This covers what a Christian is, testimonies, FAQ’s, how to find out more, books to read etc. This would be an easy template for other dioceses to copy and link from their homepage.

Brief section on ‘mission strategy’ which is based on Mission Action Plans at parish level.

A ‘local projects’ section lists the community/mission projects run by local churches, with a contact name. It's a very helpful browsable list, giving an at-a-glance idea of what other churches are up to, from healthy eating cafes to projects for the housebound and those with learning difficulties. Digging around reveals a specific list of projects working with the elderly.

There’s no specific mission section, and there were no mission resources either apart from the introduction to Mission Action Planning. The local projects list is a good idea.


3. Blackburn The homepage has the diocesan vision and the Mission Action Plan (MAP) prayer. The Mission and Unity page is mostly a list of subgroups, and hasn't been updated since their missioner moved to parish ministry (I know this because his name’s still at the top).

Mission Action Plans are at the heart of the ‘Going for Growth’ diocesan strategy. The site has a substantial booklet on what MAP’s are, what the Diocesan strategy looks like in detail, and how it works at a local level.

One great idea – a ‘resources directory’ listing resource people/networks around the Diocese in a variety of areas, such as evangelistic preaching, IT, Men, fresh expression, interfaith etc. This is an excellent way of sharing expertise without centralising it. Obviously not much use if you're not in the area, but the idea is one that any Diocese could use.

Small fresh expressions section, linking to the national site and the Mission Shaped Ministry course. Finally, I have to mention the mildly dysfunctional design, in 3 columns which didn't seem to be speak to each other.


4. Bradford. A very brief mission and ministry homepage, and not much here that would help folk from outisde the Diocese. There's a decent resource on developing

Otherwise, the main resource is a section on forming Ministry Development Teams in a parish, as a way of taking forward local church ministry and leadership, which probably makes more sense if you're doing this process within the Diocese already. Nothing on Fresh Expressions.


5. Bristol. Now we're talking. It’s a neighbouring Diocese, and one where I know the bishop takes his role as ‘leader in mission’ more seriously than most. The diocese has a Growth Programme based around 4 clear principles – growth in Commitment, Partnership, Influence and Numbers. There is a fully downloadable Going for Growth Lent course with course leaders notes, icebreakers, you name it. It all seems very well put together.

But it gets better. This diocese has a Church Planting Policy and a selection of Youtube videos on local fresh expressions Even the Back to Church Sunday section has a selection of useful pdf resources on welcome, publicity etc. which could be used pretty much anywhere. Their Community section is mission focused too.

Superb. Well worth a visit, plenty of stuff here to inspire or borrow. The Back to Church Sunday section, for example, could be the nucleus of a standard offering across all Diocesan websites, to save people having to go scratching around for resources. Also a great example to any Diocese looking to attract mission-minded leaders. Many of us will use the diocesan website to give us a flavour of what the Diocese takes seriously, and if you compare the Bristol site to those of its neighbouring Dioceses, it's in a different league.


6. Canterbury The Board of Mission pages are mainly contacts, what information there is will only interest you if you belong to the Diocese already. Nothing worth linking.


7. Carlisle You don't find many Dioceses with a sidebar link to ‘Revival’! The Diocesan strategy of 'Survival to Revival’ has a section of downloads for reviewing the life of the church. These are mainly for internal consumption, but are well put together, and user-friendly. Some of the ‘resourcing revival downloads’ are an excellent example of Diocesan communication aimed at every church member.

There is also an X-Change section, for online sharing of ideas and resources. Great idea. It’s under construction, not much posted as yet, but covers things like worship, buildings, stewardship, debt, tourism, children, publicity etc. Each of these has subsections – e.g. Children has Holiday Clubs, Godly Play, Schools links etc. Something every diocese should have, but hopefully with a bit more specific content! Or even the national site....


8. Chelmsford A few little gems:
Excellent resource: a 1-page worship audit questionnaire. Lots of good, searching questions, very practical too, usable in pretty much any church.

