Changing Lives
Our aim, as a Diocese, is to resource and encourage confident Christian communities which express joyful hope in the Gospel, for the sake of the world which they serve.
To achieve this, we have adopted Changing Lives as our mission strategy:
Changing Lives
Changing Churches
for Changing Communities
Our challenge
With Changing Lives, our two bishops are challenging the Diocese to ‘think differently’ about itself, in the light of the fast-changing world around us. At the heart of Changing Lives are:
Two questions:
• What kind of church do we want to be?
• How will we shape our ministry and mission to become that church?
Four core aspirations:
| Calling | This Diocese seeks to affirm the call of all the baptised and to nurture and encourage the giftedness of each |
| Tranformation | This Diocese seeks to proclaim the Christian gospel afresh in each generation in ways that will transform the lives of individuals and communities |
| Renewal | This Diocese seeks to re-energise its clergy and lay people with the gospel story through inspired worship and teaching and personal development |
| Reshaping | This Diocese seeks to enable the whole Body of Christ to be the church in its locality by supporting and offering appropriate resources to parishes, local ministry groups, church schools and other expression of Christian community |
Principles
Our Changing Lives work across the Diocese is guided by the following basic principles:
|
No-one alone |
supporting each other in ministry and mission |
| On your doorstep | providing worship and witness in every parish in the Diocese |
| Better together | servicing worship and mission through local ministry teams and local ministry groups of ordained and lay leadership |
| The 'reconversion' of Somerset | sharing the love of Christ with individuals and the communities around us |
Want to know more?
- A good starting point is the Bishop of Taunton's 'Beginner's Guide to Changing Lives'.
- We have also developed a range of resources to help understand the thinking behind Changing Lives
Register for e-bulletin
Keep up-to-date with news from around the Diocese with our e-bulletin. Sign-up now!