Fruitful, Not Just Busy: Strategic Effectiveness in Parish Leadership
A CMD day for clergy with incumbent responsibility · 10.00am – 4.00pm
Most incumbents are not short of good ideas. They may be short of the focus, the time and the structures to carry a few of them through to fruitfulness. This full-day course is for clergy holding leadership responsibility in a parish or benefice who want to lead with clearer missional intent rather than being carried along by the week.
The morning sets the ground: why the urgent so reliably crowds out the important, why activity and fruitfulness are not the same thing, and how to identify the small number of goals that would make the greatest difference to your church in the coming year. The afternoon turns to implementation — limiting priorities, disciplined follow-through, measuring the actions you control rather than only the outcomes you hope for, releasing and delegating well, and shaping annual and termly rhythms that protect strategic work instead of surrendering it to the whirlwind. The day closes with unhurried time to plan.
You will leave with a focused plan for the year ahead: a limited set of priorities, the first concrete actions under each, an accountability structure to hold them, and a sustainable pattern of working to carry them.
Led by Andy Bagwell, who has worked with church leaders and teams across all denominations on organisational health and operational effectiveness since 2015, following fourteen years in senior operations roles on the leadership teams of two larger Anglican churches.
By the end of the day, participants will be able to:
- Identify the one or two missional priorities that would make the greatest difference to their church this year, and say no gracefully to the rest
- Translate those priorities into lead actions, visible progress and genuine accountability
- Design annual, termly and weekly rhythms that protect strategic and prayerful work from the daily whirlwind
- Delegate and release others more deliberately, so leadership capacity grows rather than concentrates
- Sustain personal working patterns that make long-term fruitfulness possible
Book here