Assessing the health and vitality of congregations and faith communities in the Presbytery of WA.
The Health and Vitality Toolkit seeks to establish some objective criteria which can be used by a congregation or faith community to assess where they might sit on the spectrum of Thriving, Surviving, Vulnerable or At Risk congregations or faith communities and to assist the Presbytery to provide appropriately targeted support and resources to assist wherever possible.
In developing these categories, the Presbytery acknowledges with thanks the assistance of Rev Cannon Dave Males (Church of England UK) for allowing the Presbytery to take guidance and inspiration from the document entitled: ‘Parish Health and Vitality Toolkit’ © and acknowledge copyright and ownership of the original document resides with Rev Cannon Dave Males. His toolkit suggests that parishes can be placed in the following four categories:
- Thriving (missionally strong and financially sustainable)
- Surviving (financially healthy but missionally static or weak)
- Vulnerable (missionally strong but financially weak)
- At Risk (declining missionally and financially)
While retaining these four categories, the Presbytery of WA has modified the criteria used to determine which category congregations and faith communities belong in by including signs of Congregational Vitality, alongside those of Missional Engagement and Financial Viability.
The definition the Presbytery of WA is using for these four categories is as follows:
- Thriving – Strong on Congregational Vitality, Missional Engagement and Financial Viability
- Surviving – Strong on Financial Viability but is weak on Congregational Vitality and/or Missional Engagement
- Vulnerable – Strong on Congregational Vitality and Missional Engagement but is weak on Financial Viability
- At Risk – Weak in Congregational Vitality, Missional Engagement and Financial Viability
In developing the criteria for the attached toolkit, the Presbytery has drawn on the decision of the March 2024 Presbytery meeting which outlined the requirements of congregations as set out in the Basis of Union and the Regulations.
Congregations and faith communities are encouraged to use these criteria as a self-assessment tool. No matter which category you place yourself in, the Presbytery is able to provide targeted help to assist you, so we encourage congregations and faith communities to forward their self-assessment to the Pastoral Relations Committee at [email protected] along with a copy of your Congregational Annual Report to your AGM. This tool can also be used by Presbytery committees to assist their conversations with congregations.
We hope that this will allow some guidance for objective assessment and honest conversations within congregations and between congregations and the Presbytery to discern the best way forward and how Presbytery can best assist congregations and faith communities.
Download the Health and Vitality Toolkit here: