transforming church transforming livesintroducing…Transforming Church, Transforming Lives is the vision and mission strategy of the Diocese of Guildford. It envisages individuals and church communities open to the transforming work of God’s Spirit in their own lives, and so becoming agents of Christ’s transformation to the world around them.

This vision is deliberately couched as a strapline to the phrase ‘Diocese of Guildford’, rather than as an initiative in its own right. Transforming Church, Transforming Lives communicates the essence of everything we are seeking to pray and work towards across the diocese, rather than being a separate mission project to be hived off to a small bunch of enthusiasts. To use the jargon, it is an ‘add-up’ rather than an ‘add-on’.

No strategy, however well intentioned, will achieve anything of any lasting value without God at the heart of it: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, we labour in vain…’ (Psalm 127:1). Prayer is therefore foundational to all that is envisaged – planting, watering, wedding and pruning, but always looking to God to give the growth.

Transforming Church, Transforming Lives is not about asking people to work harder, but to work sharper - becoming more intentional and focussed in how we pray and what we are seeking to do. At its heart lies the vision of a growing, vibrant and generous Christian movement, empowered by the Spirit and rooted in word and sacrament, which confidently proclaims and lives out the Good News of Jesus Christ across the region and beyond.

Transforming Church, Transforming Lives is a framework not a blueprint, encouraging a thousand local initiatives to work towards our broader shared goals. It is primarily a strategy for the local church, though many of its principles can be extended to groups of churches, network congregations, chaplaincies and church schools. Its ethos is:

- To encourage local mission initiatives through permission-giving, training, support and finance.

- To develop a deeper sense of partnership and shared accountability between churches and across the diocese, as parishes increasingly look to resource one another, and the diocesan hub to resource the whole.

- To grow a culture of honesty, mutual learning, persistent prayer, deepening discipleship and confident faith sharing.

historyWhen members of the Crown Nomination Commission first gathered to pray and to draw up a role description for the next Bishop of Guildford, it was felt that the diocese lacked a well-owned vision and mission strategy. The Common Purpose initiative from 2008 was reckoned to have made something of a difference, but was seen ‘not to live and inspire’. One of the tasks given to the new Bishop of Guildford by the Archbishop of Canterbury was therefore to ‘lead the diocese in a more joyful and intentional approach to witness and mission’, while ‘encouraging a wider sense of collegiality and common purpose’. The Common Purpose Working Group was duly convened in the spring of 2015, in response to the Archbishop’s charge and to Bishop Andrew’s initial meetings around the deaneries. It brought together members of the Bishop’s Staff Team with a varied group of clergy and lay people from across the diocese. At the first of the group’s meetings, the idea was born of a systematic gathering of views through an online survey – a unique initiative in the development of a diocesan vision. The survey was filled in by nearly 1500 people, lay and ordained, and a shared picture began to emerge:

- Encouraging Signs of Growth across the diocese tended to be associated with enhanced ministry among children and young families, the development of new worship services, and the increase in social action projects (foodbanks, street pastors and the like). Churches that were responsive to social change (e.g. recognising the changing nature of Sundays, and making adjustments accordingly) were directly benefitting from that responsiveness.

- Hindrances to Growth included a deficit of prayer and strategic thinking, a lack of youth and children’s work provision, various financial, building and administrative considerations and – most significantly – low levels of Christian discipleship and a lack of confidence in sharing the gospel.

- It was therefore suggested that the various Resources Available to parishes from the diocesan hub should be directed towards providing church growth conferences and training, audit tools and consultants, and towards offering seed-corn money for encouraging new initiatives (especially among children and youth). Discipleship, evangelism and lay leadership training were regarded as particularly important, while two specific projects (increasing the number of ordained vocations by 50% and encouraging the development of congregations in new housing areas) were given enthusiastic endorsement. The final common theme was the need to learn from one another and to grow co-operation between parishes in prayer and mission.

