Lichfield Diocesan Synod March 2007 Report on the impact of Growth Fund Grants made July 2005-January 2007

91 Growth Fund Awards made in towards the creation of new posts (children’s, youth, families, Fresh Expression Pioneers, outreach, music) 22 towards equipment to enhance worship or enable new style services to start 20 towards events such as missions, pilgrimages and holiday clubs

Fresh Expressions Agenda 3 stand-alone Pioneer posts (BCUIM, Stoke, Wolves) Parish workers have been planting new worship- events eg After School service, Rock Solid Clubs, youth services, youth cell network, midweek family worship in school Parishes with equipment grants have started Kids Clubs, all-age Sunday aft worship, ‘film & café service’, sanctuary space in a school, after-school church, etc etc

And doing traditional church better Many posts include in the job description building up the Sunday children’s groups or the youth fellowship Equipment grants enable churches to improve the quality of their regular Sunday services Other grants enable Alpha courses or pilgrimages to be organised by churches with limited financial resources

Youth Children’s and families ministers around the diocese 1 st January posts in existence 1 st January posts 1 st January posts 1 st January posts Inc planned in posts This is a bigger increase than the drop in stipendiary clergy in the same period

Main causes of slowdown and cessation of attendance decline A new intentionality associated with the ‘Going for Growth’ strategy The ‘Larger Churches Process’ has helped the bigger churches to stabilise – main cause of slowdown in 2004 The ‘Growth Fund’ grants & youth/children’s workers – main cause of further improvement in 2006

Change Performance Indicators CPI Projects fill in the CPIs they are looking for as they set out After 6 or 12 months by the side of the original list churches fill in the changes that have actually taken place We can then compare the two to start monitoring the impact of the grants

Change Performance Indicators We now have data back on around 20 of the earliest grants Most report significant achievments Many are about quality and so are hard to measure But there are many reports of increased numbers involved The CPIs tell the same story as the Att Stats

What about the future? The signs so far are promising – we would like to continue with the funding streams for And we also need to think about continuation funding for projects after their first three years are up