|
Two years ago Friary United Reformed Church
committed themselves to a change process — from being a ‘maintenance’ or a
‘pastoral’ church to becoming a missional church. The research project now
has less than two years to run. There are four phases to the project:
|
1. |
An examination of Church Health
through NCD |
|
2. |
A Community survey |
|
3. |
Definition of missional church
and strategy |
|
4. |
The development of each member. |
It would be impossible for most mainline
denominational churches to undergo such a radical change process from a
poor health base. Therefore we decided to use the NCD survey and process
to improve the health of the church. The process began with an away day
where the basic concepts and principles of NCD were explained to the
congregation.
Friary did their first NCD health survey in
June 2002. The minimum factor turned out to be Loving Relationships and
all the scores were well below 35. Derek Hopkins, the minister and I
decided to present the results without the scores in order that the
congregation focused on the minimum factors and did not get sidetracked by
the low results.
The initial response was one of denial; no
church likes to think of itself as unloving, we are all such nice people.
In the subsequent discussions Derek gave out the names of five members of
the church asking for some detailed information about them. No response!
The penny had dropped — Friary was simply a collection of individuals who
happen to worship together. Some families and people had known each other
for years but they were not a loving community.
Friary then held a number of focus groups
giving everyone an opportunity to give feedback and offer suggestions as
to how the church should proceed in addressing and improving the level of
loving relationships among themselves. They came up with a number of
suggestions that were presented to the church meeting and which are now
being implemented. The actual process of engaging with each other and
listening intently has in itself helped the congregation improve in this
area. Here are some of the suggestions that were adopted by the
congregation:
On Sundays:
|
1. |
People should try to talk to at
least one person they don’t know. |
|
2. |
People might try sitting in a
different place, particularly with strangers. |
|
3. |
New styles of worship should be
accepted. |
|
4. |
We should make sure that ALL
visitors are made welcome. |
|
5. |
We should have some faith
lunches – no preparation – but fellowship. |
During the rest of the week:
|
1. |
We should make more
opportunities for people to meet outside of Sunday. |
|
2. |
We should find ways for people
to do jobs and things together. |
|
3. |
We should explore setting up
some small groups with time for sharing with each other. |
|
4. |
There should be some work
related Bible studies. |
|
5. |
We should set up a telephone
prayer circle. |
|
6. |
We should have an
ambling/rambling group meeting around a pub lunch to which those
not walking could go as well. |
|
7. |
We should have a structured
Minister and Elder’s visiting programme, where both would
undertake at least one ‘formal’ visit per household each year: |
In May 2003 Friary did their second survey,
with significant improvement in every area and a new minimum factor
Passionate Spirituality. As a congregation Friary still has a long way to
go, but they are an example of what focussing on quality can do for the
health and growth of God’s Church. They engage in ploughing, tending the
soil and watering the small shoots of growth and God enables growth to
take place ‘all by itself.’
We are now formalising our consultancy
relationship in order to move the process along faster and further and we
aim to give more deliberate consideration of the biotic principles.
Chris Vermeulen
Woodlands Project
E-mail: woodlandsproject@aol.com
Chris Vermeulen is
based at Woodlands United Reformed Church. He is a research fellow with
Northern College, Manchester, and involved with the Woodlands Project. |