The results of the survey were shared, discussed and prayed over at a meeting of the clergy on November 30th 2015; and Bishop Andrew (along with the archdeacons and other members of the working group) made a second tour of the deaneries, communicating the results, praying together for the health and growth of the church across the diocese, and picking up a good number of fresh responses and insights along the way. Following further discussion in a number of different forums (including Bishop’s Council and Diocesan Synod) a number of specific goals began to emerge in the spring of 2016, and the decision was made to

replace the phrase Common Purpose with the strapline Transforming Church, Transforming Lives. Materials were then prepared for a launch of the new vision in September 2016.

contextDuring this significant period of consultation in 2015-16, a number of wider considerations came to the fore, of which the following have proved the most significant:

- The National and the Diocesan: Guildford is one of 41 dioceses across the country, and our own strategic thinking needs to be informed by wider strategy within the Church of England and beyond. The so-called ‘five marks of mission’, the three quinquennial goals and the current Renewal and Reform programme all offer a broader, and genuinely helpful, setting in which our diocesan discussions are taking place.

- The Central and the Local: The structure of the Church of England gives a considerable degree of autonomy to parishes and chaplaincies, which leads at best to a rich diversity of churchmanships and approaches to mission, at worst to shrinking or struggling parishes becoming increasingly embattled, inward-looking and isolated. Any approach to a diocesan vision therefore needs to be primarily focussed on supporting local efforts, while not losing sight of the bigger picture. One question that has increasingly come to the fore in our discussions is whether we should identify a basic minimum provision that all of our churches should offer (perhaps with the help of their neighbours). This provision is reflected in a number of the 12 diocesan goals below.

- The Local Church and the Wider World: Diocesan strategies will generally start with the parish church, but they must never stop there. Chaplaincies have a significant part to play in the church’s mission, as do church schools and community and global initiatives (many of them ecumenical). Meanwhile the deanery dimension is significant too, with a growing recognition of the need to think strategically within deanery and other groupings so as to release fresh energy for mission; and our ecumenical relationships also play a part, not least in the bubbling up of a plethora of new initiatives, including street angels, food banks, prayer groups and evangelistic missions.

Inherited Church and Fresh Expressions: The language of the General Synod Report, ‘Mission Shaped Church’, is now more than 15 years’ old, but it’s basic premise remains deeply relevant: that churches need both to make our traditional service pattern (‘inherited church’) more accessible to the newcomer and to develop quite new approaches to Christian community (‘Fresh Expressions’) to draw in those for whom ‘coming to church’ is a wholly alien concept. Our own survey suggests that growth points often lie in developing these Fresh Expressions alongside our traditional worship patterns, so that any Diocesan mission strategy needs to focus both on doing what we do as well as we can and on trying out some new approaches.

in essence Set within that broader context, Transforming Church, Transforming Lives:

- Sets 12 Diocesan Goals, which together provide the framework of all our mission activities within parishes, chaplaincies, schools, the cathedral and the diocesan hub.

- Provides Resources for parishes, schools, chaplaincies and the cathedral as they select the goals to which they’re particularly committed over the coming year: these resources to include support, training, mentoring, prayer resources and grant funding through the newly established Growth Fund.

- Expects every parish to pray over its mission priorities and to produce its initial Development Plan by Easter 2017, to be renewed and revised in each year following.

These elements of the strategy are more fully worked out in the following two sections of this report.

transforming…

The Twelve Diocesan Goals

Below are the twelve diocesan goals agreed by the Diocesan Synod of July 2016, together with a brief commentary on each. The word ‘diocesan’ here relates not to some centralised top-down approach, but to goals that are owned by us all: indeed each of them has been suggested by a significant proportion of the 1500 people who filled in the online survey.

As we prayerfully seek to serve one another and to look to the God who gives the growth, our goals in the Diocese of Guildford are:

making disciples1. For every parish and chaplaincy to develop an appropriate strategy for making prayerful,

confident disciples in daily life

Discipleship in one sense covers everything we do: and the vision here is of a community committed to lifelong learning, and to equipping its members to ‘love and serve the Lord’ in the neighbourhood, the workplace, the home, the school and elsewhere. This goal places both prayer and confidence right at the start of the strategy – two key elements in the survey responses – and at its heart is the question, ‘How do we create a culture of spiritual growth?’

