Strategic Planning Unit's proposals in more detail

How do we live out the gospel in a changing world? Or as the strategic planning unit report asks: "What do we believe God is calling the Church to be and do in the next 10 years in order to be faithful to the imperative to proclaim the Gospel in every age, and in ways that will enable the people of God’s world to know, love and serve God?"

The report offers this vision statement to the church

"The call to share with God in transforming the world is for each person," it says. "The challenge is for every Christian to live out the gospel in their context in daily life.

"How can the church be ready to seize the opportunities of the coming years?"

It is imperative, the report says, that we, the people of God, have an outward focus. "We need to reach out to those outside the church, because they need to know God loves them and stands with them in their pains and joys," it says. "We need to be with them in these pains and joys, if they are to hear this good news in ways that are relevant for them. And we need to listen."

It warns that looking outward means that we guard against a "maintenance mind set".

"If a congregation only focuses on maintaining what already exists, it is inevitable that eventually that congregation will cease to exist as people increase in age," it says. "However, if we develop a focus on reaching out, the congregation may well grow."

It says that looking outward means:

• Caring for the fringe people of your local congregation, for newcomers and those who seem to have dropped out.

• Encouraging faith sharing.

• Engaging in prophetic ministry through social welfare and service delivery.

• Engaging in social justice action.

• Widening our mission participation, local and global.

"Every local community faces a social justice issue from time to time, if not constantly," the report says. "The congregation can work together, and/or with a local group of people who are the victims of injustice, to identify the causes of the injustice, who holds the power in this situation, plan and take action in solidarity with and guided by those who are suffering.

"The church is not just the local congregation. It is all congregations working together, and it is also the regional, national church, and international church. We can widen our vision of ‘joining God in transforming the world’ when we understand a global issue and see its relevance to the local situation."

The report says that every congregation, presbytery, synod and the assembly must develop a sense of vision and directions for the future. Otherwise we will not be faithful to the command of Jesus to ‘go into all the world and preach the Gospel’.

"The Church Life Survey has demonstrated that one of the key characteristics of vital congregations is that they have a sense of vision and directions for the future," the report says.

"This directs us to the importance of engaging in mission planning."

The document 20-20 encouraged parishes to engage in visioning and mission planning before deciding on the structure of their new congregation.

When a placement becomes vacant, congregations are required to engage in a mission study — another name for a mission plan. This serves as the basis for determining what kind of person they would like for the placement, and for the profile they present to the joint nominating committee and the placements committee.

"These changes were not introduced for the sake of change, but because we know how important it is to have a vision and to know the major directions that will guide our life as the Body of Christ," the report says.

If we are to be faithful to God’s vision for the Church that we will join with God in transforming the world, the report says, we need to develop new ways of being church. " We have to reinterpret the Gospel for every new age, even though it is the same Gospel we proclaim," it says.

"Christ told us that it is not wise to ‘put new wine in old wineskins’. We don’t throw out the old, but we have new vehicles for new means of communicating the faith."

It says that, alongside what is already working for the existing members of congregations, we need to think:

• How we can plant new congregations for those outside the church.

• How we can establish groups with common interests that might then become ‘faith communities’ within the UCA.

• What other new initiatives we need to take to connect with those in our community and world.

It also says we need to:

• Introduce a greater variety in our worship styles.

• Cater for those for whom the more traditional approaches are not attractive.

• Develop different forms of expressing the faith in ways that take account of different cultures from those that we find in our congregation.

"Networks are a powerful way of reducing isolation and of building support communities," it says. "Regional congregations, alternative worship congregations, rural ministry teams, cluster ministry approaches all are based on network building. These can also offer more options for people, from which they can choose.

"In this way, people can find a place which matches their spiritual needs, rather than leaving the church when they cannot connect with the one approach offered."

The report says we need to discover new ways of providing leadership in these new ways of being church. For example, we need to look for opportunities where the ordained or lay leadership can be not just full-time, ordained.

"The old concept of ‘worker-priest’ is again a possibility," it says. This is where "the leader continues in or undertakes part-time employment, and is part-stipended to work with a congregation or faith community".

It says: " Synods need to dedicate funds to enable these part-stipended leaders to have some financial security while they build up a new congregation or faith community to the point where they can be self-supporting, perhaps eventually with full-time leadership.

"Where the UCA has neglected the teaching ministry in the past, we need to place a renewed emphasis on and provide resources for this part of our mission. The whole people of God need to be equipped for our ministry and mission, and in a way that enables us to grow in our faith.

"We need to be able to understand and use the Bible as the basis for testing our perceptions of our mission, and to become a lifelong learning community of faith.

"We need to develop new ways of being church through the work of chaplains, as we connect with organisations, and connect them with congregations.

