On October 12^th a large group of the PCC and a few other interested souls from the congregation  attended a long awaited planning away- day  with  the Diocesan Missioner, Miles Baker. We had a lot of fun and a lot of doughnuts but also some very serious discussions about our church- what really lights us up about it and keeps us coming here (Most people said ‘Jesus’ or “God” (Phew!!) and ‘friendship’ amongst other things), what are the bits that we tolerate but are worth it because of the good bits and what are the really awful things about church.

Post it notes flew everywhere as everybody said exactly what they thought – and it didn’t take long for some very common themes to emerge.  This exercise made us realise that we were all thinking much the same about the life and worship of All Saints and it gave us a really good sense of our strengths and weaknesses as the body of Christ in this place.

Miles then asked us a penetrating question: What did we think God is calling this church- and specifically this church to do? It took us a while to really get going on that one – was he really calling us to do anything except turn up to worship and raise money? Would he really be calling BRAUNSTON?

We chewed over that question for quite a while and were then further challenged when Miles asked us to draft the chapter headings of the Annual Church report for five years from now and what we would like people to be saying at the Annual Meeting in response.

We had fun with that and then Miles delivered the killer blow “Okay- if that is what you think God wants you to be writing that report in 2019 how are you going to do it?  What are you going to do and who is going to make it happen?

By the end of the day we had a very rough set of ideas to take away. The next step was to bring together a small planning group to use everyone’s ideas and formulate our very own Growth Action plan. We are that group incorporating older and newer members of the congregation.

Soon after the away-day we all met at Becky’s house, and thrashed out the specifics of a concise 5 year vision for our church and what we are going to do towards achieving that vision in the next twelve months. And that, with the approval of the PCC is what we are presenting now.