When the Parish Church of The Holy Trinity St Andrews decided to re-engage with our community in order to become more missional, our eye was caught by Tearfund's 'Church Community and Change' process. By the time we got involved, the process was stream-lined and had a new name: Discovery.
Steering a church through 6 crucial stages, from dreaming dreams to grappling with statistics to convening focus groups, the beauty of Discovery is that it can operate as a cycle. This means that all information and initiatives are revisited on a regular basis.
Each cycle steers one towards areas of opportunity/need, with the idea being to identify a faith community's significant giftings and where they might most effectively be deployed. Prepare to be surprised; we were!
The fact that Tearfund has a dedicated Discovery consultant confirms its commitment to local congregations. Involvement in the process can only help develop that beguiling vision of a network of 100k local congregations working together to raise 50m out of spiritual and material poverty!