The Making ConneXions section links to dozens of single-page summaries of ministry situations: Deanery curate, new housing estates, lay hospital chaplaincy, community outreach worker, marriage preparation, planting a new congregation, harvest fun day, etc. It has other subsections for worship, children, church organisation, and fundraising. Very good resource. There is a nice collection of 1-2 side resource papers for childrens work, from after school clubs to Easter drama.

It's a bit like browsing a second hand bookshop: you can find a lot more on the sitemap than seems to be available through the main menu buttons, including the entire RE syllabus!


9. Chester We have a winner. A recently published survey of resources which has a brief survey of what's on the market for:
- discipleship courses
- children adn young people's discipleship
- small groups
- faith sharing
- enquirers courses.
- equipping and supporting small group leaders.

Invaluable, great starter for 10 if you're wanting to do something in one of these areas but don't know where to start.

There's a small Fresh Expressions page, mostly about the 'mission shaped intro' course.

Hot off the press is the Growth Action Planning page, led by the Bishop, and launched in April 09. This is Mission Action Planning by another name.

Highly commended for being easy to navigate. Great template for other dioceses to note (Blackburn!!!)


10. Chichester A subsantial Mission and Renewal section, including:
- a full list of registered Fresh Expressions in the diocese (15 at the time I looked)
- Mission Action Planning section emphasis on growing healthy churches.
- public criteria for applying for Mission fund money. Great idea, all Dioceses should do this. They also list all the projects which ahve recieved grants, which gives a good idea of what's possible (see Paul Bayes for the full national list)
- very helpful Communications section, with a ‘communications health check for parishes’ and downloadable fliers on copyright, media relations, noticeboards, how to make your story ‘news’ etc. Yet another thing which could be copied across all 43 Dioceses.


11. Coventry Has a ‘development and evangelism’ section, but most of the pages are fairly brief.

The major thing here is a stonking 50+ page ‘shaping your church for mission’ booklet launched in 06, which pulls together material from Warren's ‘growing healthy churches’. Looks at how to develop the church in worship, making new Christians and transforming communities. It's worth looking at for the GHC stuff, which anyone could easily use in their own context, and you wouldn't need any other resources beyond this to explain what it all means and do the evaluation.


Thoughts so far:
- Fresh Expressions is a long way from being at the heart of the CofE. It's not even mentioned on some sites. The picture on mission is no less patchy.
- Some cracking resources/ideas which could be easily shared across sites, cutting down on work for everyone involved.
- Top Picks: Bristol, Chelmsford, Chichester, the Chester resources survey.

Alan Smith 'God Shaped Mission'

On Tuesday Alan Smith, Bishop of Shrewsbury, was appointed Bishop of St. Albans. There's even a Youtube video (1170 views as of Weds morning, but shame about the corny background music).

It just so happens that last week I finished reading 'God Shaped Mission: Theological and Practical Perspectives from the Rural Church.'

It's partly written in response to Mission Shaped Church (MSC), and the lack of material in that report on rural mission and fresh expressions. MSC was 'important and timely', but raises plenty of new questions - is it change or rebranding? Are 'fresh expressions of church' sustainable? Would the gifted leaders required by fresh expressions produce just as much growth in a normal church setting anyway?

The book argues that the countryside is changing, and that many of the views we hold about it are myths. The romantic picture of peaceful village life is a long way from the 'usually hard, occasionally brutal' reality. As farms close or diversify, incomers change the nature of village communities, and facilities close, there are plenty of challenges for rural communities.

Smith identifies 7 myths which rural churches have to tackle (chapter 2):

1. There was a golden era when rural churches were full.

2. Each village had its own resident parson

3. Rural churches are facing unprecedented change

4. Most rural congregations are made up of people from the village (as opposed to urban congregations, who are eclectic)

5. Rural churches are so resilient they will always survive

6. The best solution is to close some rural churches, sell the buildings and unite the congregations.

7. The CofE is rich because it owns so many buildings.

The book looks at churchgoing and spirituality in rural areas, which reflects the national picture of decline, but finds the typical rural dweller associating with their church without actually attending it. He also challenges the view of some missioners that 'spirituality' is on the rise, and replacing religion, noting that interest in new age, ghosts, and other pseudo-spiritual things is concentrated only among certain social groups (chapter 3)

