Your parish or benefice might be working to develop a café church, a messy mass, a walking group, a forest church or a new group meeting in a local school. You may be actively reaching new people through an informal but intentional missional meeting, or a more formal congregation.
The RNP team is now defining a community or congregation like this as a Worshipping Community – a group reaching out to new people and changing lives as it gathers together.
Some Worshipping Communities will be well established, and others will just be beginning to form or will be working to build relationships in their communities, but the underlying vision will be to bring new people to faith, although this may not happen in the early stages of a community’s development.
If you do not feel that what you’re doing fits these definitions, please do contact the RNP team at rnp@stalbans.anglican.org or the RNP Development Officer in your Archdeaconry for a further conversation.
We’ve asked what type of Worshipping Community you have. The survey provides a number of different options but please do enter Other if you cannot find an option that works for you.
A Regular Missional Community meets regularly, often weekly, at the same time but may have a different name and / or format on each occasion.
If you are at the very beginning of your journey on the RNP Development Cycle and you have not decided anything yet, please select the Nothing started yet option and add some comments at end of the survey form if possible.
The RNP Development Cycle is a framework to help you track the progress of your Worshipping Community. It is at the heart of the work of Reaching New People as we support you in changing lives, bringing more people to faith and to making new disciples.
Please provide an average number of attendees for the number of meetings you are reporting on – for example: if you have met four times this term please divide the total number of attendees by four.
We know it can be difficult to measure how people are growing as disciples, so rather than asking you to try to guess, we’re focusing on signs of developing commitment and growth as a follower of Jesus. It is likely that people who are growing in faith will not just be coming along to a gathering – they will probably have shown a desire to learn, study and take a more active part in your particular Worshipping Community. So, we are asking you to tell us how people in your groups are getting involved with things such as…
This is not a definitive list and there will be other examples which we would love to hear about under “Other”.
If you are looking for ideas on taking discipleship forward, here is a link to some words that may help you in your thinking – 10 ways to disciple brand new Christians . If you have any information or links that you have found helpful, please email them to rnp@stalbans.anglican.org and we will create a space on the RNP website to share them with others.
Encouraging the sharing of bread and wine is becoming a central part of many of our Worshipping Communities. It can take many forms – from a formal Eucharistic prayer in robes with incense to an informal – ‘family meal’ with prayer and scripture readings appropriate to the sacramental act. However it may not be applicable in some settings.
Signs of commitment – developing and growing as disciples
This includes all who step forward to lead within their Worshipping Community, not just those who are “at the front” leading parts or the whole of a gathering but also through offering to take on other roles such as cooking meals, organising crafts, doing the refreshments or setting up a venue – all are signs of leadership.
We are seeking to understand what impact our Worshipping Communities, as they focus on reaching out to new people, might be having on our established regular traditional forms of worship.
Generosity is a sign of Christian commitment. People may give their time, resources and money depending on the context of your community.
In some Worshipping Communities giving may be to the parish the community belongs. In others giving will be by donations at each gathering. Our long term aim is for all our Worshipping Communities wherever possible to be sustainable. So, we need to think and plan how sustainability might be achieved in the future. Please tell us what your giving is for your type of Worshipping Community
Telling us how you currently feel about your Worshipping Community helps the RNP team to make better sense of the information you’re providing each term and to understand if we are supporting you in the best ways we can.
The team welcomes your comments and feedback to help us to continue to support you
Copyright © 2022 Diocese of St Albans. All rights reserved.
