Kairos and its impact on the parish

Kairos logo


Kairos is the name of the Bishop of Portsmouth's initiative that aims to create throughout the diocese a Church that is more community oriented, has a deeper spiritual understanding, but is leaner in its structures (including fewer clergy) so it can respond more quickly to new opportunities.

Kairos builds on the Stepping-Out programme of 2002 devised by Ian Jagger, a former Team Rector of this Parish. The purpose of the Kairos process is to look more deeply at how we can create a strategic future in our mission. It is really a vision for the future of the diocese.

As a church we have to adapt to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Kairos attempts to refocus our priorities to make all our churches relevant to our communities and more flexible. In essence it's about change!

During the latter part of 2004 and the early months of 2005, Parishes in the Deanery worked together to produce a cluster plan for future action.

The Parish plan

There is a clear opportunity for us to engage more actively with our neighbours. However we need the whole parish to have the appetite to get involved. To do nothing is not an option. Both national and local government now invite and support churches involvement in community schemes.

We are fortunate in that having the St Columba development Project underway, we have already started to think about the issues that Kairos raises.

The Parish initiatives still have to be formally approved but are likely to be based on the Network Fareham agreed aims because they fit in with the aims of the St Columba development.

Network Fareham has identified certain areas which can be tackled relatively quickly.

The St Columba Steering Group think we can probably respond to three out of the ten areas that Network Fareham has targeted. (It is far better for us to try to improve things in a few areas than to spread ourselves too thinly and fail).

Those three areas are:

The St Columba site will have a small block of flats as part of the development. This will go a small way to alleviating the housing shortage in the town. Our plans envisage that the new facilities adjoining the church will cater for both young and old and have people ready to assist with debt advice on the doorstep instead of having to travel into Fareham.

Fareham Deanery Plan