Flourishing Churches

Growing, inclusive, evangelistic, justice-seeking
FLOURISHING CHURCHES

Our vision: by 2030 to have at least 20 of our existing churches which have grown significantly and become noticeably even more inclusive, evangelistic and justice-seeking than they are now. At least half of these will be in Church at the Margins contexts.

Indicators of fruitfulness will be defined by each church but could for example look like: significant growth in membership, leadership that is more diverse and representative of its neighbourhood, making new members every year, being known for its contextual justice-seeking priorities.

These churches will be underpinned by a healthy culture of prayer, personal and small group discipleship and a permissive culture that encourages supported innovation. Generally they will be starting from a position of sufficient stability that they can meaningly set a multi-year growth plan.

Collectively these will contribute to a financially self-sustaining ecosystem, although we recognise that Churches at the Margins will likely require financial support.

Key challenges will be:

• Wisdom to recognise churches which have potential and ambition to flourish, given additional support. These are not necessarily the largest or busiest
• When ministerial time and other resources feel stretched, it can be uncomfortable to prioritise strengths and opportunities, rather than spread equally thinly or reduce costs
• It can be hard for people to identify changes needed to bring increased fruitfulness in their own church
• Churches seeking to flourish can become overburdened, for example through taking on governance roles for other congregations, or through pressure to “succeed”

To enable this District will:

1. Support circuits to identify and resource churches with potential and deep desire to grow and become more inclusive, evangelistic and justice-seeking
2. Offer an external voice into conversations in churches as they discern and implement growth plans
3. Bring access to expertise and resources, including through district staff, to support churches in implementing their growth plans
4. Faith Rooted Community Organiser to walk alongside churches for a fixed period of time (e.g. six months) as they learn to more deeply listen to community needs, gather people and shape church in ways which responds to these
5. Provide grants towards employment of lay roles or other non-capital costs which are expected facilitate churches growing and becoming more inclusive, evangelistic and justice-seeking.
6. Facilitate cross-circuit learning communit(ies) for leadership teams of churches with similar characteristics (e.g. Church at the Margins) and willingness to change in order to grow, offering high quality resources, and complementing Connexional networks & resources

Implementation of this vision will be overseen by our Flourishing Churches Support Team