Reporting back from the event:

Reporting back from the event: Over 85 people came together for The Big Conversation: drawn from twenty six Priority Area congregations and from organisations involved in supporting communities in these areas. We formulated the event as a series of conversations to enable all people who came, to easily take part. As all of us are involved in conversations on a daily basis, we felt that it was a good method to use to engage all participants in thinking about the future direction of the work in Priority Areas. Specifically we wanted to use the event to prime people s ideas about the next seven years and to feedback the thoughts of Priority Area congregations on the direction for the work. To help us in our thinking about the future, Derek Pope, Convener of the Priority Areas Committee had produced a strategy paper for discussion. The paper, entitled Beyond 2017 A More Excellent Way, pointed us to four key questions which we considered over the two days: Where did you last see God at work in your community? What is the purpose of the Church in Priority Areas? What is distinctive about ministry in this context? What is the vision for the future direction of the work? Accordingly we themed our conversations around these key questions and in small discussion groups we undertook to consider each question and for consistency, record five important points from each, that we would undertake to feedback to the Committee. We also made the commitment to write these findings up in a short report and distribute this to all participants and to those Priority Areas congregations who couldn t be with us at the event. 1) Where did you last see God at work in your church and community? The first conversation took place in round-table discussions and to lead us in our thinking we shared experiences of important conversations in our churches and communities. Analysing and collating the conversations across these eight groups we can characterise the responses to the question as: In people - God is present in those conversations where people are gathered We can see God s presence through the expression of people s feelings and emotions: gratitude, empathy, excitement, generosity We see God s presence through witnessing that people are seeking spiritual moments We can see Him working through people to answer a call or respond to needs We see God in unexpected manifestations such as impromptu acts of kindness or prayers being answered We see God active in the new creative approaches and breaking down of barriers in the life of Priority Areas

Pointing forwards: We were struck by how readily and easily people saw God in their experiences this wasn t a hard ask of participants. If we are saying therefore that God is clearly present on our situations then it follows that we should be doing more of this work creating work that centres on the type of approaches we see happening in Priority Areas. 2) What is the purpose of the Church in Priority Areas? We then considered this key question still working in eight discussion groups but mixing the participants into new groups. To lead us in our thinking, we heard Derek Pope present some of the ideas he had raised in his paper and listened to a panel discussion in response. His paper took the model of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and critiqued this as an approach that should underpin the work in Priority Areas. Again, distilling the eight conversations into common themes and responses, we can characterise the findings as to the purpose of the church as: Community engagement; building a sense of community, building relationships, acting as a community anchor, blurring the lines between church and community. Walking with Jesus, sharing our experiences of Christ; providing a place of hope and light, seeing God s love as we walk with people, being the salt and light. To be a worshipping community; one that is prayerful, spiritual, reflective and explicit. To be a prophetic voice; challenging government, lack of funding, lack of resources, secularism. To celebrate all life and to be present; to be a place of hospitality, highlight success, share learning, provide creative nurturing spaces lights on doors open Pointing forwards: Capturing these conversations allowed us to see the breadth and strength of the work of the Church in our Priority Areas and pointed us easily to the next conversation: so if this is the purpose of the Church, what sort of ministry does this demand? What does it tell us about the kinds of resources that Priority Areas need in terms of the people who are deployed? 3) What is distinctive about ministry in your context? We listened to a panel discussion where people talked about their own experiences of ministry in quite different and distinct situations. In our eight small groups we then considered the question. These were the common themes that emerged, as to what was distinctive or characteristic about ministry in Priority Areas: People focused; recognising people s skills and gifts and relying on the treasure of volunteers Activist in nature; missional and persevering Honest, often ruthlessly so, with a sense of keeping it real Sitting quietly; being present in suffering, trusting and offering trust, unconditional in love It is often ministry outside of church buildings Prophetic, resilient, busy and courageous in trying out the new; pioneering

Pointing forwards: A clear message was emerging from these three conversations that captured the way people had experienced God s presence in the work, the certainty that the Church had a breadth and depth of purpose in its presence in Priority Areas and a confidence in the expression of the range of ministry that was taking place. The conversations had started softly at the beginning of the two days and now had become really energised and constructive. We took this energy into our final conversations of the event. 4) What is the vision for the future of the work in Priority Areas? We asked participants now to take what they had heard and contributed in the previous conversations and use this to help us envisage the next plan for the work of the Priority Areas Committee. We asked each group to consider what they would wish to see the Committee put in place to support and grow this work. These were the views as to what the Committee should focus on, which we have captured under 8 broad headings: Dealing with structures: help simplify the structures of the Church to enable greater freedom to do the work, support the standardisation of systems and processes in Church life, develop ideas for outsourcing professional functions such accountancy and buildings expertise, ensure systems are in place when a minister is absent from ill health. Networking and building the Priority Areas family: target congregations not currently participating in the Priority Areas network, share learning and skills, revisit the Priority Areas list in the light of unions. Advocacy: Hold presbyteries to account for fulfilling Assembly staffing instructions on Priority Area weighting, strategic building development and resourcing. Buildings: raise the issue of manses (location/size), support for congregations to deal with building maintenance, advocate in the national offices for congregations to be freed from the worry of buildings. Encourage the widening of responsibility across the Church: use the resources of the Church to develop worship material relevant to Priority Areas, develop surgery hours with other departments such as General Trustees, sharing PA experience and learning across the whole of the church, Priority Area jubilee on M&M. Programmes of support for congregations and ministers: offer programmes for raising skills in fundraising, volunteer development, leadership development, how to develop partnerships with outside agencies including local and national government, offer regional and one day courses, training in ABCD. Building models of good practice and excellence: supporting flagship projects, deploying crack teams experienced in ABCD to go out and support Churches for a fixed period of time, developing good ABCD models to cascade out, develop good mentoring programmes, develop swat youth teams to offer intensive support to kick start youth programmes, develop good models of working with older people, have a role in the employment of Priority Area workers assisting in development of job descriptions and staff development once in post, raising the profile of volunteering and its contribution. Excellence in Communications: developing e-news, good news stories, database of good practice and stories, searchable video clips, change how we communicate about Priority Areas.

