Unblocking my church leadership

I’ve been in post as vicarage of Holy Trinity West Bromwich for 20 months. In the first 7 months I had created a church mission statement with the PCC, so we know who we are and what we are about but since then things have stalled a bit.

Last week I attended a diocesan training day on mission action planning and the next day I went to a CPAS “Leading Edge” day. The two days together were God’s perfect provision for where we are now.

I know I struggle to think of actions but CPAS helped break down the steps in turning vision into action.

Enabling action: Turing vision into action (the right hand column contains our mission statement):

Who are we (our identity)	Holy Trinity Church exists to…
What are we doing (our purpose/mission)	Glorify God Love, accept, care and prayer for one another  Teach the next generation Bless the people of West Bromwich
What matters to us (values)	As we hear, believe and joyfully live out the good news and commandments of Jesus Christ together.
Where are we going (vision)	These are a work in progress…  To be a church of small groups To start a small group on every street in the parish (Titus 1:5) To have an integrated path of discipleship for young and old alike
How do we get there? (strategy)
Who does what and when? (action plannng)
How are we doing? (review)

The Diocesan training day gave the following Mission Action Plan format.  The areas are based on my church life diagram. (The full document is 6 pages long, these are the main headers):

Area	Action Needed	By Whom	When	Completed?
Church Government
Discipleship
Ministries of Mercy

Now that I have the tools, our eldership and I will have fun filling in the boxes.  Where will God take us next?  What might we achieve in the next five years?  Watch this space.