EDGE's Signposts are independent learning opportunities for communities of faith ready to take a change journey, beginning with the first step of assessing your situation and articulating your story and culminating with a review of your changed ecosystem and framework for visioning the future. Look to the 8-part Signpost Series for assistance with (bolded titles currently available).
Signpost #1 - Finding Your Place on the Map
The Finding Your Place on the Map Signpost contains activities that help a community of faith to:
- Assess its current situation and articulate its story
- Identify and orient the team that will work together on this journey
- Recognize that its experience is part of a larger shift
- Begin to identify both the underlying issues and the shifts required for the journey
Signpost #2 - Getting Ready for the Journey
The Getting Ready for the Journey Signpost contains activities that help a community of faith to:
- Find out how God is working within it and discern potential next steps on its journey of change
- Tell its story from both the perspective of both the congregation and its wider community, and then place it within God’s larger story of work in the world
- Explore new spiritual practices as a community of faith that deepen its relationship with God
Signpost #3 - Travelling Companions
The Travelling Companions Signpost contains activities that help a community of faith to:
- Develop the capacity to initiate and to engage in new relationships in its neighbourhood
- Become aware of what’s happening in the neighborhood and to what it's being called.
- Understand what a good partnership looks like and which ones to explore?
- Decide who might be a neighbour and what it looks like to be a good neighbour?
- Gather its neighbours and unusual suspects into a conversation about common goals and the abundance that everyone involved brings to collectively achieve them.
Signpost #4 - Innovation Cohort
The Innovation Cohort Signpost contains activities that help a community of faith to:
- Reflect on how innovation is ministry
- Determine the components of a good idea and how to create a good idea
- Consider why church is gifted to do this work (or not)
- Understand the nature of collaboration and its critical role in the process of innovation
- Understand ‘nothing about us without us’ and social justice
- Learn about the stages of an idea and how to get it off the ground
- Learn how to validate a good idea
- Identify where God is in this work and reflect upon Jesus as an entrepreneur (the creative!)
- See new ways to move towards greater justice and identify gifts that make this possibility a reality
Signpost #5 - Marketing and Communications
The Marketing and Communications Signpost contains activities that help a community of faith to:
- Build out its confidence that its story is worth telling, and practice its storytelling.
- Focus on its offering and grow into its "how" and "what" of the story, recognizing how critical it is to build this skill as a story people
- Incorporate storytelling into qualitative and quantitative pieces of our stories, adding credibility to its work.
Signpost #6 - Building Sustainability
The Building Sustainability Signpost contains activities that help a community of faith to:
- Think differently and critically about how it works in relationship to its neighbourhood
- Fill a deep yearning, common in communities of faith across the network, to be relevant in its community and a backbone organization in its neighbourhood as it becomes increasingly vibrant.
- Support the fundamental tools it needs to start along this path
Signpost # 7 - Future Directions
The Future Directions Signpost outlines a dreaming and strategic planning process that help a community of faith to:
- Create a space to discover what might be possible in its context
- Start building the skills that will enable it to flex creative muscles
- Rediscover its purpose, mission, and vision
- Consider its short-term and long-term goals?
- Discuss its strengths and weaknesses?
- Examine opportunities that it might not have considered before
- Take its learning and exploring back to stakeholders?
- Ensure that all contributed ideas truly reflect the direction in which it sees itself moving in the future
- Explore best practices that other communities of faith have found useful as they’ve considered moving in new directions?
In Case of Emergency
Part 1
Part 2
"In Case of Emergency" is a an emergency toolkit containing information for communities of faith in crisis looking for quick, easily-implemented tools and strategies to pivot in a new direction (some available with EDGE support and/or coaching), including:
- Learning about the Community and Building Relationships --> Partner and Stakeholder Analysis, Community Round Table, Prayer Walks
- EDGE Educational and Engagement Opportunities --> Cohorts, Idea Day, EDGE Town Hall Discussions
- Other Resources --> Grants, Other Educational Opportunities, Potential Partnerships
Why the Signpost Series?
Flexible --> Signposts may be taken in sequence or as standalone courses, can be started at any time, and completed at your leisure.
Well-Supported --> Perfect for communities of faith looking for a new direction, especially with support from EDGE's other offerings (Curiosity Cohort, Leading Adaptively Cohort, Theory of Change Workshop, Idea Days, Coaching.)
