Away With the PCC

As we've said before, the process of 'Mission Planning' will not of and by itself save the church in Swanvale Halt, let alone the Church more generally. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing: if nothing else it encourages people to think about the life of their particular Christian community in a less passive and more deliberative and conscious way, less as something that merely happens around them and more as something they take part in and help to shape. 

So the Church Council and I found ourselves at a local school on Saturday being 'facilitated' by an affable chap from the Diocese and plied with nice sandwiches provided by the school caterers for a small consideration. We discussed the results of our church membership survey and a more focused one which tried to identify what we thought the strengths and weaknesses of the church were, and spent a while thinking about realistic ways of tackling the latter. There were no very radical surprises in any of this process, though Mr Facilitator told us there sometimes are when churches do this exercise. I was pleased at how enthusiastic and positive everyone was, and will wait to see how many tasks we set ourselves end up being a joint enterprise and how many have my initials put next to them ...