130 likes | 261 Views
Lichfield Diocesan Synod March 2007. Report on the impact of Growth Fund Grants made July 2005-January 2007. 91 Growth Fund Awards made in 2005-7. 49 towards the creation of new posts (children’s, youth, families, Fresh Expression Pioneers, outreach, music)
E N D
Lichfield Diocesan Synod March 2007 Report on the impact of Growth Fund Grants made July 2005-January 2007
91 Growth Fund Awards made in 2005-7 • 49 towards the creation of new posts (children’s, youth, families, Fresh Expression Pioneers, outreach, music) • 22 towards equipment to enhance worship or enable new style services to start • 20 towards events such as missions, pilgrimages and holiday clubs
Fresh Expressions Agenda • 3 stand-alone Pioneer posts (BCUIM, Stoke, Wolves) • Parish workers have been planting new worship-events eg After School service, Rock Solid Clubs, youth services, youth cell network, midweek family worship in school • Parishes with equipment grants have started Kids Clubs, all-age Sunday aft worship, ‘film & café service’, sanctuary space in a school, after-school church, etc etc
And doing traditional church better • Many posts include in the job description building up the Sunday children’s groups or the youth fellowship • Equipment grants enable churches to improve the quality of their regular Sunday services • Other grants enable Alpha courses or pilgrimages to be organised by churches with limited financial resources
Youth Children’s and families ministers around the diocese • 1st January 2004 8 posts in existence • 1st January 2005 12 posts • 1st January 2006 27 posts • 1st January 2007 44 posts • Inc planned in 2007 62 posts • This is a bigger increase than the drop in stipendiary clergy in the same period
Main causes of slowdown and cessation of attendance decline • A new intentionality associated with the ‘Going for Growth’ strategy • The ‘Larger Churches Process’ has helped the bigger churches to stabilise – main cause of slowdown in 2004 • The ‘Growth Fund’ grants & youth/children’s workers – main cause of further improvement in 2006
Change Performance IndicatorsCPI • Projects fill in the CPIs they are looking for as they set out • After 6 or 12 months by the side of the original list churches fill in the changes that have actually taken place • We can then compare the two to start monitoring the impact of the grants
Change Performance Indicators • We now have data back on around 20 of the earliest grants • Most report significant achievments • Many are about quality and so are hard to measure • But there are many reports of increased numbers involved • The CPIs tell the same story as the Att Stats
What about the future? • The signs so far are promising – we would like to continue with the funding streams for 2008-2010 • And we also need to think about continuation funding for projects after their first three years are up