S1 Welcoming Church Synod, wed like to introduce to you today the - - PDF document

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Welcoming Church

Synod, we’d like to introduce to you today the Synod’s ‘Welcoming Church’ Program, the continuation of the United Reformed Church’s commitment to Radical Welcome.

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Introduction

• 1. Our approach has been to supplement and adapt for our own use the

‘Radical Welcome’ materials produced by the United Reformed Church and endorsed by Mission Council. We have put together a 3- stage programme, which we hope will enable every congregation to participate, regardless of style, size, theology, location, ministerial scoping or LEP configuration. The program as a result is much more flexible than the ZI process, though using much of the same excellent and challenging materials, But, you will no doubt be pleased to hear:

• 2. There are no external deadlines, congregations can go at their
• wn pace
• 3. You are encouraged to use the materials flexibly to suit your

situation

• 4. The three stage approach, we hope, will allow all congregations

to take part and complete to a stage they are comfortable with, and so the notion that this is an all-or-nothing idea, or only

• pen to more liberal churches has been removed
• 5. Rather than recruiting companions and the evaluating of a

churches progress feeling like an OfSted, we propose to ‘buddy’ churches with another local church at a similar stage, and provide tools for mutual accountability and honest self assessment.

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AND REMEMBER ... it’s not about the numbers

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The 3 stages are:

1 exploring 2 engaging 3 embracing

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Exploring

Is something every church can do, we’d like every church to be a congregation which is exploring the welcome they offer. Range of resources available, both printed and online which help your congregation discover for themselves what they do well, what they do not so well, and stuff you've probably never thought of that could all add to your welcome, not just for Sunday worship, but throughout your buildings and activities. During the exploring stage you are:

• 1. encouraged ask some of your members to visit another local church

to experience being the visitor and bring back stories of how that felt.

• 2. asked to complete as a church one of three books about welcome

and evangelism

• 3. ensure that all parts of the church are involved and all parts of

the churches life are considered, not just Sunday mornings

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Once you’ve got to know each other, you can help each other make the church even more brilliant.

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Resources

• 1. The Grove Booklet
• 2. Everybody Welcome
• 3. Purpose Driven Church
• 4. Our own, Vision4Life materials (online, some in the RW pack)

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However welcoming your church is we believe you will benefit from joining in the exploring stage, and even if you did some of this for the ZI process some months ago, we still encourage you to look at some of the resources you didn’t use, maybe some of the Vision4Life bible studies on Welcome would be a good way to get the congregation engaged again, without it all being about practicalities. We believe every church in our Synod will benefit from becoming and exploring church and every congregation in the Synod can achieve this stage.

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It's about hospitality, friendliness, presentation, image etc.

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Engaging

Once your church has undertaken the exploring stage, (which is done entirely on your own and at your own pace) and hopefully brought about some changes and new ideas as a result, the next stage encourages your congregation to delve deeper. This stage we have called Engaging and is at the heart of the denominational resources on Radical Welcome.

• 1. To move on to be an engaging church you will also need a church
• 2. meeting decision to try to ensure ownership and
• 3. commitment to stage two.

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Here’s how it then works, once you have church meeting agreement:

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• 1. Contact your area Welcoming Church rep, that’s one of us
• 2. We will work with you to pair you with a ‘buddy’ church as soon

as a suitable congregation is at the same stage. It may be a church in your pastorate, a local United Reformed Church which you don’t know that well, or an ecumenical partner which you have already approached and are happy to work with you.

• 3. The first part of Engaging is to get to know your ‘buddy’ church.

Perhaps have a joint Elders meeting to share your experiences of the Exploring activities. Visit each others churches, share a session on your hopes and fears for this programme. A simple checklist will be available of questions or areas you might explore together to be confident you have each taken a full part in the exploring stage and are genuinely ready to Engage.

• 4. When you’re ready to go, let us know and you will each receive

the Radical Welcome pack. And here’s more good news, you will not be spoon fed! The Radical Welcome resources have been redesigned for you to be able to use yourself, with a friend or friends from your buddy church leading you through the materials.

• 5. Again there is no time deadline, you are encouraged to take as

long as you need to fully Engage with the Radical Welcome material.

• 6. AND ... if you really get stuck at any stage, or need a bit of

help to get going, just contact us, and we’ll find someone to help. We couldn’t possibly have the answer to every scenario or problem now, but if non of above works for you, we'll meet with you and help work something out. And for any worship or bible study leaders listening, LOADS of the Radical Welcome materials use Luke’s Gospel as their basis ... which is this years Lectionary Gospel. If you work thorough the Exploring stage and get on to the Engaging stage before too long, you’ve got loads of resources to use in worship between Pentecost and Advent to supplement the process and get the whole congregation engaging!

