Can Methodism learn from the NHS?

Part of the government’s health and social care initiative was designed to free up commissioning and provision to create a far more responsive environment for the provision of care. Simon Stevens the new NHS England CEO has taken this on board and is challenging some of the perceived wisdom of the past. In particular the belief that bigger is necessarily better. He has the encouraged the focus on quality as well as efficiency with the emphasis on celebrating what is done well. In a recent interview commenting on the deployment of consultants Simon Stevens said, “..attaching our staffing to our bricks and mortar and to our traditional ways of doing things has got us to a very ossified set of services in particular places. And there is no God given reason why that should be true, and it’s actually in our gift to do something different.” see comment here

As a church we are very structure bound which sometimes limits creativity. There have been attempts to free up structures, ministers and ministry in order to be more creative, for example releasing some individuals to be pioneer ministers. Venture FX However, the default model is most likely to be the one experienced. This is particularly so in rural and small town churches which, as the Statistics for Mission report informs us, makes up 50% of the church attendance. In my experience the default model for Leadership in this context is a presbyter with 3 or more congregations trying to meet the needs of those churches as best they can. You will immediately want to challenge me about the assumption that it is presbyters who give leadership to the local church and I want to agree with you – it is the local church council that is empowered to lead. However, I observe the reality to be different from the theory. How can we empower rural and small town churches to be more creative and in the words of Simon Stevens  - to do something different?

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