We have been invited to contribute towards a listening process taking place across the Church of England in Leicestershire. This is particularly about people’s experiences during lockdown and the ongoing pandemic restriction.
We’d love to hear your stories and they will be heard as part of a wide conversation, which will shape the Diocese of Leicester in the years to come.
It will take about 10 minutes, and you can submit more than one story if you like. We have been specifically asked to gather 50 stories from our benefice, so please, please get involved.
We want contributions from all ages within the church family – so you might like to help others to tell their story.
Please contribute prayerfully and pray for all those involved in listening to the stories and acting on what God is teaching us during this time.
If you are not confident using the internet form, please email your submission to the church office or call Charlie for help.
We need to gather 50 submissions before the end of the week.
A Fuller Explanation
As part of the recently launched “Shaped by God Together” process, our Bishops Martyn & Guli have issued a Call for Prayer, and an invitation to discern together how God is reshaping his church in these days, and contribute as we plan for the future.
Your role in this is vital and alongside praying we want to invite you to share your own stories of church, faith and the experience of following Jesus, in the last 6 months during this turbulent time of Covid, lockdown(s) and significant disruption.
The ‘Gathering Stories, Generating Insights’ process uses a storytelling inquiry model. We are gathering stories across the diocese so that we can reflect and discern our future direction. We had originally intended to carry out this process over a much longer timescale, but Covid-19, the associated impacts of the lockdown(s) on our society and economy have caused us to move faster than anticipated.
Thus, we are focussing on our experience of being members of a community of faith throughout the lockdown(s) imposed as a result of Covid-19 and seeking to discover how we can carry our learning and experiences forward into the future, whilst honouring all that has gone before.
You can contribute very easily by clicking on the link below and sharing a story, anecdote or example in response to one of 3 simple questions. It will take you about 10 minutes. You don’t need to tell a long or complex story – in fact the shorter and simpler contributions work best in this process – imagine being at a social or a family event and you are sharing an experience.
We are very keen to hear from as wide a range of people as possible. We all know that many people in our churches do not, for whatever reason, participate in these sorts of discussions normally. So, we do need to be specifically approaching individuals to invite them to take part. We are particularly keen to hear from young people (11-18), young adults (18-24), people of BAME heritage and those from more deprived communities – but there is really no restriction – we want to hear from as many people as possible – and you can tell more than 1 story.
A full explanation of the process is on the Diocesan website here.
