Thurrock Street Pastors

What do you See – report

—

by

Secretary ThurrockSP
in

Map and introductions

The day started with examining the large 8 foot by 5 foot map of Thurrock marking the majority of the churches within Thurrock. Members were challenged to identify where their church was and what other churches were close by them. We then moved to introductions and which church what’s represented and how long they had been in Thurrock.

Projects

Initially we considered what projects were multi denominational within the borough

Thurrock Foodbank Logo
https://thurrock.foodbank.org.uk/  
 This involves a warehouse hosted by a church and 10 distribution centres plus many more churches send in donations who of food to the warehouse. This project is closest two representing the Church of Thurrock working to show the love and kindness of Jesus. The model of foodbank within Thurrock what you need in that it had a multiple distribution network. Whereas majority of other foodbanks operate out of a warehouse.


  • The possibility of more teams
    https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/get-involved/open-the-book
     Open the Book in Thurrock is a multi denominational project involving a variety of churches. Open the book is produced by the Bible society is a project that takes Bible stories into primary schools either for whole school assemblies or class assemblies. The curriculum of open book has been approved by Ofsted which means it gives the school certain comfort in that the assemblies will be of a certain standard. This also means that all of the scripts are pre written so saving the volunteers the work of having to put together an assembly. There are at least two open the book teams operating in Thurrock. Interest was shown in the possibilities of more teams starting.


  • https://thurrockstreetpastors.org.uk/about-us
     Street Pasters in Thurrock is quite unique, in that Ascension trust was approached by Thurrock council, local Police and C2C Rail . The team is made-up of people from 8 different denominations, again showing the strength when churches work together. All of those who patrol on a Friday night have commented on how the streets of Grays have grown quieter during the time that street pastors has been out in Grays.  Thurrock St pastors were set up in such a way that as the number of volunteers grow there would be people available to patrol other areas of Thurrock, without having to set up other charities with boards of trustees etc.

Possible other Joint Projects

The group then discussed other possible opportunities to work together for the Kingdom.  Thurrock Deanery I had the CEO of Hope UK come to speak about the work of Hope UK. This charity works to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs and alcohol.  The Reverend Kate is trained in the ways of hope UK and has worked with them and saw many opportunities that’s a set of trains people could have in working with young people,, children parents and carers.
Hope UK
Hope UK  https://hopeuk.org

Community Church uses Kintsugi Hope courses in both schools and community. In the community it is used as a prequel to anAlpha course. Kintsugi Hope deals with, wellbeing, loneliness and other mental health situations. Kintsugi Hope as an organisation also offers to help churches to ensure that they are aware of how to make church accessible for the neurodiverse, via Mental Health Friendly Church Training

Kintsugi Hope  https://www.kintsugihope.com

Gen  Z and the Quiet Revival

The Bible Society commissioned a survey which was conducted by YouGov produced some outcomes which have been called the Quiet Revival.

 For more detail follow the link below

https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/research/quiet-revival

It seems that social media and in particular TikTok have been the medium that has been used to connect with Gen Z.  As a group we had a discussion about how social media seems to work. In particular the need for up to date and regular postings of information so that people can find an ongoing conversation.  Discussion we could only come up with 4 churches that we were sure had TikTok accounts. One particular user of social media shared the following points in their experience of social media and its use.

  • Posting must be regular
  • Reals (short videos) are the preferred media.
  • Duration of 30 to 50 seconds is optimal
  • There is a need to have a person or people who have regularly taken photos or videos
  • The preferred image is a portrait format, As the majority of the post will be viewed on a mobile phone
  • it was shared that buying clicks was a useful way of reaching people

During the discussion Community Church offered the possibility of awareness training for those who were looking to see how they could work with the social media.  Details to follow.

This Sunday Sky TV had a segment about the growth of church attendance. The link to this is below

One question that was asked queried whether social media was taking personnel moments into a vitural viral environment. This raised matters of does our safeguarding policy cover the taking of photos and videos and how do we ensure that there is the correct permissions available for people’s images to be used within the limits of GDPR.

Another discussion point was the fact that many some churches have a demographic which means that there is a low take up in the digital engagement. And the question was asked would silver surfers course be a useful tool, not only for congregational members but also support for other senior citizens.

Discipleship

Green out of the discussion about the use of social media, was a discussion about discipleship. After a animated discussion following points were highlighted

  • Everyone is a disciple maker
  • The need for something more then the weekly bible study
  • It was suggested the the use of the discovery bible study methodogy could be helpful. 
    • It appears to be used in a range of church growth approaches
    • The questions differ in various implementations of discovery Bible study
    • It is believed the original format can’t be found at the link below

The final parts of the day we’re a series of short discussions as shown below.

Effects of Covid

  • technology – good and bad
  • video streaming
    • found it very difficult
    • worked with it to maintain to continuality
  • worked at building relationship
  • Zoom allows people to stay in touch

What do you want you church to be

  1. Welcoming
  2. Place of peace
  3. Place of belonging
  4. Encounter God
  5. Fragrance of Christ

What is your Vision

  • The distinctive
  • 5 year vision ?
    • Where do we see ourselves
    • How to engage in the community
  • Spiritual growth

TT help and support