Vital & Thriving

 

What is V&T?

  • This is a major congregational development initiative of our Diocese to facilitate and support our congregations to self-assess, brainstorm, experiment, and pivot in response to the present mid-pandemic realities and move forward into the future with faith, optimism, confidence, and renewed energy.
  • This effort offers substantive, long-term consulting and support, as congregations conduct fresh reassessments of their mission and consider potential outreach opportunities in their community settings.
  • This initiative is funded by a major donor to the Expanding Horizons capital campaign to equip our congregations to become “vital and thriving” (V+T) members of the Beloved Community. In a sense, the Diocese will be using these V+T funds like venture capital to invest in our congregations’ futures, as they will be equipped, facilitated, and funded to engage in innovative missional experiments with seed money to find new ways of being church in the 21st
  • “Congregations” is used here to mean parishes, missions, and specialized mission plants.

Who is involved in V&T?

  • For V&T, the Diocese is partnering with Newbigin House of Studies (NH, is an affiliated school of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley). Per their website at https://newbiginhouse.org/
    • NH is an ecumenical study center developing leaders through theological education. By training and mentoring a new generation of missional leaders, in partnership with churches and seminaries, we are committed to renewing a vision for Christian ministry in a rapidly changing world. 
    • The NH staff along with senior and teaching fellows bring rich experience in church and non-profit work, social justice ministry, vocational discipleship, counseling and pastoral care.
    • NH, with its planned acquisition of Church Innovations Institute (CI), intends to become a center for congregational development and to teach and coach churches/synods/ seminaries of various denominations the key time-tested practices of missional churches.
      • Leadership Team members include:
        • The Rev. Dr. Scot Sherman (NH Executive Director)
        • Nic Hughes (NH Design Team Lead)
        • The Rev. Dr. Patrick Keifert (NH Director of Research & Consulting)
        • The Rev. Rachel Stout (NH Consultant, Pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, New York Mills, MN, ELCA mission developer in Minnesota)
        • The Rev. Julia McCray-Goldsmith (Dean-designate, Trinity Cathedral, San Jose, former Canon for Discipleship for DioCal)
        • The Rev. Lina Thompson (NH Consultant, Pastor of Lake Burien Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Pacific Islander)
        • Joey Ager (Director of Missions, ELCA SW Washington/Seattle Synod, Episcopalian)
        • The Rev. Katy Nakamura Rengers (Presiding Bishop’s Staff Officer for Church Planting, TEC)
      • The V+T cohort program at NH will help pastors and churches increase the vitality of churches through a multi-stage, design-thinking process. One-time webinars, continuing education courses, podcasts, regional and nationalconferences, and retreats are also offered throughout the year.

  • Project Team Members are:
    • Project Manager: The Rev. Canon Debbie Low-Skinner–Point of Contact (POC) for DioCal, dskinner@diocal.org, 415-869-7806
    • Project Executive: The Rev. Dr. Scot Sherman–POC for NH, scot@newbiginhouse.org; Mobile 415-513-8555
    • Design Team Lead/Architect: Nic Hughes—POC for program design at NH
    • Resource Creation Leads:
    • Seed Grant Lead: Davey Gerhard (DioCal), daveyg@diocal.org; 415-869-7836
    • Communication Leads:
    • Business Acumen Project Resource: The Rev. Gary England (DioCal), garye@diocal.org; Mobile 510-254-1147

When/How is V&T being implemented?

  • Pilot Cohort–In consultation with Bishop Marc, Scot invited this past fall (via one-on-one conversations) an initial/pilot cohort of 15 rectors/vicars, each of whom will serve as clergy leads for their congregations. Since then, three clergy chose to bow out for now.  The remaining initial participants represent a diverse mix of congregations of various sizes from all six deaneries:
    • The Rev. Jane Stratford, St. Anna’s, Antioch + Jubilee Farm, Brentwood
    • The Rev. Jim Dahlin, St. Augustine’s, Oakland
    • The Rev. Justin Cannon + The Rev. Pam Jester, All Saints, San Leandro
    • The Rev. Chris Rankin-Williams + The Rev. Heather Erickson, St. John’s, Ross
    • The Rev. Lindy Bunch, Trinity + St. Peter’s, San Francisco
    • The Rev. David Erickson, St. Mary the Virgin’s, San Francisco
    • The Rev. Eric Metoyer, St. Francis’, San Francisco
    • The Rev. Kevin Neil, St. John the Evangelist’, San Francisco
    • The Rev. Cameron Partridge, St. Aidan’s, San Francisco
    • The Rev. Michael Barham, Holy Family, Half Moon Bay + Good Shepherd, Belmont
    • The Rev. Claire Dietrich Rana, Christ Church, Los Altos
    • The Rev. Iain Stanford, St. Peter’s, Redwood City
  • Core Process in two phases
    • Phase One – 18 Months (4th Qtr 2021 – 2nd Qtr 2023)
      • Discovery and Discernment: 9 Months
        • Coaching on recruiting teams, team building, and resources for doing congregational self-study and listening.
        • Discovery through listening, as lay-led teams will engage their churches in congregational self-study. Listening and attending are the first steps in their journey of joining God in their communities.
          • To support this activity, team members will learn spiritual practices that will encourage deeper listening to God and to one another. They will use “Dwelling in the Word” (an adaptation of Lectio Divina) will help create space for the Spirit to open imaginations and form deeper community-based scripture.
        • Monthly Zoom’d Gatherings of cohort clergy leads plus three Quarterly Gatherings of cohort clergy leads.
        • Clergy Retreat on May 6 at St. Anna’s, Antioch, and Teams Training on May 7 at All Souls, Berkeley.
      • Experimentation: 9 Months
        • 3 Quarterly Gatherings of cohort clergy leads
        • Seed Grants up to $5K for experimental missional projects

