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Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Strategy can sound extremely business-like. But really it means discerning how we can best work together to overcome collective challenges and build towards the vision and hope God has given us. There are plenty of examples of strategy throughout the Bible and in the centuries since.
A strategy is really us answering the question ‘How can we work together to see our communities become Transformed by Christ: Prayerful, Pastoral, Prophetic?’. If the vision is the ‘What?’ (What we want to be), then the strategy is the ‘How?’ (How we will become it).
Thank you again to all those who have inputted into the strategic process for the Diocese so far. We have been analysing all the inputs and are still hearing from Clergy and Lay Leaders, who have until mid-September to offer their solutions to the key challenges and opportunities the Diocese faces, as we seek to see Norfolk and Waveney transformed by Christ.
We held two Workshop Days in late July which involved a range of people from all across the Diocese- LLMs, Deanery Lay Chairs, Churchwardens, Incumbents, Curates, members of BCT, Archdeacons, Bishops. The aim of the workshops was to hear a lot of local voices and to start to really think through the 'how' of the strategy work- not just "What changes do we need to make? What do we need to build on?" but also "How would that work? How can we do that?"
One of the days focused on the four key elements/ strategic aims, which are;
1: A missional vision and culture
2: Hope filled clergy and lay leaders
3: Communities of disciples
4: Partnership in mission and service
These are the things we have identified which would help us become the Church we are called to be if we were able to work on them and to fulfil them.
The second day focused on the four contexts we are working with, because the way that the vision is fulfilled will look different in a rural parish to an urban one, for example, and so we need to think about 'how' in different ways because the challenges are different in different places.
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