An ‘appropriate strategy’ for developing that culture will look different in different parishes. It might well include courses and small groups of different kinds, but also e.g. pilgrimages, mission trips, Christian conferences and a rediscovery of the spiritual disciplines.

increasing believers2. Together to increase the number of new Christians of all ages through persistent prayer,

confident faith-sharing, life-giving worship, and the development of a hundred new worshipping communities by 2027

This picks up on the two greatest areas of church growth highlighted in the survey. A ‘new worshipping community’ here might be clergy or lay-led, and could consist of a new congregation

in an existing building, a small missional community, a youth church or a completely new fellowship on a housing estate. The number ‘100’ signals a step change in the development of fresh expressions across the diocese. 2027 is the 100th anniversary of Guildford Diocese.

growing youth & children’s ministry3. For every parish to develop a safe, attractive and spiritually-enriching children’s and youth

ministry, encouraging sharing of resources where appropriate

The main issue here is a commitment to making all our churches friendly and accessible to children and young people, as well as committed to their growth in discipleship. ‘Clustering’ suggests partnerships between churches here, as well as between churches and their local schools. As an example - with a large number of youth and children’s workers already operating across the

diocese - paid workers could spend, say, 10% of their time in supporting other churches on their children and youth strategy.

developing lay leaders4. Together to increase the number of lay leaders of all ages, who are called, trained and

deployed in the church and wider community

Goal 4 relates both to licensed and other forms of Christian leadership within church and the wider world. The key to this goal is creating a culture of vocation across the board.

recruiting more clergy5. Together to grow the number of ordinands by 50% from 2020 and beyond

Our diocesan response to this vital national aspiration will be both exciting and costly in terms of money, creativity, time, effort and prayer. Internships will play a part in some of our parishes, and we will need to open up three new curacies a year from 2020 onwards, as we seek to grow a godly and gifted ordained workforce for the future. Incidentally, this national aspiration will only go some way in maintaining clergy numbers, given the high level of retirements forecast in the next 15 years.

cultivating community partnerships6. Together to increase the range, professionalism and spiritual fruitfulness of our partnerships

with the local community, to help create a safer, stronger, fairer and more sustainable society

This picks up on the third growth area in the survey, and expresses our responsibility to be ‘salt and light’, good news in the communities we serve. The words ‘fairer and more sustainable’ connect with the last three of the five marks of mission: ‘to respond to human need by loving service; to transform unjust structures of society, challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation; and to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth’.

reaching beyond borders7. Together to grow the number and depth of our partnerships with Christian communities

beyond our diocesan borders, in the holistic mission to which Jesus calls us

This looks to our connections with other parts of the country and the wider world, recognising that Christians in the diocese have much to learn and much to give. Parish links are in view here, but also wider diocesan links, mission trips, school links and our wider contribution to the national church. In particular this goal gives a rationale behind the substantial sums the diocese pays to the Church Commissioners to resource ministry in other less affluent parts of the country.

nurturing education8. Together to improve the standards and develop the Christian distinctiveness of our church

schools, wholeheartedly embracing our contribution to education across the diocese

Goal 8 places the work of the school and university chaplains, the Diocesan Board of Education and the GST (our Diocesan Good Shepherd Multi-Academy Trust) right at the heart of the mission of the diocese, and suggests a wider commitment to education in our community schools and colleges.

encouraging generous giving9. For every parish to encourage an increasing number of worshipping Christians to commit to

regular, proportional and sacrificial giving

Christian stewardship is the theme here, one of the most basic expressions of the wider issue of Christian discipleship. At present Guildford Diocese is somewhere in the mid-table when it comes to the proportion of worshippers’ income that is given away. The impact of increasing that proportion could be extraordinary.

