Background

This vision emerges from a six month conversation in the diocese around a discussion paper I offered in April 2008. A large number of responses came in from parishes, teams, boards, committees and individuals, and I am very grateful indeed for all the thought behind them and the helpful ideas within them. This paper cannot reflect the full range of responses but I hope it captures the centre of gravity of their collective wisdom. I have proposed a new 'branding' by calling it Living Faith rather than Sharing Life +. This would allow a number of sub-headings eg 'Living Faith for the future', 'Living Faith through our buildings', 'Living Faith with young people' etc. I hope we might have established sufficiently that this is not an attempt to start all over again. A number of people have said that a new title would be refreshing.

I believe firmly that the future health of any diocese lies in the vitality and imagination of the local parish or arena of ministry. Top-down strategies are sometimes helpful (Developing Servant Leadership, Academies) but are often self-defeating because energy resides at local level, and there is plenty of evidence in our diocese of prayerful planning of local mission. What senior leadership can offer, however, is a dynamic framework, not to control but to guide, release and encourage. Bishops can offer direction and undergirding values, and they can try to align resources to those strategic directions. It is in that spirit that I offer this vision.

You'll note that this is a simplified paper in that it doesn't go on to work out the implications of the vision for deaneries, finance, clergy numbers or diocesan structures. It seems best first of all to present a coherent set of directions and then at greater leisure to work away at the alignment of resources.

The hope is that parishes, deaneries and central structures could use the paper as a touchstone to remind us of the values we try to live by and the major directions we need to take if we are to be faithful to Jesus Christ in this our day. It shouldn't cut across local planning but rather act as a supportive framework for it. It's rather like a palette of colours which each parish, deanery and Board can use in their own way to create that work of distinctive beauty which is their particular response to God's mission. What we end up with then is a gallery full not of look-alike paintings, but of vibrant, colourful and unique works of art.

Vision

The transformation of all human life under God.

Values

- Contemplative: attentive to God

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord . . . (Colossians 2.6)
Devote yourselves to prayer . . . (Colossians 4.2)

- Creative: imaginatively releasing and harnessing all the gifts of all God’s people

We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us . . . (Romans 12.6)
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . . . (Colossians 3.16)

- Continuous: rooted in scripture, faithful to the traditions we have received and seeking to give them fresh expression

Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught . . . (Colossians 2.7)
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you . . . (1 Corinthians 11.23)

- Accountable: to God and to each other as we build for tomorrow as well as today

Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock . . . (Acts 20.28)
Render to God the things that are God’s . . . (Luke 20.25)

Purpose

To join with God in creating a caring, sustainable and growing Christian presence in every part of the diocese of Oxford, enabling every Christian and every Christian community to live and share the love of God, seen in the life of Jesus Christ.

Priorities

The headline directions are:

Sustaining the sacred centre

Holistic mission (personal and social)

Spelt out it looks like this: 

In what follows, the bullet points are simply examples of what the strategic directions might look like at parish/benefice, deanery and diocesan level. They are simply there to get the creative juices going! We need a balance between confidence that 'we are already doing much of this already', and yet being challenged with new ideas. 'Doing more' is rarely the best response (we're already busy enough); 'doing differently' is nearly always better.