Church Development Aim:
"To work with existing groups of Christians as they dream of what it means to be church and then to support, encourage and enable them as they begin to grow".
Church Development Objectives:
- To establish a process of consultation and reflection in order to develop a dream.
- To implement the process.
- To prepare for the implementation of the dream (i.e. planning the way forward).
- To support the growing capacity of Christian communities so that skills and self-confidence are developed and the vocation of the community is identified and lived out.
- To enable individuals to discover the gifts already within them and apply them to the outworking of the dream.
- To reflect theologically on the whole area of Church Development.
- To share the methodology and outcomes of this process with the wider community and church.
Much of the work of the Church Development role is to do with helping church communities form their own vision – but this does have dangers (see Church Development – Key Objective). This paper not only looks at the dangers around trying to form vision statements, but also suggests a simple process that will help to form such statements which are really owned, agreed and understood!
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