Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Work on the Diocesan vision and strategy continues to progress well, and we would like to offer you the chance to help actively shape our future through a series of consultation workshops.

Your contributions, prayers and ongoing support are vital and we are deeply grateful for all you do in your parish and benefice communities.

Our Vision is to be Transformed by Christ: Prayerful, Pastoral and Prophetic.

The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher encourages us to pray for mission and ministry across Norfolk and Waveney in our life together. This includes a prayer to share with your church community and use together.

Vision Prayer for our Life Together

Christ of transformation,

sow deep into the soil

of our hearts and parishes,

your seeds of prayerful listening,

conversation and discernment:

then nurture their growth, we pray,

with the gentle rains of your Spirit

that they may flower and fruit

into new ways of revealing

the abundant life you offer

and long for us to share.

Amen

Written by Revd Susanna Gunner

At the March Diocesan Synod, the current challenges we are facing were presented through a study of the data provided in Statistics for Mission. Synod then shared their priorities for what they think to be the most urgent challenges we face. Now we want to hear what you think are the best and most exciting ways to address these challenges in the places you live and worship.

We are very aware that the challenges and opportunities churches face – and indeed the solutions – can often be different in Rural locations, Smaller/Market Towns, Large Towns and across Norwich. We are therefore planning four separate online conversations and are inviting you to attend one of these to discuss fulfilling our Vision of being Transformed by Christ in your particular context.

These events will cover three main topics:

• To share with you and hear your feedback on the key challenges we face.
• To develop a deeper and fuller sense of what it would mean to be truly Transformed by Christ: Prayerful, Pastoral, Prophetic - and to hear from you on that sense of call.
• To receive your ideas on what we could do in our parishes or benefices (and as a whole diocese) to overcome our challenges and to become the Church, Christ is calling us to be.

To take part in an online consultation workshop relevant to your area, join via one of the links below:

Larger Coastal Towns (Kings Lynn, Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth)

Tuesday 10 June 2025

19:00 to 21:30

Join the call here.

Meeting ID: 330 741 395 817 9     

Passcode: KF9F62cx

Norwich

Tuesday 10 June 2025

19:00 to 21:30

Join the call here.

Meeting ID: 381 761 348 541      

Passcode: gE7Xu6mU

Rural

Thursday 12 June 2025

19:00 to 21:30

Join the call here.

Meeting ID: 366 154 874 720 4    

Passcode: pi7jZ6CY

Smaller and Market Towns

Thursday 12 June 2025

19:00 to 21:30

Join the call here.

Meeting ID: 353 733 217 629 7    

Passcode: jS3w9Ci6

If you cannot take part in your relevant forum but would like to contribute to these discussions, please email strategy@dioceseofnorwich.org and we will send you an online survey to complete. You can also send any comments and ideas you have around our shared work in this area, to this email address at any point in the process.

We have set up a weekly Vision Prayer Meeting, inviting you to join us in prayer. Every Tuesday morning at 8.30am.

Vision Prayer Meeting

Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 333 747 040 311 0

Passcode: vB6uA7Vk

Prayer is the one thing which will make the biggest difference to the life and flourishing of the Church in Norfolk and Waveney in the months and years ahead. We need to pray to listen to what God is saying, to tune ourselves into the longing of his heart. We need to pray that God will call more and more labourers into the vineyard. We need to pray to be part of local churches which are as warm and welcoming as we hope they are. We need to pray for all those whose hearts God is preparing even now. We need to pray that we will be Transformed by Christ and that every part of God's church in this Diocese will be too.

Here are five ways to pray for the vision and strategy:

1. Come along for about 15 minutes of prayer every Tuesday at 8.30am on Zoom, follow the link above.
2. Put the new Diocesan prayer on your fridge or in your bible or use it as an additional Collect every week in church.
3. Pray for the whole life of the Diocese to be filled with Christ that he might transform our life and our lives, pray for that during the intercessions in Church and at your House Group and whenever you pray - that God's Kingdom will come in the places we live and go to school and work.
4. Write your own prayers in Sunday School or your youth group about what you would like the church to be more like and how we might get there - and send them to strategy@dioceseofnorwich.org so we can pray and share them.
5. Finally, it's up to you how you do it! Just please pray for Churches and people who are convinced that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, and who long to share that God News with others.

Diocesan Strategy Group

The Bishop of Lynn, the Rt Revd Dr Jane Steen

The Bishop of Thetford, the Rt Revd Ian Bishop

Tim Sweeting, Diocesan Secretary

Revd Canon Julie Boyd, Team Rector Aylsham and District

Revd Richard Lamey, Director of Mission and Ministry

Andy Sexton, Strategic Programme Manager

Feedback and contact for vision strategy: strategy@dioceseofnorwich.org

Diocese of Norwich

www.dioceseofnorwich.org