Church without Walls PRESBYTERIES WITHOUT WALLS Making space for Church without Walls amongst the business * List 10 small changes which will improve the running of presbytery meetings. Implement them as soon as the list is agreed to show that you mean business. * If someone has submitted a printed report, ensure that they don’t read it out, but just refer to the report in print, and get straight on to questions and discussion. * Provide presbyters with training which enables them to take a full part in business. It’s up to you whether this is a dry explanation of procedures, or an exciting introduction to leadership of the wider church. Make it so interesting that everyone else wants to come along to it as a refresher course. * Get the right number of people for the work: the whole presbytery, a small task group, an individual – not always a committee. If lots can be delegated, hold fewer presbytery meetings so people can work on Church without Walls in their parishes. * Review committees or work groups annually: are there the right number of committees? Are they the right size? Are their remits clearly expressed? Do their remits need revision? Church without Walls isn't just another rabbit to chase: it's a chance to stop running round in circles and to take a compass-bearing for the kingdom. Cultivating a community where Church without Walls can grow * Prepare, and update annually, a list of contact details (including email addresses) of all presbyters to facilitate communication. * Have a coffee break in the middle of the meeting, while everyone’s there - ideally just after the most stimulating part of the meeting, so there’s plenty to talk about. * Think about the seating arrangements. Are they suitable for the size of presbytery? * Meet in different churches, and give the ‘host’ a chance to welcome the ‘guests’. * At every meeting have some time for discussion in small groups. * Give new members an opportunity to introduce themselves to the presbytery. * Look at Making the Net Work for ideas on how to use the internet to get more people involved over a wide geographical area. Please note this link will take you out of the Church of Scotland website and will open a new browser window. Church without Walls brings together much of what's being done already as part of a big picture painted all over Scotland. Bringing everyone on board * Involve as many people as possible at every stage so there is general ownership of the process. * Give everyone opportunities to voice concerns by creating time for debate in meetings and publicising contact details; and ensure people feel they have been listened to by giving courteous responses. * Start with small and uncontentious changes which don’t pose a threat, but which get people used to the idea. * Give bigger experiments a clearly defined sphere of operation, and a definite end-point. If it’s a failure, it can be terminated; if it’s a great success, everyone will want to continue. * Identify what’s good and build on it, rather than identifying problems and trying to eliminate them. This gets people thinking creatively rather than negatively. * Use small group discussion: this allows everyone to be heard, not just the vocal opposition. * Be careful in presenting ideas to use language and processes that will not upset people and prevent them seeing what you’re really trying to do. * When consulting on courses of action, begin by asking everyone to suggest possibilities, and then allowing them to choose between them, rather than presenting a fait accompli. Church without Walls isn't just another burden to carry: it's a chance to unpack all our luggage and decide what we really need. Ideas for remit 7: Instruct presbyteries and the Committee on Parish Appraisal to consider the encouragement of imaginitive new forms of congregational ministry as an alternative to readjustment * Organise training for elders and others in vacancies to lead worship. The Board of Parish Education provides a wide range of training programmes and resources for elders. Click here to find out more. * Train and appoint elders to be chaplains to shopping centres – a service the centre will often welcome. * Encourage parishes serving a natural community, such as a small town, to work together along with other denominations; then get them along to a Presbytery meeting to tell their story. * Create a 'Presbyterial Cathedral'. Cathedrals can offer inspiration, celebration and pastoral encouragement. What might serve this function in your presbytery? A building? A beautiful valley? A regular event? Consider what might be the symbolic focus-point for the vision of the Kingdom in your region – and start to build. * Appoint a ‘community minister’ to undertake and co-ordinate cover for vacancies and holidays, cross-parish chaplaincy work, and presbytery-wide events and training. * In small groups, discuss what type of ministry would make the biggest difference to the work of the Church in the presbytery, then invent it! * Contact the Committee on Parish Appraisal (Douglas Nicol: on email at dnicol@cofscotland.org.uk) who are working on this on a church-wide basis and will be pleased to provide advice or answer questions. * 'Spiritual direction' or 'faith accompaniment' is increasingly popular amongst Christians, but is often not recognised by the Church. If someone in the region is offering spiritual direction, find out about their ministry: is it something to encourage as part of the presbytery’s mission? Presbyteries are the pivot around which the church can be 'turned upside down to affirm the primacy of the local Christian community'. Ideas for remit 15: Instruct presbyteries to develop a co-ordinated strategy to equip congregations to sustain worship, pastoral care and mission with the appropriate staffing, and monitor progress through the quinquennial/presbytery visits. * At each presbytery meeting, invite one congregation to report some good news from their parish – ask everyone in rotation. * Use presbytery elders as a two-way channel of information: give them specific questions to ask and information to pass on. * Encourage congregations to follow those parts of Church without Walls which inspire and leave the rest. * Offer elder training events so churches can make use of their talents. The Board of Parish Education provided a wide range of training programmes and resources for elders. * Produce a Church without Walls newsletter identifying useful publications, courses, people; and sharing ideas and news from congregations. * Cultivate an atmosphere which allows congregations to take risks, knowing that they will find support and not condemnation if their experiments fail. * Download the vision building and scenario planning exercises below to get people thinking about the future and building a shared vision for the presbytery. BUILDING A SHARED VISION 1. Ask everyone to write on post-it notes my vision for my life, my congregation, the presbytery, the Church of Scotland. Stick them all on the wall in relevant groups, to show the network of visions which make up the Kingdom of God. Give people time to read the results. Play some music while it’s all going on. 2. Look at the ‘Theology of the Report’ on page 1. Break into groups and give each group one or two of the points. Consider: * What might this theology mean for our presbytery? * How does our presbytery already express this theology? * How could we build on what we already do? Use the answers to construct a theological picture of ‘who we are’ and ‘where we’re going’ as a Presbytery. 