sharing expertise10. Together to share expertise and streamline our processes so as to release fresh energy for

mission

This goal explicitly brings our central administration team into the missional frame, as well as encouraging a greater synergy between one church and another. Easily accessible on-line forms for all processes would be a help here, and a volunteer consultancy service is currently being developed, offering advice in HR, finance, change, project management.

communicating effectively11. For every parish and chaplaincy to develop effective communications, promoting a church

that is visible, attractive and accessible

Goal 11 also encourages a sharing of resources and expertise between parishes, as well as a change of focus for the diocesan communications’ team.

improving church buildings12. For every parish to work towards having church buildings that are fit for purpose in

supporting today’s ministry and mission

The aim here is to develop facilities of a reasonable standard that enable worship, fellowship, outreach and community activity to be conducted effectively, with proper regard for accessibility, safety and environmental responsibility. To achieve this may require a more proactive approach by the centre (including the DAC) in assisting parishes than hitherto, especially through the provision of consultancy and possible funding via the Growth Fund.

resourcing By far the most vital resource in Guildford and every diocese is our laity and clergy, those at the coalface of God’s mission in their churches, communities and workplaces: and the whole ethos of Transforming Church, Transforming Lives is to seek to release all of God’s people into more joyful, intentional, generous and fruitful Christian service.

Along with the ongoing support of the diocesan teams (about which more below), two new initiatives are being introduced across the whole diocese to assist the Transformation agenda: the creation of a Growth Fund and the introduction of Parish Development Plans.

1. The Growth Fund

Plans are under way to develop a substantial Growth Fund to provide significant seed corn funding for mission projects within Transforming Church, Transforming Lives. Details of how this will be funded and administered will be explained in due course. As part of this new initiative a significant bid to the Church Commissioners is being put together, with a special focus on releasing funding for pioneering congregations on new housing estates; but money will also be available to help parishes and chaplaincies whose Development Plans including convincing projects linked to the transformation agenda.

2. Parish Development Plans

The aim of the diocesan goals is to provide a focus for our mission activities, and not to pile fresh burdens onto the shoulders of clergy, PCCs or diocesan staff. Many of the 1500 who filled in our survey articulated the lack of a strategy for growth in the churches they attended – and the goals give a framework for such a strategy.

Our churches are in very different places when it comes to thinking strategically. What is needed is a simple and easily applicable approach, which can assure a basic level of strategic thinking in every church while not unnecessarily duplicating the efforts of those who are already operating at ‘doctorate’ level.

Such an approach should also empower the clergy to keep the church’s mission at the heart of PCC and other agendas, rather than allowing those agendas to have too great a focus, say, on buildings and finance.

What is envisaged is the following:

a. At Parish and Chaplaincy Level

Each parish will be asked to create a Development Plan by Easter 2017, and to keep it up-to-date and regularly reviewed. Chaplaincies will be encouraged to do the same. Development Plans will be administered by the Parish Development and Evangelism Team, who will also offer written and online materials, personal coaching and advice, and prayer and liturgical resources. Typically this process will begin with a PCC (or equivalent) setting aside a period of time for prayerful reflection, during which special priorities are set for the coming 12 months. Some churches or chaplaincies might like to hold a vision day for the PCC or a rather wider grouping.

Wider factors may play a part in the PCC or chaplaincy deliberations. There may be a broader deanery strategy emerging in which they are called to play a part, or local concerns that need addressing. For example, if the statistics show that the number of children in a church community is in serious long-term decline, a member of the relevant team (in consultation with the Archdeacon) might have a supportive word with the incumbent, offering to help reverse the trend.

Off the back of that discussion a number of priorities will be set which form a local Development Plan, and which link with some of the 12 diocesan goals. For example a PCC might decide to focus on 5 priorities:

- To attend a conference on Church Growth to be laid on by the diocese later in the year (Goal 9).