"The overall message here is that we do not need to ‘throw out the baby with the bath water’. We need to continue what we are doing well, and continue to minister to those already in our congregations in ways that meet their needs. Alongside this, however, we must develop new ways of being church."

"When we talk of making space," the report says, "we mean not just physical space. In addition, spiritual space, emotional space, and financial space are important for the new directions and new ways of being church.

"New groups and congregations need places to meet and worship. They need support for their spiritual growth. They need to feel that they are affirmed by the church generally, and by any associated congregation in particular.

"These new initiatives for mission need financial resources if they are to be successful, especially to provide leadership and cover other expenses. They might need access to technology, phones, photocopiers, and computers to communicate with each other and with the wider community.

"Synods and presbyteries need to plan ahead for how they will provide these financial resources, and not just wait for congregations or ministers to approach them for assistance.

"The culture needs to support risk-taking, and to affirm that we will sometimes make mistakes or that these approaches might ‘fail’. This is all part of the learning process. It is OK to fail.

"Some may feel that the only way we will not fail is to do nothing. Yet to do nothing is absolute failure.

"We will never learn by just engaging in experience. We need to reflect on our experience. That means identifying what we did and why, what worked well and why, what did not work so well and why, and planning how we will move ahead, building on our successes to overcome the dilemmas we face in the future. This should be a continuous process.

"In addition, we need to share our stories of risk-taking with others, along with what we have learned from the experiences, so that the whole church will grow in our understanding of and skill in ‘joining with God in transforming the world.’

"Overall, making space will enable us to adopt the ‘alongside’ principle, that underpins these four principles, and our overall vision for the Uniting Church as it connects with society in the next decade." — New Times

What will the Uniting Church be like in another 10 to 15 years from now?

This question is the opening sentence of the strategic planning unit’s report to Assembly 2000.

"Will we exist at all?" it asks. "Will we have joined with other denominations in response to the ‘uniting’ in our name?

"Will we continue to be the only truly Australian church, reflecting the multicultural nature of Australian society and being seen as relevant to the issues Australian people face in their daily life and work?

"Or will we be much as we are today, just smaller and older and slowly dying?"

The church is God’s church, it says. But we also have a responsibility to be the church God and Jesus Christ intended us to be.

"How will we ensure that we are faithful to God’s intention that the church be the visible herald of God’s realm (Kingdom of God) in the present and the future?" it asks.

"What challenges lie ahead of us in the next decade? What is God calling us to be?"

The assembly standing committee established the strategic planning unit (SPU) to help the church respond to these challenges. The mission statement given to the SPU asks it:

In the report, "the members of the group invite the church, in all its councils and congregations, to join us on responding to these challenges, as we engage the future". The process, it says, is to discern:

• The current social context in Australia, and even across the world.

• The current scene in the Uniting Church;

• How the church could effectively engage in mission with the society in the coming years.

"This," it says, "is undergirded and informed by our faith and the call of Christ".

The unit has developed a possible vision to guide the church as it engages the future:

The unit says it engaged in a process of asking itself the questions the assembly standing committee gave as our mission.

"We invite you, the reader, to ask yourself these same questions as you think about your own context for mission and ministry"

• "What is the society you experience facing in the next five to10 years?

• "What is your church like now? What are its strengths and weaknesses, that will be the basis for your community of faith engaging with the society?

• "How might your community of faith engage with the people in your community in relation to the issues you and they face where you live and work?

• "What is your vision for the community of faith to which you belong, and for the whole Uniting Church?"

It also suggests some principles:

Principle 1: Develop an outward focus.

Principle 2: Develop a sense of vision or directions for the future.

Principle 3: Develop new ways of being church.

Principle 4: Making space.

"We believe that God is calling us to communicate the (forever new) gospel in new ways that will speak to people and excite them for the call of the gospel on their lives today and in the next decade, alongside what we are already doing as church.

"We ask:

• "What would ‘developing an outward focus’ look like for your congregation or council and the community you serve?

• "What would it mean for you to have a clear sense of a vision for the church’s call or of directions for the future? What new possibilities and opportunities would this open up? Who would your community of faith engage with?

• "How can we develop, support and resource new ways of being church that engage with the needs of people outside the Church? What might these look like? How can we connect with the younger generations in our society, so that they grow in their ‘knowledge and love of God’ in relation to their lives that are quite different from the older generations that now form the majority of people in our churches?

• "How can we make space, physically, emotionally, economically for these other ways of being church to eventuate, alongside the ways we are already being church?"

The unit says it has found some examples of groups beginning to put these principles into action, and others that have been evident for some time.

"You can probably tell us of lots of other examples that suggest we are beginning on the journey of engagement already," it says.