 

  • Phase Two – 18 Months (Optional) (3rd Qtr 2023 – 4th Qtr 2024)
    • Funded Initiatives: 18 months
      • 3 Quarterly Gatherings
      • Planning, Collaboration, Sustainability
      • Seed grants up to $20K for individual congregations and up to $50K for joint church collaborations.
    • On-going/On-line Resources on the new V+T website (starting on April 12th, 2022) which can be accessed by any congregation (whether or not they are part of a cohort) via diocal.org or via https://www.vitalthriving.org.
      • These resources support engagement of the Five Vitality Practices of Beloved Community of Invitation, Collaboration, Embeddedness, Diversity, and Environmental Sustainability.
      • NOTE: These practices are different than the Five Beloved Community Principles of Embodied Justice for All God’s People and All Creation, Church Vitality, Rooted Spirituality, Transparent/Accountable Leadership, and Inclusive Community
      • Building Beloved Community Conference (NH, virtual, Jan 19-20, 2022). The keynote speakers were
        • The Rt. Rev. Marc Andrus, How Can Friendships Across Boundaries of Faith and Culture Strengthen Us in Building Beloved Community?
        • The Rev. Michael Battle, How Can the African Spiritual Principle of Ubuntu Contribute to Building Beloved Community?
        • Kristin Du Mez, PhD, What Would It Look Like to Leave Behind the Militant Masculinity and Patriarchy So Pervasive in American Christianity?
      • V+T Virtual Workshop, Apr 30, 2022, “Creating a Culture of Belonging” with Ben McBride of the Empower Initiative. https://www.vitalthriving.org/2022/03/online-event-creating-a-culture-of-belonging-with-ben-mcbride-sat-4-30-9-11am-pt/
      • Preaching Peace is a Lilly-funded model for pastoral development that is built around a weekly Zoom or in-person gathering to discuss the Gospel lectionary text and ask “How can we preach this text for peace?”
        • The pilot cohort will begin this during the Easter season.
        • This program will be open to the Diocese in September.
        • Resources include learning from distinguished practitioners such as The Rev. Mark Buzzuti-Jones (Trinity Church-Wall Street Retreat Center), The Rev. Lisa Cressman (founder of “Backstory Preaching”), and The Rev. James Allison (English Roman Catholic priest and theologian drawing upon René Girard’s principles).
      • Blogs and Monthly Reflection Podcasts beginning in April 2022.
      • Webinars and short courses that support the 5 Vitality Practices.
      • Graduate Theological Union (GTU) courses for clergy and seminarians on congregational re-development and church planting.
      • Conversations for the Common Good (occasional gatherings)
      • Lesslie Newbigin Summer Institute, held annually in July, Cambridge, UK
    • Each clergy lead will recruit from their congregants those persons who are interested and willing to be trained and take part in one of three teams: Steering Team, Listening Team, and Mission Innovation Team.   As described by NH
      • These teams as trained and facilitated by NH will “discern the shape of their (congregation’s) own vocation and call within their community. Using the tools and skills of Human Centered Design, (NH will) engage congregational leaders and the congregation itself in a multi-stage design thinking process of listening, reflecting, and discerning their distinctive story: Who are we? Where are we now?
      • “(The Diocese will) provide seed funding (up to $5K) for mission innovation experiments to help the congregation discover new things by trying new things. We want to help churches deepen their existing connections to their neighborhoods, forge new relationships with neighbors, and collaborate with individuals and groups already working for justice in their community. We hope to develop congregations that are truer to the vision of Jesus, and to identify opportunities for new expressions of church.
      • These experiments would be a short-term, manageable project that will help a congregation think out-of-the-box, reset their priorities, enlist their congregants as engaged team members.

V+T Congregations Outcomes

  • Congregations will have the capacity to discern the movement of the Spirit within their context and, in doing so, explore their shared vocation.
  • Congregations will explore how to join in the Principles and Practices of Becoming Beloved Community already at work within their context through experimentation and focused initiatives.
  • Congregations will be equipped to sustain the work of Becoming Beloved Community through deep spiritual practices, design thinking tools, seed grants, ongoing resources and collaboration”
  • It is hoped that the group work of the cohort members will promote collegiality, cooperation, mutual encouragement, and perhaps even joint ventures of congregations working together on innovative missional projects.
  • Lessons learned from the pilot group/cohort will be applied to the succeeding cohorts.
  • The next cohort of 12-15 congregations will be recruited this fall (i.e., 3rd Qtr) to start in 1st 2023. Any congregation can apply to be part of this next cohort or the cohort to be formed after that.  Final selection will be determined by DioCal.
  • Eventually there are plans to translate all V+T resources into Spanish. Some existing resources from the ELCA are already in Spanish.

NOTE:  V+T differs from the College of Congregational Development (CCD) offered by the Diocese of Olympia.

  • CCD teaches competence/skills in running a congregation, in order “to equip congregational clergy and lay leaders with the knowledge, skills and practices needed to develop their congregations into healthier and more faithful communities.”
  • V+T provides coaching/facilitating, resources, and team building skills to help congregations perform self-evaluations, assess their communities’ needs, choose a missional project/experiment, and assess the results (incorporating course correct-ions as needed) of the project. V+T will also provide seed money to fund the project.

NOTE:  Regardless of whether or not a congregation or a clergy-in-charge is part of a V+T cohort, the entire Diocesan staff members are here to serve you as resources, consultants, workshop leaders, and advisors about grant funding.  The staff includes