Toe in the Water

The PCC discussed the Mission Planning process properly for the first time on Tuesday, coming up with initial reactions to the draft paper produced by the Steering Group and deciding the next steps, which will be to organise a session away from the church to talk about this matter alone, and hopefully with assistance from someone from the diocese as I don't feel confident about leading it myself. It was striking, and predictable, how easily everyone slipped into talking about services - what services we might 'put on' or what changes we might make to existing services in order to 'get people in'. This is the classic response a church makes to awareness of its numerical decline, and all the evidence as well as a bit of thought suggests that it makes no difference whatever: it assumes that there are loads of people out there champing at the bit to be part of the church, but somehow prevented by its worship, and there's not the faintest reason to believe that's true. Lots of work to be done!