St Albans Diocesan Synod Saturday 17 th October 2015 The next stage Other initiatives Challenges and opportunities Listening Reviewing Discerning Renewing Renewing Living Gods Love Living Gods Love 2020 Kathryn Alford Vision Develoment Enabler Renewal informed by listening and analysis 70 face-to-face listening exercises 520 survey responses 8 self-guided exercises Wider contextual material Living Gods Love 2020 Progress so far Living Gods Love 2020 What have we learned? Widespread progress Positive statistics Living Gods Love 2020 There is much to celebrate and build on from the last 4 years. What have we learned? Range of barriers to progress Challenging statistics Living Gods Love 2020 We have also experienced challenges. What have we learned? Living Gods Love 2020 Living Gods Love HAS made a difference Useful strategic direction & framework Catalyst for action Helped us prioritise. Ensured we undertook a balance of activities Gave us freedom to plan in a way that is right for us What have we learned? Living Gods Love 2020 Living Gods Love some challenges Statement of the obvious Top down Too ambiguous. Congregations not engaged with LGL Too much focus on numerical growth. Lack of follow- up No overall coherent strategy for achieving the vision Ambitions for the future What have we learned? Numerical growth New ways of doing church Confidence in talking about faith Outreach within the community Increased focus on prayer We are optimistic about the future What have we learned? We have many ideas for making this future a reality