Introduction and background

With the Vision Renewal Sunday planned for 2020 unable to go ahead, after the first lockdown, the Staff Team and Churchwardens agreed to see the period from September 2020 to, at least, Easter 2021 as a time of ‘necessary experimentation’, using the time well to try new things and consider how God is shaping us through Covid to better respond to our shared calling.

This January 2021 the Staff Team felt the point had been reached where we need to agree a process to discern what next, mindful because of Covid we are emerging into a new normal rather than returning to previous state. As Hans Kung observed: “To stay the same when everything else around you changes is not to stay the same.”

Thankfully, we were not starting empty handed! Across three previous vision days, countless PCC, Staff Team, Big Staff Team, Team Council, parish profile conversations, and in commitments we’ve already made, we have already articulated and agreed a fair amount. Therefore between January and April 2021 we agreed to:

1. renew our destination as a Resourcing Church Team;

2. prayerfully consider how that longer term destination helps us shape and prioritise the decisions we need to make over the next six to twelve months;

3. commit how best to journey together so as to make both the journey itself better and the possibility of reaching the right destination greater.

The Staff Team has prayerfully agreed a process and discerned how we best express our agreed shared destination. This was then explored and agreed at a Team Council in March 2021 (Churchwardens & Staff Team). A series of questions on opportunities, challenges, questions and attitudes were then discussed at each PCC (with open invite in the newsletter for anyone to receive the papers and offer comments). The Staff Team then spent a day away at the end of April prayerfully reading all of these contributions before turning them into a summation of our common views and an action plan as outlined in this paper, which now returns to PCCs for information and is sent with the newsletter to all congregations. Copies of the original paper sent to PCCs in March are still available for any in congregations who would like. A summary of all contributions sent from PCCs and shared ministry areas is also available if helpful.

The Why: Our shared destination as churches

Our ultimate destination is God and his Kingdom. In that sense our vision is not ours to set but given by God. Within this, as Parishes and as a Team in Harborough we have committed to a very specific expression of this vision as a Resourcing Church Team. This vision has been renewed and discussed in many ways at many times over the past five years, but at the outset of this process we recognised that we can still find it hard to express clearly and succinctly what this means and what each of our place as individuals and churches is within it.

• St Hugh, Market Harborough

• St Nicholas, Little Bowden

• All Saints, Lubenham

• St Peter and St Paul, Great Bowden

• St Dionysius, Market Harborough

So at the start of this process we set out to express it in three steps. Each step builds on the last, and each loop around the steps builds on the previous loop as we grow in a growth spiral (in that sense it is both our journey and our destination). This is in stark contrast to the way church life across our country has sadly been lived out over many decades, of withdrawal leading to decline, leading to further withdrawal. This is a vision to see the Kingdom of God grow, many times over, so as to help our Parishes and Team thrive in the future as a place where God is worshipped in word and deed, and all may come to know God’s love in Jesus Christ.

This will hopefully become so familiar as to bore us, so recalled it is easy to live out, so at the centre of our common life other decisions, big and small, are made to help us work towards it. Whilst we can never fully arrive at this destination, it’s a north star to help us travel with purpose.

How do we travel well?

In light of a clearer, renewed sense of where we are travelling to as churches and as a Team, PCCs were invited to offer reflections on how we commit to travel. This was offered as a series of attitudes we will try to encourage in ourselves and others, and attitudes we seek to avoid or reject. Across the four PCCs, 27 attitudes to encourage and 17 to avoid were offered. At the Staff Team away day these were distilled to those most often mentioned by PCCs and those that will make greatest difference to our journeying. During the Staff Team reflections, one relatively new member of the Team offered a reflection we felt helpful from a mission theologian (Alan Hirsch), “What got us here, won’t get us there.” The distilled list of how we commit to travel, to keep before us, is:

Attitudes we seek to encourage

• Intentionality: do all things in light of our destination

• Openness to risk taking: in both existing and emerging worshipping communities (alongside being open to constructive critique)

• Encourage every individual to bring and share their unique gifts

• Blessing each other with grace and respect

• Joyful collaboration: supporting one another

What are the next steps in our journey?

In the context of giving thanks to God for how he is at work amongst and through us, even during the horrific pain for so many of the past year, the PCCs offered:

• 39 ways they had seen God at work / opportunities in the community on which to build,

• 29 challenges, some in church life and some in areas of need within our wider community, and

• 16 specific questions which PCCs need resolved to help us journey effectively towards our destination

The Staff Team prayerfully worked through all of these, along with quite a number of responses from individuals in the congregations who responded to the invitation to send in comments. In light of all of these, it appears there are six strands of work PCCs would like prioritised over the next season. Each relates to the circle at the top right of this page and will be explored in light of that missional journey & destination. In summary they are:

1. Our Pattern of Gathered Worship

2. Shared Ministry Areas

3. Mission action planning - fleshing out this vision in the reality of each specific existing or new congregation

4. Communications

5. New Housing

6. Connect Groups

More detail and an action plan for each has been developed in partnership with the PCCs.