Videos will help parishes prepare to thrive

If September puts you in a back-to-school mood with an urge to learn, the Parish Development sub-committee may have just the thing for you.

This fall, the first of a series of modules in the form of 30-minute videos will be posted on the diocesan website. Following up on resolutions passed at Synod 2023, the modules are designed to equip congregations with essential knowledge and skills needed to thrive and are core curriculum courses for parish councils, leaders and clergy.

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The videos will address five key areas of parish development: parish governance, building healthy communities, visioning and priority-setting, effective stewardship, and engaging with the wider community.

The Rev. Dr. Jon Martin has been appointed the chair of the Parish Development subcommittee and was working on content for some of the modules over the summer. He explained that the first video will be an introduction to parish development and will provide an overview of the series. The next video will focus on building healthy communities.

During the Shape of Parish Ministry Consultations and at Synod, the part of the process everyone has been most excited about is engaging with the wider community—contextual

mission and new worshipping communities, he said. Martin promised that the module on that

part will come, but the other videos and work will prepare parishes for that stage.

“As Bishop Shane and I have talked about, it’s all well and good to reach out into the community ..but [if] you’re inviting guests to the house to come and experience your way of life and your hospitality, you’ve got to make sure your house is in order before the before the guests show up,” Martin said.

The module on building healthy communities will examine different aspects of what a healthy community looks like and how it works. It will ask how parishes can be welcoming and hospitable. Martin explained that most parishes are doing what works for the people who are already a part of that community. “What we’re not always so good at when we enter a time of social and cultural shift … is adapting to what are the new needs, the new cultural norms, [and finding] new ways of being welcoming and hospitable as culture changes.”

The video will include best practices from across a spectrum of different parish ministry settings—rural, urban, suburban, and things that people from those different contexts have said were really helpful for them.

“We’re really hopeful that this will give parishes across the diocese who genuinely want to be healthy, who want to thrive, and who want to be well-situated to step into this new time in our church, the ability to do so,” Martin said.

He noted that to thrive doesn’t necessarily always mean to grow. “Thriving can mean doing the ministry God has called you to do in ways that are life-giving and life-changing to both your congregation members and the community around you.”

Looking ahead to the modules that will follow, Martin mentioned that the one on governance will help the viewers understand how the diocese functions. “What is Synod? Diocesan Council? the Standing Committees? the CBRs [Canons, Bylaws and Regulations]? How do those things work? They’re also going to look at parish structures. What’s corporation? Vestry? … How does the church actually function?”

There will be a video on parish visioning and priority setting. “We no longer live in an age where a parish church can do ‘the all things for all people’ approach. You need to be really intentional about who you are, and what has God called you to do and be in this place,” Martin said. The module will help parishes discuss their priorities, how to address them and how to measure the results.

There will also be a module on parish stewardship. “It’s quite surprising how few of the parishes in our diocese have an annual stewardship cycle, despite the fact that almost all of us are saying that a lack of financial resources is a big stressor,” said Martin. “And there are things that we know work to help fix that.” The video will offer advice on how to run a stewardship campaign, how to address resistance to stewardship and helpful resources.

And then, as promised, there will be a video on engaging with the wider community and contextual mission: “What does it mean? How do you do it? What’s your process?”

Once all of the videos are produced and posted, they will be easy to access on the diocesan website. “They’re going to be geared specifically for parish leadership and parish councils to watch together to hopefully implement,” he added.

At the end of each video, there will also be information about additional resources if a group wants to do a deeper dive into that topic.

Various resources created from training workshops presented in the spring of 2024 are already available on the Learning Commons page of the diocesan website. 

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