- To improve the website and noticeboards (Goal 11)- To work with the Community Engagement Team and other churches in the deanery to

train debt advisors and open a CAP centre (Goal 7)

- To hold a stewardship campaign (Goal 5) - To start a new Messy Church in a local school (Goals 2 and 6).

These priorities will then be communicated to the church and to the Parish Development and Evangelism Team, and a progress report made at every PCC meeting (or equivalent) over the course of the ensuing year. A request for help from one of the diocesan teams, or an application to the Growth Fund, could be made at the same time.

The idea here is for every church member (at the fringes as well as the centre) to have a clear idea of their church’s mission priorities for the coming year.

b. At Deanery, Group or Local Ecumenical Level

As mentioned above, one of the considerations that PCCs and chaplaincies may need to take into account in their planning is the broader strategic discussion at deanery, group or local ecumenical level (as in the CAP centre example above). There is an appetite for this inter-parish working expressed in many of the responses to the survey, and Archdeacon Paul has written a helpful paper advocating the benefits of a Deanery Mission and Pastoral Committee.

Where churches jointly agree to work on a particular mission project, funding from the Growth Fund may still be available; and such a project will then find their way into the Development Plans of each of the churches involved.

c. At Central / Diocesan and Cathedral Level

The Diocesan hub includes the senior staff, along with the teams currently working from Diocesan House, the Education Centre and the Cathedral. The hub exists primarily to offer encouragement, mentoring, training and funding to support work on the ground, including accessing resources and expertise from outside the diocese.

As parishes and chaplaincies put together their Development Plans with an eye to the 12 Diocesan Goals, the following teams will be the first point of contact for parishes looking for expertise or training:

- Goals 1, 4 and 5: the Discipleship, Vocation and Ministry Team- Goals 2, 3, 8 and 9: the Parish Development and Evangelism Team- Goal 6: the Community Engagement Team. - Goal 7: the Board of Education. - Goals 10 and 12: the Administration Team. - Goal 11: the Communications Team.

In addition the teams will have a more proactive role to:

- Develop a diocesan culture that enables clergy and churches to flourish and play to their strengths.

- Communicate, administer and help resource the vision of Transforming Church,

Transforming Lives in the parishes, chaplaincies and schools.- Engage in high level discussions with e.g. local authorities and the Church

Commissioners, so as to release resources, fruitful partnerships and mission potential.- Play a significant role in vacancies and appointments, seeking to ensure that churches

and their clergy (of varied churchmanships) are working towards the vision of a Transforming Church, Transforming Lives.

- Use statistical and other information to make supportive, non-judgmental interventions in parishes that need them; and

- Point people to good practice in other parts of the diocese (or beyond) – another strong theme to emerge from the survey

prayingFinally; some theological pointers for Transforming Church, Transforming Lives.

The Mission of God

The Bible teaches that mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but rather lies at the very heart of God the Holy Trinity. The whole language of ‘sending’ and ‘being sent’ is fundamental to our understanding of the New Testament, especially John’s Gospel: God sends his Son; the Father and Son send the Spirit; and Father, Son and Spirit send the church to fulfil God’s plan of salvation for the world He loves (see e.g. John 3:17, 14:26, 15:26, 20:21).

Joining in with God’s Mission suggests the need for a prayerful attentiveness to the still, small voice of the Spirit, and to God’s ways in the world. The joyful encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 offers a great example of that attentiveness, and reminds us that good planning will always sit alongside the spontaneous and unforeseen.

The ‘Five Marks of Mission’ remind us of the breadth of our mission work. Our calling as the Body of Christ is to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom, to teach, baptise and nurture new believers, to respond to human need by loving service, to seek to transform unjust structures of society and to strive to sustain and renew the life of the earth. Transforming Church, Transforming Lives draws together all of these areas - and one approach to drawing up a Development Plan might be to encourage each church community to see where the missionary God is already at work, then offering to join in.

Kingdom and Church

Jesus came to inaugurate the kingdom of God – his rule – on earth, and encouraged us to pray ‘Your kingdom come’. Signs of God’s kingdom include the preaching of the Good News, repentance, healings and release from oppression (Matthew 4:23, Luke 4:18).