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Introduction to the Radical Welcome pack

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There are 7 components

• 1. Getting Started
• 2. Understanding ‘the other’
• 3. The Biblical and Theological Understanding of Radical Welcome
• 4. Exploring Boundaries
• 5. Fully Engaging with Radical Welcome
• 6. Welcoming ‘the other’
• 7. Moving towards covenanting

And if that wasn’t enough, there is a whole host of poems and worship resources to use both during tour Engaging stage and for the Covenant Service if you complete all the areas and wish to commit to being a Radically Welcoming Church.

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There’s even a sheet which lists all the hymns in Rejoice and Sing with a Radical welcome flavour, we’re spoiling you now!

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• 1. You are encouraged to use the materials flexibly, adapt them to

best suit your situation, and if you have a better idea than is in the pack, tell us!

• 2. What is important is fully Engaging with the seven areas/themes,

not simply completing the pack.

• 3. You may want to work as separate churches, helped by a ‘buddy’,
• r you may wish to do all or some of the sessions together.
• 4. Remember there is no timescale, the important thing is to Engage

full, not finish quickly.

• 5. It may take you more than 7 sessions to fully Engage with all

seven areas

• 6. If you find one area particularly tricky, may want to try

something else and come back to it later

• 7. If don't want to a particular issue, or it gets very tense or

heated, stop what you are doing and instead engage with the reasons for the uncomfortableness.

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Try and address any problems you discover as you go along

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• 1. It will probably take your church at least six months to complete

this stage fully, it may take you a lot longer. There is no rush.

• 2. You may get to the end of the materials or even half way and

decide as a church, we’re not quite ready for this, or there are some theological difficulties we need to address before we can move on. That’s OK, better to be honest and realistic then just plough on.

• 3. You may decide in your church meeting to end it there, or, to go

back to the exploring materials & do some more preparation work.

• 4. But, when you think you are fully prepared for stage three,

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confirm that with a church meeting decision then let your Welcoming Church area rep know.

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Embracing

The third stage we have called embracing. It recognises when a congregation has reached the stage where it truly lives Radical Welcome, not just understands the theory of it. To help us confirm the churches belief that they have reached this stage, a Mystery Worshiper may descend on you one Sunday and will feed back their experience to you. Or it might be the young mother with four rowdy children who appear at your coffee morning, or the young man with loads of annoying question at your Bible study! (although most of you would recognise Mike!) Once all this is complete, to become and Embracing Church, you need to hold a covenant service. How will you know you are an Embracing Church? Here are some pointers;

• 1. You will recognises is not about having answers and strategies,

but being aware and sensitive to the issues, able to cope with whoever walks thorough your doors

• 2. You will recognise its not about being perfect and that sometimes

you may still make a mess of welcoming someone, but you’re OK with that and will discuss as a congregation how to improve. You may go back and do some of the Radical welcome materials again.

• 3. The way you present your church will probably change in both your

written and verbal communication and simply in your informal conversations.

• 4. You recognise that an Embracing church has not ‘completed’

Radical welcome, but has committed to maintaining that standard. And a list of further challenging resource will be made available to you, to use as you feel appropriate.

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An Embracing Church will receive a plaque to place somewhere prominent in your premises, which will be presented at your Covenanting Service.

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• 1. The design has not been finalised, but we hope it with have some

element of including a short statement your congregation produces itself about your commitment, so no two churches have to be exactly the same.

• 2. During the Covenant Service it would also be powerful if the

congregation all signed a certificate with this statement on, which could be displayed along with the plaque.

• 3. We hope the Covenant Service will be a celebration of your

journey and all you have been through and achieved together.

• 4. You may even decide it should be an annual event.

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Conclusion

That’s a lot to take in, and we’re sure there are loads of

• questions. So you’ve got the lunch break to be mulling it over

and time has been put aside in each area meeting to ask any questions of one of us as your area rep.

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But what we hope will be the conversation in areas is: 1.

How can WE make this work (your rep won't have all the answers)

What the steering group will be working on next as churches begin the exploring stage is:

• Consulting with Training Officers about their involvement in

this programme.

• Consulting with Area Pastoral Committees about how the

programme might be supported in each area.

• 2. ... and finally
• 3. What we do as a Synod when a number of churches have covenanted

is up to us. Who knows where we will be by then in our understanding and our practice? Maybe we could devise together some way of letting our communities know that the United Reformed Church is a Radically Welcoming Church. Thank you.