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Colour me relieved
Feb. 10th, 2025 09:11 pmThis time last year, I was reflecting on personality typings, particularly the Chinese Zodiac, and giving a brief review of R&C:RA. I remember having fun with it.
Today, I met with a... colleague...?... from church. We're both part of the leadership team. We get on really well, but we don't socialise. Well, I don't really socialise much in RL. Anyway, we met up and I now feel much better about The Situation. We also discussed how St B's has drifted a bit over the last few years. There are a number of reasons for that, but I don't think they're that important - the question is, how might we change it? We both feel a good first step is to run an Appreciative Inquiry exercise - maybe even more than one - to find out what people want from church. It's a very different group from the one that set the ball in motion in 2007, and it's larger, so there are more voices to take into account. When we did the relaunch, there were basically three of us making the decisions on behalf of three or four others (who really wouldn't have been interested in the hows and whys - that was their church and they would have come on a Sunday morning whatever). But we attracted a whole range of people who provided input and ideas. It was a time of excitement and high energy and we've lost some of that.
The last Rector had a job to do to steady the whole parish financially, and then to get us thinking as a single parish rather than three congregations. And then there was the pandemic, of course, after which a lot of people didn't come back to us. And since then, our offering has become more and more *shudder* mainstream CoE. Now, there's nothing wrong with that but there are plenty of churches where you can get it. We set ourselves apart quite deliberately but the people who could articulate the why of that have mostly gone. Those who remain were never part of the core, as it were - they came more to partake than to lead
So, with a new Rector and Curate, it feels like a good moment to form the next vision, the one that will take us forward into the wide blue yonder!
Workwise, it was a very desky day, which was just what I needed. Tomorrow it's back to the office :)
Today, I met with a... colleague...?... from church. We're both part of the leadership team. We get on really well, but we don't socialise. Well, I don't really socialise much in RL. Anyway, we met up and I now feel much better about The Situation. We also discussed how St B's has drifted a bit over the last few years. There are a number of reasons for that, but I don't think they're that important - the question is, how might we change it? We both feel a good first step is to run an Appreciative Inquiry exercise - maybe even more than one - to find out what people want from church. It's a very different group from the one that set the ball in motion in 2007, and it's larger, so there are more voices to take into account. When we did the relaunch, there were basically three of us making the decisions on behalf of three or four others (who really wouldn't have been interested in the hows and whys - that was their church and they would have come on a Sunday morning whatever). But we attracted a whole range of people who provided input and ideas. It was a time of excitement and high energy and we've lost some of that.
The last Rector had a job to do to steady the whole parish financially, and then to get us thinking as a single parish rather than three congregations. And then there was the pandemic, of course, after which a lot of people didn't come back to us. And since then, our offering has become more and more *shudder* mainstream CoE. Now, there's nothing wrong with that but there are plenty of churches where you can get it. We set ourselves apart quite deliberately but the people who could articulate the why of that have mostly gone. Those who remain were never part of the core, as it were - they came more to partake than to lead
So, with a new Rector and Curate, it feels like a good moment to form the next vision, the one that will take us forward into the wide blue yonder!
Workwise, it was a very desky day, which was just what I needed. Tomorrow it's back to the office :)
