Report on the Flex Programme from the Westbury Parish group
During 2022, four of us representing the parish of Westbury (All Saints and Holy Saviour), attended the Flex Programme sessions in Salisbury run by the Rural Life Officers and a trainer from CPAS (Church Pastoral Aid Society – an Anglican charity which works with church leaders on leadership training). Holly Newton, Beth Thomas, Simon Thorne and myself attended four sessions during the year, reviewing our church life and looking at different themes at each of the four days. Each time, there was some teaching input, discussion round tables, exercises and different activities, along with other Benefices from the Diocese. We considered such questions as: What is God’s why for our churches? Metaphors and models of multi-parish Benefices; some vision- casting – looking ahead over the next five years and seeing what has changed. We also considered the importance of welcoming and keeping newcomers. At the first meeting we were encouraged to set ourselves some goals to work on before the next session.
It quickly became clear that what we wanted and needed to work on for Westbury was a vision and a Mission Action Plan for our parish. We came up with some ideas ourselves, and then worked towards a vision day for our Parish which we held in September and which some of you came to (thank you very much!). This was an opportunity to share some of our ideas, and to hear what you thought.
Since then, we have discussed it further, and have been fleshing it out over the last couple of months. We are still working on it, and in fact, we believe this will be a rolling programme which will need to be kept up to date, as we make progress towards some goals, and as new opportunities open up. (Incidentally – we are pleased that the new Youth Café is already getting started this month, which was one of the aspects included in our MAP).
In the meantime, our Saturday training days continued, looking at topics such as building and nurturing teams, living with uncertainty, the five marks of mission, fresh expressions of church, and what it means to be a servant leader. In our final day together, we looked at the importance of discipleship, and how we all need to be learning and growing in our faith, nurturing prayer and seeking to find out God’s will for our parish.
In the New Year, we are planning to put together a leaflet to summarise the vision and mission action plan which we will be sharing with the congregations at a suitable time.
We value your prayers for our work together, which we share with the PCC. We believe that God is calling us to be a confident, joyful and prayerful community as we seek to bring in God’s kingdom.
More to be revealed during 2023.
We are very grateful for the opportunity to have this time aside to reflect on our parish life and consider where God is calling us to go and to be over the coming five years or so. We very much appreciated the support and input from the Rural Hope team and CPAS. It was inspiring and engaging.
Rebecca Harris
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You can read more about the Flex programme here