From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus called together disciples to form a messianic community, living by the values of the kingdom of God (as spelt out in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7). In Acts 2:43-47 we see that community in action, characterised by spiritual power, lavish generosity, overflowing joy and vibrant worship. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks in powerful terms of the importance of the Church in God’s kingdom purposes (see 1:20-23). The rest of the New Testament introduces us to a variety of local churches, each with their own particular character, strengths and struggles.

Transforming Church, Transforming Lives unashamedly begins with the local church, but it does not end there. Our calling is to pray ‘Your kingdom come’ in our communities, then to give ourselves, creatively and sacrificially, towards the fulfilment of that prayer.

Transformation

The New Testament has two related words for transformation: morphoo (from which we derive our English word morph), and metamorphoo (from which we derive our word metamorphosis). Morphoo is used in Galatians 4:19, where Paul speaks of Christ being ‘formed’ in us; metamorphoo in Romans 12:2, where he speaks of us being ‘transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect’.

God’s transforming work begins in Christian individuals, as Christ is formed in his people (Galatians 4:19; 2 Corinthians 3:18); but transformed lives also have a transforming effect in the church and in the world around them. Having instructed his readers to be ‘transformed by the renewing of your minds’, Paul goes on to picture what that transformation looks like in the church and wider world, speaking of love, generosity, perseverance, and a Christ-like attitude to both stranger and persecutor (Romans 12:3-21). Jesus’ images of salt, light and yeast also pick up this transformation theme, as does St. Paul’s teaching about the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

Growth

God’s creation call to ‘go forth and multiply’ is picked up in a missionary context in the many agricultural images scattered through the New Testament. Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God as like a mustard seed – the smallest of seeds that becomes the largest of plants (Mark 4:30-32); he speaks of the sower, who perseveres through disappointment and failure, and sees the good ground yield mixed but, at times, startling results (Mark 4:1-20). He speaks of God as the ‘Lord of the Harvest’, and encourages his disciples to pray that workers might be sent into the harvest field (Matthew 9:38); and he speaks of the need for pruning (John 15:2), and of the principle of death and resurrection – the seed ‘dying’ to ‘produce many seeds’ (John 12:24).

The numerical growth of the early church is well charted by Luke, who moves in stages from 12 to 5000 before losing count! Numbers are important, because they represent individuals who have responded to the call of the Kingdom (the ‘fortyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold’ increase in the parable of the sower); but the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation also remind us that size isn’t everything, and that much that is best in our life together cannot be weighed and measured. As the Risen Christ says to the church in Smyrna, ‘I know your afflictions and poverty – yet you are rich!’ (Revelation 2:9). There is also a cyclical aspect to church life, with St Paul reminding us to ‘preach the word in season and out of season’ (2 Timothy 4:2).

We should not underestimate the challenge of growing churches in today’s climate, but nor should we give way to a self-fulfilling fatalism. Provided we plant and water carefully and prayerfully, there can be an expectation that God will bring growth, however fragile that growth may sometimes appear (1 Corinthians 3:6). The themes of perseverance and not losing heart regularly appear in St. Paul’s writings (e.g. Galatians 6:9).

The People of God

Both Old Testament and New holds out a vision of a people who are filled with God’s Spirit and called into His service: what the reformers called ‘the priesthood of all believers’ (see Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9). The idea that some Christians ‘do’ ministry and other Christians have ministry ‘done’ to them is quite contrary to this biblical understanding. Rather, those who are called to lead the church are called to equip all God’s people to be ministers and missionaries in their homes, workplaces and communities (see Ephesians 4:11-13).

Those churches of all traditions that have begun to rediscover this principle – to release the whole people of God in the vision and passion that God has stirred within them – are exciting and sometimes risky places, where men and women and children grow in confidence, and church becomes more of an organism than an organisation. Transforming Church, Transforming Lives encourages such a development, and an approach to leadership that is both strategic and releasing.