The BCP Mini Summit in November ignited a fresh passion for oneness in the region and a new strategic journey towards transformation
Building on Relationships
Faithworks Wessex’s Church Partnership initiative and Moorlands College – a Bible College in Dorset – have been bringing together church leaders in the BCP region for a few years to strengthen relationships and collaborations between churches. The previous events have galvanised the leaders to pray more for the big needs of the towns and cities, including poverty, but also highlighted the need for more practical tools which would help them identify goals and strategies to
This paved the way for the BCP Mini Summit on 12th November in Bournemouth, where Gather Movement joined in to share some more vision and tools for working together.
Inspiration and Challenge
The event saw over 40 people come together including church leaders, charity leaders and change makers. The day started with Andy Mulcock sharing some inspirational videos and stories from other cities and regions in the UK. This included the story of church unity in Teesside and strategic collaborations in Greater Manchester.
These stories really struck a chord with the leaders as they reflected on the vision of the Church not just being a collection of separate buildings with their own ideas and agendas, but being part of a bigger family.
Andy also challenged the group with a powerful question…
“What one thing does BCP need that we can really work together towards providing?”
That challenge to find one specific area to focus on really helped to bring a sense of unified purpose across the three boroughs.
Tools for Transformation
The day went on to explore some strategic tools including the Hexagon evaluation tool and the 1414 goal setting tool. These practical ideas really helped the leaders think beyond setting goals which only relate to their local context, and to start taking into account the city needs.
The discussions around these tools and the need for strategy, goals setting and planning was an encouraging step forward from the initial conversations and existing relationships. Looking at how the tools can be implemented highlighted some practical steps forward for deeper and more effective collaborations.
We’ll Meet Again
As a Region the 3 towns have been adjusting to their status as a combined region but there is still some sense of isolation and individual identities. This event has brought a new sense of joint identity and the challenge to really work together in a more strategic and united way. The discussions and new tools have started a new set of conversations on goal setting based on the needs of the whole conurbation.
Alistair Doxat-Purser from Faithworks says “God is clearly on the move here – not only are there baptisms in big and small gatherings, but there are more and more churches seeing lives transformed as they open their doors from Monday to Saturday. We want to be ready to respond to where God leads – and we want to do that together. The Gather Movement’s cheer-leading, practical tools, and Godly wisdom is invaluable!”
