Below are all of the activities we ask you to complete as a team before each Learning Community.
Vocation
As a church team, before the Vocation Learning Community, please watch and discuss the videos below.
Mapping
Consider the following questions with your team:
- Vision: What is your big aspiration?
- Values: What are your golden rules?
- Goals: What will success look like?
- Opportunities: What will help you progress?
- Risks: What may hold you back?
- Next Steps: What are your mid-term priorities?
- Current Position: Where are you on the journey?
Feel free to use the following Exercise Sheet as a support. Either make a copy of the Google document here or download it as a PDF here.
Barriers to Growth
1. Discuss which barriers to growth you are aware of in your church.
2. What are you seeing that makes you think that this might be a barrier?
3. Begin to articulate possible ways forward to bring about change. Consider the following:
- Focus
- Organisational Structures
- Buildings
- Integration of newcomers
- Culture
4. In your teams identify one thing which you could change a) collectively and b) individually, which would make a difference and/or lead to growth
Leading Change
Consider the following questions:
- How are you communicating your change vision?
- How are you involving people in change e.g. what responsibilities are you delegating?
- What actions and behaviours are you rewarding in your church?
Formation
As a church team, before the Formation Learning Community, please watch and discuss the videos below.
Five types of leader
The APEST assessment model is designed to help you find your ministry style in relation to the fivefold ministry of Ephesians 4: And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers…Ephesians 4 v11
APEST stands for:
- Apostles
- Prophets
- Evangelists
- Shepherds
- Teachers
Referring to the APEST definitions:
- Discuss the concept of APEST – is this something new to you and your team?
- Looking at your team, try to identify which ministry styles according to APEST are represented.
- Which are not represented?
- How does looking at your team’s ministry styles help you in your planning ahead at this stage in your journey of growth?
Feel free to use the following Exercise Sheet as a support. Either make a copy of the Google document here or download it as a PDF here.
What is discipleship?
The journey of discipleship is described in the gospels:
- A revelation of who Jesus is
- An invitation to turn around and trust in Jesus
- An invitation to come and see, follow Jesus, become like Jesus
- A promise that out of this, Jesus’ disciples will become fishers of people
- A reminder that discipleship is costly
In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul invites Timothy to draw together faithful people to teach others (four generations). This is an example of disciples making disciples – friends inviting their friends…
In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus says: “Go and make disciples of all nations baptising them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit”.
We see that making disciples is a key part of discipleship. In light of the video’s message think with your team about:
- How have you made disciples in the past?
- How might you need to think about doing that differently going forward?
Feel free to use the following Exercise Sheet as a support. Either make a copy of the Google document here or download it as a PDF here.
Growing Leaders
- How are you spotting and nurturing leaders? How are you envisioning them?
- Who are those unconscious incompetent leaders around you who you could start developing?
- How are you delegating responsibilities to new leaders?
Mission
As a church team, before the Mission Learning Community, please watch and discuss the videos below.
Communicating Faith
In the video, Fr Matthew talked about the importance of using the right tools and channels to communicate your vision consistently to those in your parish and to others.
1. Are you clear on the vision you are communicating?
2. Consider who you are communicating to – who is your audience? (Think about those within your parish and those currently outside).
3. What methods do you use currently to communicate with your audiences? How are you currency measuring engagement?
4. In the light of the video, are there other channels and tools (eg email, social media, leaflets, texts) you might consider using for certain groups?
5. What might be some next steps to help you improve your communication and measure engagement in your context?
Who are we inviting?
Jess Locke from Harbour Church Portsmouth shares some tools to help us identify new people to invite to our churches.
1. Build a set of ‘avatars’. Think about how a group of people will experience your church. Draw up a few profiles of fictional people who could live in your community who you would like to see be part of your church. Include the following:
- Name:
- Life stage:
- Occupation:
- Hobbies / Interests:
- Dislikes:
- Any Issues:
2. Learn about the people your avatars represent. Where do they hang out, what are they interested in, do they use social media, what topics are important to them, how do they feel about church etc.
3. How can you connect with the people your avatars represent? What are the ways that you can invite them in a context that they will understand? For example, is it in the park walking your dog? Is it using a digital campaign on Facebook, or TikTok? Is it in the local coffee shop?
Feel free to use the following Exercise Sheet as a support. Either make a copy of the Google document here or download it as a PDF here.
Three steps to inviting
Michael Harvey speaks about three steps to becoming an inviting church:
Step 1 – Vision
Step 2 – Model the vision
Step 3 – Cascading
1. Does your church vision include invitation? Maybe not in the mission statement, but in the outworking of it.
2. How are you modelling invitation in your church? Is the expectation that this is something everyone can do?
3. Who are the people you can encourage on a one-to-one basis? Do you have any people for whom invitation is easy? Consider making them an invitation champion and get them to encourage others. Jess Locke from Harbour Church Portsmouth shares some tools to help us identify new people to invite to our churches.
The path to integration
In this video, Rochelle outlines five steps to integrating newcomers into your church. Here are five follow-up questions for each point.
1. Who do you want to reach out to (avatars/personas)? How can you reach out to them?
2. How do people get involved in your church? Do people have all the tools they need to engage?
3. How can you improve the quality of your gatherings?
4. How are you following up with people as they get to know your church more?
5. What tools do people have to be advocates for your church?
Feel free to use the following Exercise Sheet as a support. Either make a copy of the Google document here or download it as a PDF here.
Multiplication
As a church team, before the Mission Learning Community, please watch and discuss the videos below.
Multiplication Model
In this video, Bishop Ric discusses the four levels of disciple-making outlined in 2 Timothy 2:2. How can we replicate this in our churches?
1. Who are you discipling? Who are you intentionally investing in?
2. Now take some time to think about the people in your church who you can ask: “Who are you discipling?”
3. Write down each of their names, and commit them to God in prayer.
Leadership Pipeline
Bishop Ric explores the need for a leadership pipeline as seen in Exodus 18. Below is the table he refers to (06:26).
| Leaders now | Leaders needed | Leadership gap | |
| Level 4: Leading Leaders | |||
| Level 2: Leading Others | |||
|
Level 3: Leading Teams
|
|||
| Level 1: Leading Self |
1. Reflect on an example of leadership from your experience. Do you have a leadership pipeline in your church? Remember, this could in any or all areas of ministry (e.g. children’s team, or musicians).
2. Who is in your leadership pipeline? Feel free to duplicate this table and fill it in with a number for how many leaders are needed or the names or roles of each person at each level.
Feel free to use the following Exercise Sheet as a support. Either make a copy of the Google document here or download it as a PDF here.