Economical --> Facilitation by an EDGE coach raises the cost of Signposts, but at base none of them are over $100; see individual Signposts for pricing details. If you require a scholarship or you're an Embracing the Spirit Grant recipient, please contact Sarah at slevis@united-church.ca to talk about payment options.
In Case of Emergency Part 1
This 2-part Signpost is for communities of faith that are considering closing and disbanding. In this part, you'll learn about steps you should consider taking to see if a process of rejuvenation and refreshment can get your community of faith headed in the direction you'd like to see it go, before it seriously starts to consider the disbandment process. The messages to keep in mind as you and your community of faith's leadership team go through Part 1: "Are we ready to give up just yet? To what are we willing to say 'Yes, and..? What do we discern as God's will for our way forward?" These are not always easy questions to answer. We'll be considering a number of ideas, resources, and even looking briefly at a couple of processes.
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 5 hours
In Case of Emergency Part 2
This 2-part Signpost is for communities of faith that are considering closing and disbanding. In this part, you'll learn about steps you should consider taking to if you've decided that a process of rejuvenation and refreshment won't produce the outcomes required to keep your community of faith open, and that you want to proceed with closure and disbandment. You'll learn about what you should take into consideration before making a decision, but you should have already gone through Part One of this Signpost and seriously looked into what was presented there.
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 5 hours
Signpost Bundle
Is your community of faith ready to go on a change journey? EDGE's Signposts are independent learning opportunities for communities of faith ready to take a change journey, beginning with the first step of assessing your situation and articulating your story and culminating with a review of your changed ecosystem and framework for visioning. Access them in a bundle and get 30% off!
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 5 hours per module
Community Engagement Events
This bonus Signpost talks about the importance of community engagement and examines the Community Innovation Challenge and Community Round Table. Communities of faith can use these tools to find out what's happening in the neighbourhood around them, discern what its needs are, and identify who wants to help. They can then create partnerships with individuals, people and businesses interested in working collaboratively to make a positive impact in the neighbourhood. Get ready to learn how intentional community engagement can make your community of faith a powerful agent of change!
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 5 hours
Finding Your Place on the Map
This course is designed to help communities of faith facing challenges or barriers take the first steps on a change journey. Participants will learn to assess and contextualize their current situation and to build a leadership team to address issues. You'll see that a way forward is possible!
"Finding Your Place on the Map" is the first of of EDGE's "Signposts", but can be taken at any point in the series or as a stand-alone course.
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 5 hours
Getting Ready for the Journey
Now that you and your leadership team have gone through Signpost #1 - You Are Here: Help!, are you wondering about the next step in your community of faith's pathway to change? Use this Signpost to help you and your community of faith get ready to begin a journey of curiosity and learning that will steer it toward a new future.
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 5 hours
Travelling Companions
Now that you and your leadership team have gone through the first two Signposts, you are ready for the next step in your community of faith's pathway to change – Signpost #3: Travelling Companions. This Signpost's theme is Community and Partnerships.
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 5 hours
Innovation Cohort
Is your community of faith interested in innovation? Is it:
- Wanting to learn about new ideas of what church can be
- Curious about its options and possibilities for new directions
- Open to new partnerships and collaboration opportunities with other churches and community organizations.
Use this Signpost, the fourth in EDGE's Signpost Series, to explore how innovative action can take your community of faith in new directions that benefit both it and the community around it, and take another step on the pathway to change.
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 10 hours
Marketing and Communication
If your community of faith doesn't tell its story, how will people know about what you have to offer? Learn how your community of faith can:
- Clarify its offering and build confidence in its ability to deliver it
- Tell story in compelling ways
- Develop a communication plan that meets the needs of diverse stakeholders
- Gather other people's stories to help frame and develop and frame its ministry
- Create a Theory of Change to help with planning, implementing, and evaluating programs
""Marketing and Communication"" is #5 of EDGE's ""Signposts"", but can be taken at any point in the series or as a stand-alone course.
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 5 hours
Building Sustainability
"Building Sustainability" is designed to help communities of faith learn skills, through the use of readings, videos, discussion forums and reflective questions, that:
- Encourage them to think differently and critically about how they are working in relationship to their neighbourhoods.
- Address a deep yearning in communities of faith across the network to be relevant in their communities and a backbone organization in their neighbourhoods as they become increasingly vibrant.
- Support the fundamental tools that communities of faith need to start along this path.
"Building Sustainability" is #6 of EDGE's "Signposts", but can be taken at any point in the series or as a stand-alone course.
Class Structure:
Individual Study: 10 hours