5) What else did people tell us? We ran an evaluation exercise at the event to ask people: what they had found useful and how much so, what they wanted more of or wanted to change and what else they would like to see included in the annual conference. This will allow us to think carefully about the events we plan in 2017. Here s what people said: Many responses cited the sharing of learning, hearing common experiences and networking as being a really valuable part of the event. People really liked the bite-sized blethers these were conversations around market stalls hosted by agencies who support the work of Priority Area congregations, e.g. General Trustees, Go For It fund. They wanted more of them and for them to be slightly longer in length. People also really valued the inclusivity of the conversation approach and particularly welcomed the setting the vision session. There was a general split with people particularly liking the worship at the event and some people wanting to see different styles of worship incorporated. In telling us what they wanted more or less of, people said: More of the same more frequently Weekend gathering Representation from all Priority Area congregations Regional meetings to encourage more Priority Area congregations to attend A one day conference approach one suggestion for this would be to target it at new Priority Area congregations. A clear call for actions to be taken as a result of the conference 6) What learning provision would best support the work of Priority Areas? Level of Competence / Comfort with Subject 6.00 We also circulated a learning needs survey at the Big Conversation and are in the process of sending it out to other congregations who couldn t make it to Gartmore. In it we asked people to score themselves on a matrix of 12 learning needs so that we could identify the areas people had the biggest appetite for. We also asked individuals to share the best courses they had been on and to name their single biggest 5.00 4.00 3.00 2.00 1.00 0.00 Level of Competence / Comfort with Subject

need whether that was covered by the matrix or not. Moving forward we want to create a situation where we match needs with learning opportunities. The graph above represents the analysis of responses to the learning needs survey so far. The areas with the lowest bars represent the greatest need for learning. The 4 areas coming out of the survey are: Developing New Ecclesial Christian Communities; Financial Management; Mission & Theology; Governance & Recruitment. So far we have had only 17 responses so it will be great to get a larger sample in and that could change the picture considerably. If you haven t already completed the form please do. It will help us identify useful learning opportunities. Also captured on the forms was a mixture of informal and formal learning opportunities which people had really appreciated, including suicide prevention training from Assist, volunteer co-ordinator training, opportunities to visit other cultures, learning from those we work in partnership with, and learning which comes from roles in other organisations such as community development trusts and the children s panel. Theology and Mission came through as the main gap in learning opportunities so far, along with funding and IT. 7) What happens next? All the ideas contained within this report will be taken to the next Priority Areas Committee Meeting in January 2017. They will form part of the planning process for developing our next strategic plan and will be really informative as we develop our new programmes. The ideas, particularly from the visioning sessions will be considered carefully and we will look at how we can integrate them into our plans. We will continue to add to these as well. As we circulate this report we will also be reminding and prompting Priority Area congregations who attended the Big Conversation to continue to complete the feedback form. And as we said above, we are circulating the Learning Needs Survey to all the Priority Area congregations to gather more feedback on the kind of learning that will support the work taking place. Both of these things will allow us to continue to listen to the people with whom we are working. Priority for the poorest and the most marginalised is the gospel imperative facing the whole Church - not just the Church in the poorest places. Priority Areas is part of the Ministries Council of the Church of Scotland and we connect with many other initiatives within the Council. We coordinate our programmes of work with our close partner agencies. We work in great partnerships with local congregations and communities, Presbyteries, other Councils of the Church of Scotland, other denominations, faiths and a wide range of voluntary sector organisations. We seek to join up our work with local and national government policy; working with local people to have their voice heard, influence decisions and have their contribution recognised. Shirley Grieve, Priority Areas Secretary Lynn MacLellan, Office Manager/YAVS Co-ordinator sgrieve@churchofscotland.org.uk lmaclellan@churchofscotland.org.uk Fred Vincent, Chance to Thrive Co-ordinator Shirley Billes, Worship Development Officer fvincent@churchofscotland.org.uk sbilles@churchofscotland.org.uk Naomi Dornan, Administrator John Finch, Ministries Support Officer ndornan@churchofscotland.org.uk jfinch@churchofscotland.org.uk Priority Areas Office, Church of Scotland, Ministries Council, 759a Argyle Street, Glasgow, G3 8DS T: 0141 248 2905 W:http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/serve/ministries_council/priority_areas