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St Paul's Away Day - Lysons Hall, Hempstead on the 17th November 2007
Information
-However, to help you we have extracted details from the Diocese of Gloucester's Vision, Values and Priorities -2007- 2011 for easy reference:-
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Christine & Meg getting ready for the day----------------------------------------------------Ruth giving a helping hand
We will hold, and be known for, these values …
Celebration
God’s Love
------
Cultivating a spirit of thankfulness
---------------------------------------------
Relishing time spent together
Being
Obedient to God ------- --Discerning
his will through our resources of scripture, reason and tradition
--------------------------------------------- Relying
on God’s grace and equipping for service
Encouraging
risk taking--------
Valuing the order of the church but recognising that changing
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------times
require us to take risks--------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------Affirming the
freedom of local discernment and expression of God’s will
Being
committedto all people-Engaging
with our local communities
---------------------------------------------Staying
with those on the edge of the church and society.
---------------------------------------------Valuing
our history and heritage
Respecting
one another---------- Valuing our diversity
--------------------------------------------
- Rejoicing in vigorous debate
-----------------------------------------------Affirming
the principles of ‘as well as’ and not ‘instead of’’
-----------------------------------------------Giving
young a voice
Expecting accountability and---
Encouraging a culture of openness with each other
- transparency--------------------------Recognising
the need for clear communication and effective
------------------------------------------------structures
of decision making
Sharing and learning with-------
Delighting in our membership of the church at all levels
- the Worldwide
Church----------
Co-operating with Christians from other traditions and denominations –
not--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
doing separately that which we can do together------
-
In light of our vision and values, our priorities are:
Worship
and Prayer------------- Offering worship
that honours God and transforms lives
--------------------------------------------Encouraging
prayer as the foundation of our life and mission as a Diocese
--------------------------------------------Offering
excellent liturgical resources for use in the Diocese
--------------------------------------------Providing
formational training and development of worship leaders and congregations
--------------------------------------------Encouraging
local experimentation
Proclamation and Service------ Reaching out into our local communities
----------------------------------------------Renewing
our commitment to evangelism
----------------------------------------------Focusing
on the spiritual needs of the 20-33 year olds especially (the missing
generation)
----------------------------------------------Encouraging
social responsibility at a local level towards our communities and our
environment
Growing Leadership-------------- Strengthening local leadership
----------------------------------------------Encouraging
local communities to identify and develop new models of leadership
----------------------------------------------Equipping
clergy to lead their churches into growth
----------------------------------------------Encouraging
lay people and ordained vocations in every parish
Nurturing Disciples--------------- Building up the people of God
----------------------------------------------Caring
for clergy and people
----------------------------------------------Teaching
the faith with clarity and confidence
----------------------------------------------Developing
discipleship programmes
----------------------------------------------Working
with young people through schools and youth work
Stewardship-------------------------- Ensuring a stable future for a committed church
----------------------------------------------Teaching
on Christian commitment
----------------------------------------------Careful
stewardship and development of resources
----------------------------------------------Working
together towards financial self sufficiency within the Diocese
Reflection on the Church away day:-
-------------------------------------------------
--Ricarda taking copious notes--------------------------------------------------------------------Hannah joining the discussion
Twentytwo people came to the Lysons hall in Hempstead for the church away day. After copious cups of coffee and lots of lovely cake, we spent some time praying and worshipping. John Witcombe facilitated the day, using the diocesan vision document as a structure for our thinking. We came away feeling that we had had a good and exciting day together.
In reading what follows, you need to have a copy of the diocesan vision document in your hand.
Our group discussions identified that we are a church who enjoy being together! This is a very good sign for our future growth! We see ourselves as very welcoming and friendly church, but we need to be careful not to be complacent about that, and to recognise that this is not everyone’s experience of St Paul’s.
Someone pointed out that we are not a uniform church – i.e. we do not all come from the same places, cultures and social classes. We are a community of very different people – this too is a good thing, though it brings its own challenges. We all come with very different life experiences! However, we still need to ask ourselves if we are truly welcoming to everyone, or only to those whom we think will fit in to our particular family here.
We work hard at respecting each other and trying to understand each other’s points of view. We value our diversity. There was a concern that we are lacking a generation of people – namely those between the ages of 17 and 35. This is common in many churches, and there a number of reasons for it. While of course we do need to be concerned, it may be helpful also to ask ourselves just why we are anxious about this.
