Members keen to engage with Way Forward project

Close to 400 people from across the LCANZ recently attended Way Forward webinars in which three ‘one church, two practices of ordination’ frameworks were introduced.

The project management team was thrilled with the level of participation and engagement at the webinars and with the project overall.

‘We’re excited about the response to our first Way Forward webinars, where we introduced the three frameworks’, project director Stella Thredgold said.

‘Thank you to everyone who attended and those who raised questions. There were so many great questions that some couldn’t be answered at the time. We are working through responding and updating our Questions and Answers section on the website.

‘We are so pleased with the level of engagement overall, which increased steeply with the release of Bishop Paul’s call to prayer video in late September, which to date has had almost 2000 individual views and 890 downloads.

‘Thank you so much for your participation. It’s not the project team who will find the best way forward; it’s the collective insights and feedback from the people across our church – people like you.

‘We want every member of the church to know what is happening, so they can consider the options and contribute to the project. We encourage people across the church to continue to provide feedback, particularly through the channels on the three framework webpages, which can be accessed from the Way Forward landing page (www.lca.org.au/wayforward).’

Since the General Church Board and College of Bishops’ release of the three frameworks, the Way Forward working groups have been generating more detail on each.

Stella said there was a lot of work to be done to understand each shortlisted framework in more detail. ‘This is a challenging process as different perspectives and diverse thinking are brought to the table’, she said. ‘However, it displays positive intent and an ability to work together with diverse views and an aligned focus on the future of our church.’

The project team is continuing to support the working groups and to ensure the process of deciding on one framework continues to be robust and assesses all relevant factors for a well-thought-out recommendation to go to General Synod in October 2024.