February 2014 Page 1 Items of Interest Page 2 Services in February and what’s on in February/March Page 3 Bits and Pieces Page 4 February Volume 10 Issue 2 inside... You may remember that on Sunday 17 th March last year, everyone who came to church filled in a simple sur- vey. It arose out of our Strategy Day with Kerry Thorpe the previous year. The survey seemed an excellent way of tackling the ‘Review’ stage of the process he introduced. You may have forgoen all about it, of course! But you may just have been wondering what happened to the results. The answer is that they took a while to process. And when we got them back, we found out we had let ourselves in for more than we’d bargained for! Partly because, at first sight, the results came as a bit of a surprise. But mainly because they came with recommendaons as to what to do with them, which proved much more personally de- manding than we’d expected. Having done a survey like this be- fore, I’d thought it would simply give us some guidance on which area of church life to focus on. But Natural Church Development (NCD) has moved on. They recommended a process by which church leaders, in the process of reviewing what they survey says about the life of their church, also looked at their own lives to see how they needed to change. In for a penny, in for a pound! The MLT have been following that pro- cess. It’s been uncomfortable at mes, but very revealing. So much so that we wanted to find a way of sharing not just the results, but the process, as widely as possible. So the plan is to use the results of the sur- vey as part of our personal and cor- porate self-examinaon during Lent. We have designed a Lent Course which sets the results of the survey against familiar passages of scripture to see how we and our church might need to change. We’ll use those same passages of scripture in church on four Sundays in Lent, so that those who can’t come to Lent Groups are part of the process. And next month’s Parish News will also feature some of the findings, so no- one need be leſt out. To whet your appetes, though, here’s a lile taster of the results. They are analysed in terms of eight ‘quality characteriscs’. Research shows that the level of the lowest- scoring characterisc will determine how likely a church is to grow: as illustrated by the picture of a swiss milk barrel, where the level of the milk is determined by the shortest plank in the barrel. And, not unlike the picture, ‘effecve structures’ comes out as our strongest characterisc. But I was surprised to see that ‘passionate spirituality’ emerges as our weakest one. And this illustrates why we haven’t simply published the raw results. Because when you look in more detail, you find that it’s not so much the ‘spirituality’ as the ‘passion’ which drags our scores down. It’s not that we don’t pray: it’s that we tend to keep our faith to ourselves. We don’t talk about God much to each other, let alone to any- one else. Reluctantly, the MLT had to admit that there was some truth in this, for all of us. As there was in some of the other uncomfortable things the re- sults revealed. But the really posive part of the process is that we are strongly advised not to simply focus on our weak areas, but to celebrate our strengths, and use them to ad- dress our weaknesses. According to the survey, we have beer than average structures in place. People find our worship help- ful, and we are blessed with a rich variety of leadership. So there is good reason for hope. If, as individu- als and a church, we prayerfully fol- low the circle round, honestly re- viewing what we’re like, choosing what we can do about it, planning to make that happen and acng ac- cordingly, God can change us for the beer. And that, of course, is what the Lenten tra- dion of self- examina- on is all about. Andrew Sewell PARISH NEWS NATURAL CHURCH DEVELOPMENT SURVEY REVISITED
Transcript
February 2014
Page 1
Items of Interest Page 2 Services in February and what’s on in February/March Page 3 Bits and Pieces Page 4
February Volume 10 Issue 2
inside...
