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Holy Agility for Ministry Leaders2020 Diocese of Virginia Fall Stewardship

To BeginChoose one of the following conversations to use each month with your leadership team. The questions and reflections offer a consistent way to check in individually. They also function as a narrative metric for how and where the Holy Spirit is working in your congregation.Listen for where ‘the Jesus’ is in your congregation and community.

Where is an opportunity to move deeper into a story? Where does your ministry team sense a call to pivot in a new direction? Which stories or themes repeat themselves from month to month?

As you engage in these conversations, be mindful to set a specific amount of time for group discussion as well as for individual responses. These can be powerful and engaging questions!

Reflection A

+++Where am I rich? Where am I poor?

Where are you rich? Where are you poor?Where is our church rich? Where is our church poor?

(from a 2019 presentation by the Rev. Dr. Sam Wells, vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London)

Ask these questions of yourself, each other, and your church. Curate the stories (the individual stories with permission) and follow where the energy and the narrative take you from month to month. Where do you see and hear God? How are themes in the stories leading you to deepen a ministry, or call you to serve in a new way? How are you, others, and your church called to be God’s currency in the economy of God’s Kingdom?

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Reflection B

+++There is one Body and one Spirit;

There is one hope in God’s call to us:One Lord, one faith, one Baptism;

One God and Father of all.(from the prayer after baptism, p. 308 in the Book of Common Prayer)

The theme for our newest Diocese of Virginia annual giving program is “One,” which comes from these opening words from our Holy Baptism liturgy. How does this passage speak to how your congregation is one with Christ, one with all people, and one with creation? Track the responses over the months until the fall campaign as a path to identifying your congregation’s centering call, values, and authenticity.

Reflection C

+++Give them an inquiring and discerning heart,

the courage to will and to persevere,a spirit to know and to love you,

and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.(from the prayer after baptism, p. 308 in the Book of Common Prayer)

Read the prayer passage aloud and ask the ministry team which word or words give them the most energy and why. Then ask which words give them the most concern and why. Where is there overlap and divergence? Track the responses across your conversation through the summer as a gauge for where your congregation senses urgency for resolution, opportunity, pastoral care, or other manner of attention.