Chapter 4 explores theology, arguing that mission arises out of worship: "before we can be a mission-shaped church, we must be a God-shaped people". Mission is the overflow of our encounter with God. This in turn frees us from activism - the gospel is not good news if it's just a summons to work harder for God's kingdom. Smith notes that Jesus says both 'come and see' (this Sundays lectionary reading, from John 1:43-end), and 'go and make disciples', and challenges a sharp distinction between 'attractional' and 'missional' churches. (i.e churches which try to get people to 'come to us', and churches which go out and engage with their communities)

There is a sizeable section looking at how the thinking and practice of fresh expressions can be applied to rural areas, with a host of good examples drawn from his experience in Shropshire. Smith also notes the positive effect that Mission Action Planning has had in helping churches to focus energy and resources. He also surveyed the rural fresh expressions currently held on the national database, and notes that several things which carry the name 'fresh expressions' aren't what it says on the tin.

There are particular challenges in rural areas: subcultures tend to be smaller, (e.g. youth, parenting classes etc.) which means that a viable group for them is going to be Deanery-wide, or involve co-operation between several villages, which presents its own problems. Many rural 'fresh expressions' tend to be tweaks on a standard service of worship, but in a different venue, at a more convenient time, or in a different style (e.g. Sunday 4:6 in Devon)

Chapters 6-8 cover children and youth, worship, and social action/pastoral care, exporing both the issues and some ways in which rural churches have tackled them.

'Passing on the faith in the Family' (chapter 9) is probably worth publishing separately in its own right: Smith notes that from ages 5 to 15 children will spend 15,000 hours at school, 125,000 hours at or around home, and 500 hours in Sunday school. Yet we focus most of our efforts on Christian nurture of children around the church context, rather than the home. Smith argues for much more energy to be put into supporting Christian parents, and resourcing families to raise their children in the Christian faith. Lots of food for thought in this chapter, and worth reading on its own if you've not got time to read the whole book.

His section on Apologetics has suddenly become very relevant, with the agnostibus campaign, calling for the church to recover the ministry of giving reasons for our faith, persuading and reasoning with people for the truth of Christianity, and facing up to the questions asked by the world.

The final section sets out some 'principles for mission in the rural church':

- Listening (to God the community, the rural culture, your past, one another)

- Learning - there is a fascinating section here on 'what's wrong with the church', which I'll cover in a separate post.

- Acting (he goes through the Mission Action Planning process, and how it's worked in Lichfield diocese, and notes that 4 main areas have emerged for attention in local churches - welcoming people: welcome, worship, creative use of the building, and using economies of scale by teaming up with other churches)

- Refocusing for mission: with ideas about how the role of bishops, synods and church leaders need to change in order to engage with mission challenges.

A few quotes and stories from the final section:

- a day on evangelism which began with "a prolonged period of corporate silent prayer. This proved to be extraordinarily disarming. No one was able to set any personal agendas through their choice of language, prayers or hymns. We were all equal before God in the silence. The result was a great deal of real listening to one another."

- There is a big difference between Greeting and Welcoming. Greeting is what happens when you say 'hello'. Welcoming has happened when someone knows they belong and have a role to play. Note how, when you ask for something in a supermarket, they'll escort you personally to the right shelf. When did we last escort someone to a seat/coffee/etc. in church?

- A story of a young couple with a child on their first visit to church, who ended up sitting on their own in the church hall whilst the regulars chatted to one another. Only the vicar and the visiting bishop spoke to them, and they left, unnoticed. "I am sure the congregation would have been horrified if anyone had said they were unfriendly, but they were."

All in all an excellent book, well worth engaging with, though it will be a demanding engagement. Bishop Alan Smith is serious about mission, and about how the church needs to change, and I pray that his energy, vision and practical experience will be a great blessing to his new Diocese.

See also: Mission Shaped and Rural by Sally Gaze

Rural Children, Rural Church Roona Orme

A Good Diocesan Website, Mission Action Plans, and Diocesan Growth (or not)

Stumbled across the Norwich Diocese website today, including an excellent & simple links page to resources on worship and discipleship. The links on Bible study and leadership need developing, but the discipleship one was excellent - offering a breakdown of most of the discipleship/Christian basics courses on the market, what they're about and what the sessions cover. A different section of the website has links to all sorts of church growth resources.