You may remember that on Sunday 17th March last year, everyone who came to church filled in a simple sur-vey. It arose out of our Strategy Day with Kerry Thorpe the previous year. The survey seemed an excellent way of tackling the ‘Review’ stage of the process he introduced. You may have forgotten all about it, of course! But you may just have been wondering what happened to the results. The answer is that they took a while to process. And when we got them back, we found out we had let ourselves in for more than we’d bargained for! Partly because, at first sight, the results came as a bit of a surprise. But mainly because they came with recommendations as to what to do with them, which proved much more personally de-manding than we’d expected. Having done a survey like this be-fore, I’d thought it would simply give us some guidance on which area of church life to focus on. But Natural Church Development (NCD) has moved on. They recommended a process by which church leaders, in the process of reviewing what they survey says about the life of their church, also looked at their own lives to see how they needed to change. In for a penny, in for a pound! The MLT have been following that pro-cess. It’s been uncomfortable at times, but very revealing. So much so that we wanted to find a way of sharing not just the results, but the
process, as widely as possible. So the plan is to use the results of the sur-vey as part of our personal and cor-porate self-examination during Lent. We have designed a Lent Course which sets the results of the survey against familiar passages of scripture to see how we and our church might need to change. We’ll use those same passages of scripture in church on four Sundays in Lent, so that those who can’t come to Lent Groups are part of the process. And next month’s Parish News will also feature some of the findings, so no-one need be left out. To whet your appetites, though, here’s a little taster of the results. They are analysed in terms of eight ‘quality characteristics’. Research shows that the level of the lowest-scoring characteristic will determine how likely a church is to grow: as illustrated by the picture of a swiss milk barrel, where the level of the milk is determined by the shortest plank in the barrel. And, not unlike the picture, ‘effective structures’ comes out as our strongest characteristic. But I was surprised to see that ‘passionate spirituality’ emerges as our weakest one. And this illustrates why we haven’t simply published the raw results. Because when you look in more detail, you find that it’s not so much the ‘spirituality’ as the ‘passion’ which drags our scores down. It’s not that we don’t pray: it’s
that we tend to keep our faith to ourselves. We don’t talk about God much to each other, let alone to any-one else. Reluctantly, the MLT had to admit that there was some truth in this, for all of us. As there was in some of the other uncomfortable things the re-sults revealed. But the really positive part of the process is that we are strongly advised not to simply focus on our weak areas, but to celebrate our strengths, and use them to ad-dress our weaknesses. According to the survey, we have better than average structures in place. People find our worship help-ful, and we are blessed with a rich variety of leadership. So there is good reason for hope. If, as individu-als and a church, we prayerfully fol-low the circle round, honestly re-viewing what we’re like, choosing what we can do about it, planning to make that happen and acting ac-cordingly, God can change us for the better. And that, of course, is what the Lenten tra-dition of self-examina-tion is all about. Andrew Sewell
PARISH NEWS
NATURAL CHURCH DEVELOPMENT SURVEY REVISITED
February 2014
Page 2
Make a Mother’s Day
As Mothering Sunday approaches - 30th March - take this opportunity of remembering your mother by giving an ethical gift that will change
the lives of countless families throughout the world. Gifts range from £4 to £100.
A gift, however small, can make a real difference to a mother's life. Catalogues available in church or contact WWW.makeamothersday.org
or telephone 0207 222 5533.
Churches Together In Maidstone
Singers are invited to be part of the choir leading worship at the Churches Together in Maidstone Good Friday Evening Service at the United Reformed Church, Week Street at 7.30pm on 18 April. There will be six rehearsals, at the URC, on Friday evenings 7, 14, 21, 28 March and 4, 11 April from 7.30 until 9.00. Please contact Freda Crispin before the first rehearsal if you hope to take part. 01622 726193 / [email protected]
Friends of Kent Churches Ride and Stride
When I wrote for our December issue I had not received confirmation that our half of the money raised had been received. I can confirm that we did received a cheque for £283.20 with most grateful thanks from Robert Niblett , Treasurer for the Friends of Kent Churches Ride and Stride.
Cath Garner
St Paul's Fellowship Beetlemania!
Our January meeting saw 20 of us enjoying a great afternoon chasing Beetles! Barbara Betteridge organised a truly brilliant afternoon Beetle drive. As a novice I was amazed that we had so much fun. Our thanks to Barbara for organising it all and to Katy for helping to keep us in order. We meet next at 2.30pm on Thursday February 20th when our speaker will be Bronwyn Sadler, reminding us about “The Floods of 1953”. We look forward to seeing you there.
Ann Lewis for St Paul's Fellowship Planning Group
Lent Course March 2014
When? Where? Tuesday Mornings 10.00am, St Paul’s Church
Tuesday Evenings 7.30pm, 8 Curzon Road Thursday Daytime 2.00pm, St Paul’s Church
Thursday Evening 8.00pm, 1 Heathorn Street
Further details in News Sheet and March Parish News…
