Rev Daniel Bullock presented the 2022 BUV Strategic Direction at the recent October Members’ Meeting:

In determining the BUV strategy for 2022, the BUV Support Hub Leadership Team undertook a four-step process

• Firstly, observation and engagement
• Secondly we completed a Discernment process
• thirdly, we reviewed the Flourishing Church survey results
• And lastly, we reviewed our previous year strategy,

Observation and engagement

Each year, our BUV Support Hub staff are in continual contact with churches and pastoral leaders through the year, both understanding the landscape and engaging and observing the impact of BUV support and services.

Discernment process

The discernment process we worked through this year was based on a series of question from Scott Cormode’s book “The Innovative Church”. These were the questions:

• Who are the people entrusted to our care? Who are you serving?       
• How do these people experience the longings and losses that make up the human condition?
• What big lies do your people believe that prevent them from hearing the gospel?
• How do you make spiritual sense of those longings and losses?
• How do you express that spiritual meaning as a shared story of hope?

We sought input to these discernment questions from Union Council, Leadership Team all BUV Support Hub staff and some LOTE generations leaders.

Flourishing Church survey results

We then carefully reviewed the feedback from our first year of the Flourishing Church survey. We recognize that this year being the first year of the Flourishing Church Survey hasn’t been the best indicator, when churches have not been able to meet together in person, and that in reality 2022 may be a better and more realistic measure.  But we will use 2021 Flourishing Church results as a baseline and build on this as we go forward.

 The Flourishing Church graphic you can see here indicates close to the centre of each pie piece the percentage of churches who rated themselves as Flourishing (HIGH or ABOVE). Areas that rated highest were Innovation (in part due to COVID 19 pivoting), Partnerships, Structure and processes, Hospitality and Engagement. Congratulations on doing so well in these areas.  The areas with lower numbers will be areas of focus for us on our 2022 plans – of particular note, Leadership and Evangelism, which will have been largely impacted by COVID restrictions.

Review of 2021 strategy

Lastly, and in conjunction with the previous 2 steps, we reviewed our 2021 strategy, priorities and team plans to determine what needed to continue, what could be taken off the priority list and instituted into our regular program, and what needed to be added. 

So for 2022, The BUV Mission, Vision and Strategic Focus areas remain the same

• Two of our lenses have been slightly extended
• Cultural lens – extended to be interpreted in a broader sense (ethnicity, church size, geographic location – ie regional, country, metro)
• Digital lens – covers both hybrid and digital church models, as well as utilising all digital platforms that make our BUV services and resources more accessible

Our Priorities for each Strategic Focus Area have been developed  – I won’t read all of these out in detail but they are available for you to read in the Members Pack.

There are however a couple of things I do want to touch on and highlight in our plans for 2022

• Professional Supervision for all Pastors will be implemented across the BUV over the next couple of years – this is based on a recommendation from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and you will receive further information as to what is required over the course of the next 6 months.
• Intentional development of Leaders – from the Flourishing Church survey results, we noted that Leadership was an area that was rated fairly low, with only 36% of churches indicating they felt their leadership was flourishing (with high or above rating). Not only will the BUV Support Hub be focusing on providing leadership training opportunities but we will also be encouraging churches to ensure that intentional leadership training for pastoral staff is prioritized.
• Sifting and Rebuilding – Until we get through these next few months, we really don’t know what the impact of the last 2 years will be either in the short or long term. I believe 2022 will be a year for churches to sift through the rubble to determine the impact of COVID and plan a way forward.  We want to assist churches in this process and help to rebuild or reimagine.  Just one of the ways we can do this is through our Mission Catalyst Revitalize programme – revitalizing church vision & mission through congregation-wide forums.