Norwich says it's "Committed to Growth", and is one of an increasing number of Dioceses who are encouraging their parishes to develop mission action plans - though they don't all call them that. Unfortunately there isn't really enough research in the public domain to know how well MAP's work - there seems to have been positive experience in York, Blackburn and Lichfield dioceses, but most have only recently started to use them. London have been using MAP's for 15 years, though Bob Jackson isn't sure how much of a factor they've played in the growth of that diocese.

There isn't any doubt that London is growing though. Despite the complex and serpentine presentation of the CofE national stats, here are the top 5 dioceses for 2001-6, in terms of growth in total weekly attendance (adults and children)

London 12.9%
Gloucester 2.2%
Canterbury 2.1%
Southwark 1.6%
Winchester 1.4%

5 other dioceses have grown on this measure during the 01-06 period (Newcastle, Hereford, York, Manchester, St. Albans), which means that 33 have shrunk. The bottom 4 are all Northern - Liverpool, Sheffield, Durham and Blackburn.

Taking childrens attendance on its own, the picture is better: 7 dioceses have held steady, and 16 have grown. Worcester, Salisbury, Coventy and Canterbury have all seen growth of over 20%, another 5 have seen growth of 10% or more (Southwell, London, St. Albans, Southwark and Winchester).

By the law of averages, if the picture among children is better, that for adult attendance is worse, with only 7 dioceses growing, and only London growing by more than 3% (11.7%). The Northern dioceses do a bit better here, with York, Manchester and Newcastle growing, and Wakefield holding steady.

As I've said, its frustrating to have to work with figures which are 2 years out of date. Bob Jacksons work (see link above) does a far better job than I could of explaining why London has bucked the trend. The main factor he identifies is Diocesan leadership, with a 15-year long commitment to mission which has included MAP's, but covers appointment strategy, money, resources, encouraging church planting, and a host of other things.

Being an online dummy, I can't post the Excel file with the 2001-6 comparisons in, but if you want a copy let me know.

Church Action Plan

We're meeting with our Cell group leaders this evening for a pre-launch of our church Action Plan, if you're interested, here's the process we've been through:

January 07 - Church council away day, identifying key areas for developing the life and mission of the church, and ideas for how we can make progress in these areas. We ended up with 5 key areas:
- Improving our Space (various issues in the church building)
- Growing Cells (helping our cell groups to grow as centres of mission and ministry)
- Children and Families (putting more resources into links with the local school, parent/toddler groups, and families in the local area)
- Making Worship Work for All (exploring new styles of worship, making better use of the gifts people offer, making the experience of worship more welcoming for newcomers)
- Outreach (more support for baptisms, weddings and funerals, making more of the seasons and festivals of the year, etc.)

Feb-March: working through the ideas from the away day and developing a plan for progressing them.

April: Easter!

May: put together main report, financial report, response forms (time & skills, finance) into Action Packs, which everyone in church will get on Sunday. All cell members will get them through cell group leaders, the idea is that they discuss and pray through the reports together, and the cells look at whether there are particular things they want to do as a group (e.g. run marriage preparation, host an Alpha course etc.) Everyone who doesn't pick one up on Sunday will get them hand delivered over the next couple of days.

June: deadline for returning response forms 3 weeks after giving them out - this will be June 10th. On the 17th we'll have a thanksgiving for the responses people have made.

June - July: the church Council have been put into 5 Task Groups, one for each of the 5 key areas: task group members will follow up the offers of help people have given, so that by September we're ready to get started with some of the new things we want to do.

There'll probably be a Phase 2 in early 2008 - various bits of work are going to take time, e.g. a feasibility study on whether we could employ a full time worker with families, putting together plans for the development of the church building, and by then we'll have a good idea of what fruit there's been from the Action Plan.

If the process works, it'll probably be something I develop for other local churches to use in putting together their own Mission Action Plans.

And finally a disclaimer: we've not worked out this process ourselves, a lot of it is cribbed from something that John Roberts, the Durham Diocese stewardship adviser, does with parish churches in his Diocese.