Church Away Day Notes

If you log in you can listen to the podcast to hear some of the sessions from the away day.

Here are some notes from session 3:

Mark: Everyone gets to make a contribution. Difficult for everyone to make a decision. Space for Holy Spirit to plant seeds and thoughts.

Fiona: Some core things about the leadership, we are a church committed to reaching the unchurch who are 18-30, this wont change. An understanding that church is about the people in it, and someone will need to facilitate us. These are some things that will remain.

What have you valued from church leadership from our church or others up to now?

We’ve all valued the leadership. Not just paying lip service to our lives being as important what we do as a church, space has been created.

Like how we have been encouraged to get involved in the community independently of the church, the church doesn’t have a big ego. Also you can come to church and it’s ok to be at any stage of your journey, very accepting. Personally people have felt valued. We need someone that can handles us and not stifle us.

For the times when Gav has gone away to take time to pray about the direction for the church.

That the responsibility has not just been down to one person, joint responsibility for leading church.

It would be easy to be rebellious, but we have been wise in

Valued organising things and doing it well, a degree of professionalism. An atmosphere of being willing to discuss anything and everything. There aren’t any taboo subjects, people views are taken seriously.

An attitude of going and doing something because it’s right, not because it;s perfect. It’s ok to get things wrong, spirit of Grace.

Nothing is assumed of us, which is helpful and freeing.

Willingness to tackle subjects that church don’t often talk about.

We have been very good at instilling ownership over the church, everyone plays their part. Grace, no one is excluded.

Having a leader that has a bigger picture, some thing we are going for and creating space. Only working 2 day’s a week also created space for others to get involved.

Peer leadership has been good, which has also meant that the leader hasn’t ended up being detached. We have acknowledged that this is a long term thing, we have not freaked out about targets and numbers. We have enabled leaders to lead.

People don’t lead out of a pretense, feel like we have lead out of honesty, who we are, our stories.

How growth has been drawn out of each other. We have all grown, and it’s been great to have leaders that have called that out of us.

The leadership has always been governed by the fact that our personal sin doesn’t exclude us. Leaders are prepared to deconstruct what we know to find out what we don’t. Exploring the nature of God.

Value how real and authentic we have been, how accessible.

What is the ask we are making of a potential church leader? How would we describe the role?

Someone who has integrity, sincere. To be our friends. They could be older, some life experience. A good eye for development, want to develop us. Someone that trust us, and we can trust them.

Some one who is entrepreneurial, optimistic.

If we want to carry on doing what we are doing then we can carry on as we are, but if we want to see our full potential released then someone to see it all call it out of us could be helpful.

Someone with a strong vision of themselves but also able to look and listen and see where we are at.

Asking them to love us.

Like a gardener or shepherd, not someone to change what is going on but to cultivate and shape it, help it grow. Someone who is flexible, and patient.

We are asking someone to come and run with the vision that already exists, but also for us to open to some change.

Someone who really wants to serve our town and us, and people that don’t know God. Someone who is prepared to count the cost. Someone who we respect and they respect us, that they can connect with us.

That they would look like the exploring your connection sheets and would resonate with them. That they would be secure in themselves, that they wouldn’t need to make changes to make themselves felt.

To be open to the option to the model of them not necessarily working for the church. The models seems to work well to have someone to run the practical aspects, with someone providing vision and drive. We are quite a strong group of people, that the person could be quite a strong personality, as long as they are up for a laugh.

Gav would feel excited about someone coming from a prayer or evangelistic background, as those are area’s where he feels at his limit, as a leader. That might not be a bad focus for the next phase.

Someone who has had some experience of church transitioning.

Some Questions

Do they have to live in Luton? Passion for Luton. Are we looking for someone full-time/part-time. An assumption that we want someone to lead us? Instead of team? Do we want to pay them?

Church Away Day Notes

If you log in you can listen to the podcast to hear some of the sessions from the away day.

City Life Church Luton