Casting the Net at Holy Trinity

At Holy Trinity, the Vestry was very conscious of the need to develop a coherent plan and strategy for the future and so, though we have not been chosen as one of the pilot groups, we decided to go ahead anyway. Hence we formed our Mission and Development Group (which is responsible to the Vestry) and met, for the first time, in March 2009 - somewhat before the official diocesan launch of Casting the Net. Since then, we’ve met more than 20 times and have done a considerable amount of work in the light of which we have now been asked to become one of the official diocesan pilots.

The goal of our Mission and Development Group is to help the vestry and congregation of Holy Trinity to focus its attention on mission and growth, rather than simply on survival and maintenance. and to this end, following a consultation process with the wider congregation, we aim to produce a realistic strategic plan for the next five years.

By growth, we mean, primarily, spiritual growth; though numerical growth is a likely side effect. In that connection, there is a simplistic financial argument, often heard in churches, that goes something like this:

“We must get more people in. More people means more money. More money means we’ll be able to survive a bit longer”.

The Diocesan Casting the Net Action Group and our own Mission and Development Group are both quite clear that this argument entirely misses the point. The point, rather, is for us to deepen our faith and our life together as the people of God and to engage more effectively in mission and ministry. Obviously, whilst we need the church building (and the members of the Mission and Development group are unanimous in thinking that our current building is tremendously important) then we have to maintain it, but the primary focus of Casting the Net is not on raising more money, but on how best to live out the gospel and to be the church for the world.