Breakthrough collaboratives achieving tangible improvements

I have been thinking about how to bring about significant improvement in churches. Operating strategically, through the School of Formation, and being impatient for progress by nature I want to help make a difference rapidly to the practice of ministry, especially in austerity when the need for churches to serve their communities is even greater.

I thought about providing training to encourage and enable local ministry teams and certainly have not ruled this out. However training teams to lead and enable others to improve ministry feels a touch top down, remote, and slow. What is needed is a rapid  improvement model at least I think it is.

The collaborative breakthrough model is well-known in bringing about rapid improvements in health care.  I’m thinking about trying to apply it to help improve how churches in Somerset support their communities as they face the consequences of the economic austerity measures being applied by the government.

If anyone has experience of using the breakthrough approach in church settings or of using it in health care and has lessons to share please get in touch.

A thankful heart

Went to a book launch-cum-service to celebrate John Newton’s life recently. Mervyn Davies of Wesley College and now Sarum had brought together many different authors to celebrate the methodist minister and preacher John Newton. John taught in theological colleges, was president of the Methodist Conference and worked closely with David Shepherd and Derek Warlock in Liverpool. I am one of the authors, contributing a chapter on the School of Formation. Other authors, (16 in all) include Melvyn Matthews, Frances Young and Neil Richardson. It was a lovely evening in Wesley College Bristol and many friends came. The book’s full title is A Thankful heart and a Discerning Mind – Essays in honour of John Newton ISBN 978-1-905179-05-3. All royalties go to Christian Aid.

Managing time – Are lay people volunteers?

I ran a managing time course yesterday for curates in another diocese. Delegation came up as an issue and the term volunteer was used for lay people. I have come across and indeed used it myself often. This time it jarred. Thinking about it on the spot with the curates, I also linked it to my other work on helping Churches develop plans.

I ventured that if a Church sees itself as either helping the priest with his or her work or sees planning in a business model, involving forming vision, developing strategy, writing project or action plans, then it often ends up looking for people to volunteer to do the work.

However if a Church sees itself as first growing members relationship with God and each other, and looks for how God has already gifted members and spots what people feel  passionate about or are called towards, the vision and plans that emerge are qualitatively different, and committed Christians step forward in love and service.

Of course sometimes clergy and church leaders do need to look for people to volunteer for gaps that unexpectedly have arisen. Gap filling and volunteer seeking does not however feel the best strategy in the long run.

Investing more time in relationship building, and gifts and vocation discernment that mobilises lay people seems more in keeping with what it means to be Church.

Volunteers may walk away when the going gets tough. Committed Christians living out their calling and vocation are more likely to continue.

Time spent growing commitment rather than searching for volunteers seems time well spent to me.

When did novels get so hard to read…?

A few blogs ago I said I had written a large thesis. It was handed in and I duly had a viva to discuss it. I’m glad to say it passed, (which is a big relief). It is strange to complete 8 years of work, researching a particular subject, and in some ways it is hard to return to reality. Although the thesis was all about my work at the moment, the Church of England, its training and mission ambitions, it became more consuming than I had realised. Over the summer, I tried to read a novel again, which was harder work than I thought it would be. Gradually I returned to the familiar books to do with the research, reading them more for pleasure than thinking I should make notes. Hopefully soon I shall also find some novels that I can get into.

PS wonder where Steve’s posts have gone?

Thesis almost finished..!

Have been finishing this thesis, which has taken all my spare time. It’s hard work sitting and working right through the weekend at this time of year. Evenings, half terms, weekends and its finally completed and gone into the university to be marked. Whoopee! Family pleased it’s gone, as well.

Started today on filming some bits for our course on the Spirituality of the Saints. Endless problems with the technology, but slowly sorting them out. Only going to do a few minutes but will be glad when its completed. Nobody else seems to be blogging at the moment. All working a bit too hard I suspect.

More accessible learning with Moodle

We’re experimenting with ‘Moodle’ as a means of offering a framework for a learning community. Moodle (moodle.org) is a platform for creating courses on-line then offering them to a group of students. It’s free software and might be very useful for our needs. We’re likely to pilot it with a course we’re setting up for a parish in a vacancy in the new year. If it works it could make local learning much more accessible. Any thoughts or comments gratefully received.

We are also involved in some research with Bristol diocese Parish development team. This is designed to examine why and how churches who have lay ministry teams work. We shall interview about 25-30 parishes across our dioceses and publish the results in mid 2008.