3. The three parts of a vision are: * the dream (what?) * the purpose (why?) * the core values (how?). Discuss in groups, and then in plenary, how what has been said so far might translate into these headings. 4. Get Presbytery Elders inspired, and send them back to inspire their congregations too. Don’t give them an ‘official vision’ to promulgate: when they have taken part in the vision building exercises above, give them a resource pack to enable them to do the same thing with their own congregation. 5. When congregations have considered their Church without Walls vision, discuss in groups and then in plenary what they said, and how the presbytery vision might need to be modified accordingly. 6. Consider what a Presbytery with this vision might look like, and what things it might do. 7. Find ways to communicate the vision through art, music, prayer, writing. 8. Don’t produce a tidy vision statement, and stop. Building a church without walls is a long-term process. Keep finding ways to continue it, and ensure the evolving vision underpins everything that’s done. SCENARIO PLANNING This is an exercise to help plan for the future, rather than reacting to each crisis which comes along. It is not a way of making predictions, but it is a way to be prepared for situations which might have been unexpected, by opening up new perpectives – the ‘aha’ experience. Steps 1-6 are best done with around 10-15 people, so in a large presbytery this could be done by a committee, or different groups could address different questions. 1. Identify a focal issue or decision to be made, eg * what new forms of ministry should we try out in the presbytery? (remit. 7) * how should we equip churches for worship, care and mission? (remit. 15) * what should be included in our ‘regional needs plan’? (remit. 29) 2. Identify driving forces of change which will affect the decision, eg within the bounds of the presbytery there might be economic regeneration or decline; interest in spirituality might increase along with disillusionment with material wealth, or it might be seen as dangerous and irrelevant. 3. Circle the driving forces which are almost certain to take place, for example that the baby-boom generation will age. These factors should then feature in all scenarios. 4. Choose two important but very uncertain driving forces. Draw a diagram like the one on the right, with two axes, one for each driving force. Take the potential extreme cases of the driving forces and write them at the end of the axes. This creates four quadrants, on which you can base four possible scenarios, A, B, C and D. 5. Divide into four small groups and allocate one scenario to each. In the groups, flesh out the scenarios as vivid, detailed stories. It doesn’t matter how unlikely it seems: the object is to see possibilities. 6. At the next presbytery meeting, present the scenarios, then in small groups consider what the results of different courses of action would be in each scenario. What strategies would be effective in any scenario? What would it be like to live in each of those futures? 7. Report back to the whole presbytery. 8. You’ll find you have created a common language, in which proposals can be considered from a wider range of perspectives – but at the same time ones which everyone understands. Presbyteries are central to our identity as a church: will they be a dreary administrative centre or the crucial link in the visionary Kingdom network? Ideas for remit 27: Instruct the leadership in every area of Church life to institute the discipline of a period of retreat, rest and reflection to allow space for God to change us. * Explore the Panel on Worship pages which provide a growing collection of resources to help plan worship and prayer that is fresh and relevant. * Contact the office for Worship, Doctrine and Artistic matters, for advice and resources. * Invite ministers who are experimenting with an alternative service, or worship leaders from other denominations, to lead presbytery worship in their own style * Invite groups of presbyters to take turns in leading worship * If there’s no-one else available, try some radical experiments yourself – and ask for feedback. * Integrate worship and business, so singing, news, discussion, praying, fellowship, making decisions are all one act of worship. * Have a week of ‘24/7 prayer’ when people commit themselves to pray at certain times around the clock for the work of the church in the presbytery. End the week with an act of worship. * When people know each other better, organise a day retreat to a nice place, with some clear purpose (such as a vision-building exercise), but also as an opportunity to rest and improve fellowship. * Ask congregations how they are fulfilling this remit and find ways to encourage or fit in with them. For example, if many are using Lent as a time of retreat, hold no committee meetings and send out no letters during Lent. * Organise seminars and discussions led by ministers from the presbytery: this was one of the original functions of presbytery. Church without Walls is not just another drain on our already low water table: it's about finding ways to rechannel our energy, so as to irrigate the Christian life of the region. Clues to help with remit 29: "Instruct... presbyteries to study the report as a stimulus to identifying the levers for change and the limits to growth in a local situation; ...prebsytery to establish a ‘regional needs’ plan of support... " * This is a much harder task than it first looks. Don’t worry if you’re having trouble! * It’s not just about working out how few ministers and church buildings can we get away with – it’s about what is needed to enable congregations to put Church without Walls into practice, so a good starting point is the deliverances addressed to congregations. * Regional needs are based on identifying the levers for change and the limits to growth. Find out more about levers and limits from The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge, a book which strongly influenced Church without Walls. * Finding levers and limits involves realising that although parishes appear to work independently, what happens in one part of the church affects all the rest. For example if people have think that church is dull and irrelevant, one church can have the most exciting, relevant worship you ever saw, but its growth will be limited by this reputation, which needs to be tackled by everyone together. * Another limit might be boards or presbyteries saying ‘take risks’ one moment, but requiring congregations to conform to all sorts of rules and pressures the next. Here the lever for change is not to shout ‘take risks!’ more loudly, but to identify and remove the constraints. If the presbytery is encouraging new things but is being prevented by suspicion or dislike of change, pushing ahead will make things worse, but listening to people’s concerns can defuse opposition. * The key is to think about the whole church, not its separate parts. How do parishes relate to one another, and the presbytery to the whole Church? Where are the limits and levers in these relationships? Tell us what you think and what the central administration could do to help. * Regional needs might turn out to be people, training, or finance, but perhaps also attitudes, norms, and impressions. These will require creativity and hard thinking, but no more money or people. * Use the process of planning for the 2005 national celebrations as a lever for change in the presbytery. * Adapt the downloadable questionnaire below to find out the information you need. Remember though that people are quickly wearied of too many consultations, so make sure you ask the right questions first time. It would be useful, too, for congregations or groups of churches assessing their local needs. Presbyteries have the potential to bring together the best ideas and people in the region to take the church in a really exciting direction. Church without Walls provides an opportunity to release that potential SAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE TO ESTABLISH A REGIONAL NEEDS PLAN Church without Walls in the Presbytery of .... Why are we asking these questions? The purpose of these questions is to find out your reactions to remits to congregations from the Church without Walls report. We’ll use the answers to decide what help is needed to make Church without Walls possible in .... Presbytery. We’ll also use it to build up a picture of Church without Walls in .... Presbytery, and communicate that information back to you through the Church without Walls newsletter. Finally, we’ll share the it with the whole Church of Scotland, to create the really big picture! Answering the questions You’ll probably answer ‘no, we’re not going to do this just now’ to lots of the questions. Don’t worry about this! Church without Walls is about congregations finding the one thing that will make a difference and doing it. Don’t be afraid to say you’d like help: we can guarantee you won’t be the only ones! Be confident in answering ‘yes, we’re well on the way’ if you feel you’ve made a good start and have an idea of where you’re going. It may be something you’d been doing for years before Church without Walls appeared: that’s fine, but we hope you’ve taken the opportunity to do something new too. We’d love to hear your stories: please expand on these answers on another sheet of paper, or get in touch to tell us about them. 1. Has your congregation been ‘living with a Gospel’? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 2. Has your congregation reflected on what it means to live out the cycle of grace in our life together? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 3. Has your congregation carried out a community review to reflect on the issues, changes and missionary opportunities in the community? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 4. Has the Kirk Session undertaken a review of the worship of the existing congregation and assessed potential for developments within and beyond the congregation? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 5. Has the congregation considered how the cell, congregation and celebration dimensions of being the church might be applied locally? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 6. Has the congregation determined how to integrate children and young people into the life of the congregation; or to enable the planting of a church for a new generation alongside the current congregation? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 7. Has the congregation begun to form paths for the spiritual journey to help people become Christian disciples in today’s world? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 8. Has the Kirk Session reviewed the leadership structure, considered what ministry team is needed for current needs and the next five years? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 9. Has the congregation begun to form groupings with neighbours according to their natural communities? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 10. Has the congregation begun to establish links with other congregations in a different social context, and/or establish a personal partnership with a congregation or project in the world church, and/or explore ways of being more environmentally aware? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 11. Has the Kirk Sessions begun to identify the spiritual gifts of the people and grow church around the people we have? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 12. Has the Kirk Session offered an opportunity for all elders to undertake training? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 13. Has the Kirk Session considered its constitution, styles of meeting, and processes of communication? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 14. Has the congregation begun to take risks, to try new ways so that faith may grow. O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now 15. Has the Kirk Sessions studied the report as a stimulus to identifying the levers for change and the limits to growth in the local situation, and established a ‘local needs’ plan? O Yes, we’re well on the way O Yes, but we’d like some help O Not yet, but we hope to at some point O No, we’d like help with how to do this O No, we’re not going to do this just now