"The strategic planning unit members would welcome you sharing these stories with us, so that we can share them across the church.

"What does all this mean for your congregation, council or agency in terms of vision, mission and action? What is God calling us all to do, be and say, as we join God in the work of transforming the world to embody the Realm of God?" — New Times

This is how the strategic planning unit’s report to Assembly 2000 sees the Uniting Church’s strengths:

We are and are seen as a "young" church, able to be more flexible, able to incorporate more easily structures and policies that are important to the modern world. We are looked to as a model in these aspects of our life.

We accept diversity and difference (though not without struggle at times), ethnically, theologically, liturgically, and we are intentional about working for unity to bring these diversities into relationship and understanding with each other in an inclusive church.

We take social justice and community service seriously and have significant areas of engagement with the wider society, though we are less well known for our broad and extensive range of community services in aged care, child and family care, services for the disabled, employment services and many local church outreach programs.

We have contact with large numbers of people who are outside the church, for example through the many people who come to our churches for "rites of passage" – baptism and thanksgiving for children, marriage preparation and weddings, memorial services and rituals associated with death and dying.

We have significant resources overall (property and financial) in rural and city areas, which on the whole are well used, and therefore have the capacity to resource the church nationally.

We have representative government through inter-related councils and consensus decision-making. This encourages full participation of members, along with local responsibility and action.

We act responsibly in initiating policies and processes that change and shape church culture.

We provide significant leadership ecumenically and internationally, which is acknowledged by other church and faith communities around the world.

We have the Basis of Union, one of our greatest strengths, recognised as a profoundly theological and visionary document. We continue to use it as a living document to correct and inspire us as a church. — New Times

Some of our strengths are also our weaknesses, the strategic planning unit points out. Here is an edited version of how it sees some areas of our life where we need to focus new energy.

While there is diversity in worship across the church, there is also a lack of variety in times and styles available at the local and regional level; some congregations resist changing worship times and styles to suit changing needs in the community.

Our diversity is celebrated in many ways, but it also brings tension and conflict which can polarise people and groups, as well as lead to resistance to change and a desire for conformity and uniformity. We need to stress our diversity within our unity, rather than the reverse — our unity in diversity.

There is a perceived lack of leadership formation within the church for our members. In addition, the relative lack of young adults in our congregations suggests that we will experience real problems with leadership in the future.

Those in our society aged between 15 and 45 years are very much under-represented in the membership of our church.

The UCA is losing members through death, and rejection of the church, and is not replacing them with people coming into the church from outside, or retaining our children and young people as they grow older. We are an ageing church, ageing more rapidly than society in general.

We have not done well in planting and building new congregations.

Our church has consistently and comprehensively reduced the resources for general Christian education and the teaching ministry in all sectors. There is a widespread perception of distance and disconnection between theological colleges and the church generally.

The great social changes in the nature of work and who works have resulted in the demise of much traditional volunteer help across the church, and a feeling of tiredness amongst the fewer and older members continuing to carry this work.

The Church Life Survey results show that the people of the UCA do not share their faith with others to the same extent as most other denominations.

We need to reach a clearer understanding of what we mean by the overall mission of the church. — New Times

Australia can no longer claim to be a Christian country, the assembly strategic planning unit report says.

Worldwide migration is continuing, it says. More people are coming from Asian countries and Australia will continue to be a multi-faith society.

"People of other faiths have the freedom to worship according to their own traditions," it says. "Increasingly, the various faiths will continue to communicate with and relate to each other."

The report says the opening word of the theme of Assembly 2000, "Here we are," convey a strong sense of availability and readiness to respond to whatever is discerned as God’s will for us at a given time in our life as a church.

"Isaiah 6, from which the theme is derived, depicts an encounter with God that changes Isaiah’s life forever. We, too, have to be willing to respond out of our encounters with God. As we meet together in the Assembly, we will have an encounter with God. How we respond will be critical.

"We do not have to be told that we live in a time of rapid change, where the world and life are becoming more complex almost every minute," the report says. "Many of these changes are creating great stress for people and for communities as well as for the whole of society. Many of them do not seem to be consistent with what God wants for humanity.

"The world needs the transforming power of God. God calls the church to be a transforming force in society, inspired by God’s Spirit … to proclaim in word and deed the good news of Jesus Christ.

"If we are to be faithful to this call, we need to understand the social context in which we exist and find new ways to connect with and share the Gospel with those outside the Church. We will not do this as ‘outsiders’, but as those who are ‘insiders’ with those who are not seen in our churches. We will identify with their pains and joys as people who experience the same pains and joys. We will stand in solidarity with them, and at the same time offer in our lives and witness other ways of being that offer hope in the future." — New Times