We like to celebrate God’s love, and we are committed to all people, not just those in our church! We do see ourselves as standing with people on the edge of society and the church, but are aware that we could do much more of this.
We agreed that we need to work on some the values that we already fulfil. So, while we do value our diversity, we also need to improve upon it. We felt that we needed to work on how we encourage risk taking – do we feel able to let go of some the church ‘as it is’ to make possible the way for church ‘as it could be’? How do we feel about ‘failing’? Can we let go of the good to make way for the better? Risk taking is risky business – someone pointed out that we can only take risks if we feel secure enough to do so.
We talked a fair bit about communication, and about ways to improve upon it. It was felt that some of the people who had left the church in recent years had not felt able to (or had chosen not to) talk about their issues with the church so we had not been able to try to resolve them, nor understand them. There was also a desire to work more on our accountability and transparency – this comes down to communication again – how do we ensure that people know what’s being talked about in the PCC? Know what the Red Wedge is/ Know what’s happening with St Stephens? Know what our baptism policy is, or why we offer thanksgivings? It was suggested that a summary of PCC meetings should be produced after each meeting. And we need to make sure the agenda and minutes are publicised. We need to find effective ways to disseminate all information.
The groups agreed that, if they had to choose, our most important values are being obedient to God, respecting one another, and being committed to all people. These are the values we most want to be known for.
After lunch we spent some time thinking about our priorities. There was a great deal of shared vision on this. All agreed that our main priority for now should be worship and prayer. This is swiftly followed by proclamation and service and nurturing disciples. Growing leadership (identifying and developing lay leaders in the church) and stewardship run all the way through all that we do
.
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-------------------------------------------------------The Discussion goes on during the lunch break
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------After lunch back work
So what next?
If we are to focus our energy on worship and prayer a number of things need to happen. We to think especially about what happens in church on Sundays. Some suggestions were made on the day – perhaps we should make more use of the OHP (or perhaps we should purchase a data projector) and have worshipful/reflective pictures on display. Perhaps we should make sure there is music playing as people come in to church, creating a right atmosphere to worship.
We should give some attention to the experience of coming to church – how is our welcome? How do we enable people to come in to a welcoming and worshipping atmosphere? Perhaps we should find ways to discourage chatting at the beginning of the service, and encourage chatting at the end. At the same time we recognise that currently people walk right in the worshipping space; it’s natural that they chat – maybe we should look at changing the way we come into church. Should we re-open the West End, so that people come into a place of hospitality and warmth, where chatting is easy and good, and where there are toilets and drinks etc – and then can move from there into the worshipping space. There are already lots of thoughts, and there will be many more.
We also talked about having the church open more during the week, so people can come in and pray. What are the practicalities of this? Would we need to have someone in the building all the time or could we dare simply to leave it open?
We talked about praying, and about how we learn to pray. We could do some follow up to the ‘soul spark’ course; develop home groups; do more teaching courses on prayer; have taize services, healing services …..
And all through all of this, we need to be identifying those with leadership gifts in the church and developing them. It was also recognised that stewardship runs through all that we do.
In terms of proclamation and service – we talked about more leaflet drops around the parish, about visiting in the parish, about sending cards to those who’ve been baptised. We talked about having member of the church to act as a sponsor for people being baptised, or married, or for children coming for thanksgiving. This person would stay in touch with the family and be a link between them and the church, as well as committing to praying, and being there for their service. Bereavement care could also come into this area.
This paper simply reflects what we talked about and thought on Saturday. There is clearly a great deal more thinking and praying and talking to do as we work out how we move forward. Please do think and pray about all this, talk to each other and continue to dream dreams and to communicate them as we seek to be the church in this place.
A canticle for St Paul’s Church
(canticle 85 in Daily Prayer)
Come, Holy Spirit
Come, Holy Spirit;
send down from heaven’s height
your radiant light.
Come, lamp of every heart,
come, parent of the poor;
all gifts are yours.
Comforter beyond all comforting,
sweet unexpected guest,
sweetly refresh.
Rest in hard labour ,
coolness in heavy heat,
hurt souls’ relief.
Refill the secret hearts
of your faithful,
O most blessed light.
Without your holy power
nothing can bear your light,
nothing is free from sin.
Wash all that is filthy,
water all that is parched,
heal what is hurt within.
Bend all that is rigid,
warm all that has frozen hard,
lead back the lost.
Give to your faithful ones,
who come in simple trust,
your sevenfold mystery.
Give
virtue its reward,
give, in the end, salvation
and joy that has no end.