In the first episode of Connected, Ben Hollebon introduces the Digital Transformation Programme and asks a simple question: what if the administrative side of church life could be simpler?

He shares what's already working well across the Connexion -- from Zoom Bible studies to Singing the Faith Plus to the Christmas campaign resources -- and honestly acknowledges what isn't: fragmented systems, duplicated effort, and too much of people's time spent on things that could be easier.

Drawing on the first comprehensive digital audit of every Methodist church in Britain (3,726 churches, 298 circuits, 23 districts), Ben sets out the scale of the opportunity and the programme's vision: freeing up more time for mission and ministry.

This episode is for anyone who wants to understand what the programme is, why it matters, and what it means for people in churches, circuits and districts across the Connexion.

Somewhere in England a group of church members, most of them in their 80s, gather every week for Bible study on Zoom.

They started during the pandemic and kept going because it turned out to be better for them.

Nobody has to drive in the dark, people who find it hard to leave home can join.

They're confident with it and excited about it.

In another part of the Connexion, a minister has started using AI tools to help churches write grant applications,

freeing up hours of work and helping congregations access funding they'd never have applied for.

Across the Connexion, churches are using the Christmas and Easter campaign resources to do things they couldn't do on their own.

The downloads, the digital assets, the permission to adapt, that's the Connexion at its best.

A gift from the wider church that helps local churches do what they do.

These are just three examples. There are hundreds more.

People across the Methodist Church are finding creative, practical ways to serve their communities,

grow their congregations and support each other. That energy is real and it's inspiring.

But here's the thing, too much of people's time is being spent on things that could be simpler.

And that's what this podcast is about.

This is Connected, a new audio series about the Methodist Church's digital transformation programme.

I'm Ben Hollebon, and over the coming months, I want to share with you what we're doing, why we're doing it,

and most importantly, why it matters for people across the Connexion.

[Music]

Welcome to the first episode of Connected.

This is a series for anyone in the Methodist Church who wants to understand what's happening with digital transformation.

And I realise that phrase probably needs unpacking straight away because digital transformation sounds like corporate language.

It sounds like something that happens in banks and insurance companies, not churches.

So let me be clear about what I mean by it.

It's about freeing up time, giving ministers, volunteers and church officers more time for the things that actually matter,

mission and ministry, by making the administrative side of church life simpler.

That's it. That's the heart of it. This series is for ministers, stewards, treasurers, safeguarding officers, circuit administrators,

anyone who gives their time to the Methodist Church.

Whether you're comfortable with technology or whether the thought of a new system makes you anxious, this series is for you.

And I mean that. Some of the most important voices in this conversation are the people who would describe themselves as not very techie.

If that's you, please stick with me.

Before I talk about what we want to change, I want to start with what's already going well, because there's more than you might think.

I've been having conversations with district chairs, superintendents and other people across the Connexion over the past few months.

And yes, they've told me what's hard, but they've also told me what's working. And some of it is genuinely encouraging.

The property consents website, people across several districts have described it as a real success.

It's formalized a process that needed structure. It gives people a framework for thinking through what they need and it works.

It's not perfect. There are bugs and the access system can be frustrating, but the principle is sound and people value it.

That matters because it shows what well-designed digital tools can do when they're built around a real user need.

The Singing the Faith Plus website. Ministers tell me it's changed the way they prepare for worship.

Downloadable liturgies in PowerPoint and Word. Tune previews. It saves hours of work. People genuinely value it.

Zoom. The Methodist Church's negotiated Zoom license has been one of the quiet success stories of the last few years.

Bible study groups, committee meetings, pastoral conversations. People who couldn't travel can now participate.

The group I mentioned at the start aren't unusual. Zoom has brought people in who were being left out.

The Christmas and Easter campaign resources. What churches tell me is that the shift towards giving permission to adapt locally,

rather than saying do it this way, has made the resources more useful, not less. Simplicity works.

The downloadable assets give churches permission to do what they want to do.

And across the Connexion, people are solving problems creatively.

Districts sharing templates with each other. Circuit administrators building their own tracking systems.

Ministers and volunteers connecting via WhatsApp groups for peer support. The energy is there. The commitment is there.

So the question isn't whether people across the Methodist Church are capable and resourceful. They clearly are.

The question is, can we make the systems and tools around them work as hard as they do?

Because here's the honest picture. Alongside all of that creativity and commitment, people are spending a lot of their time on things that could be simpler.

The administrative burdens on churches, circuits and districts have grown steadily over the years. Safer recruitment, safeguarding training,

DBS checks, annual returns, charity reporting, GDPR compliance, property consents, employment policies.

Each of these exist for good reason. Nobody I've spoken to wants to remove safeguarding or reduce accountability.

But the way these things are managed, the forms, the records, the processes hasn't kept pace with what's being asked of people.

Records are tracked in different places, on different systems, sometimes on paper.

When a minister moves to a new circuit, information has to be manually transferred between systems that don't talk to each other.

Guidance exists, but finding the right document in the right version can take longer than the task itself.

And the people doing this work are overwhelmingly volunteers, giving their time because they care about their church.

The picture that comes through is clear. The church asks a lot of its people, and the tools we give them to do it haven't kept up.

That's not a criticism of anyone, it's just a reality. And it's something we can change.

I also want to be honest about something else. People have been let down before.

Systems replaced before the new ones were ready, transitions handled badly.

That creates a reasonable scepticism about Connexional technology initiatives, and I respect that.

This programme has to earn trust, not assume it.

Let me share some numbers to put this in context.

The Methodist Church has 23 districts, 298 circuits, and nearly 3,500 local churches.

The latest statistics for mission figures show just over 125,000 members, and around 89,000 people in worship on a typical Sunday.

Those numbers are still declining, which makes it even more important that we use people's time well.

We recently completed the first comprehensive digital audit ever done across the Connexion, looking at every district, every circuit, every church listed in the Church Finder.

Nobody had done this before, and the picture it paints is revealing.

93% of circuits have their own website. That's 276 out of 298. Significantly better than we expected.

Six districts scored as leading in our digital maturity assessment.

The districts that have invested in a dedicated digital role are the ones doing better here.

That tells us something important about where to invest.

But there are gaps. 775 churches, about one in five, have no web presence at all.

If you're looking for your local Methodist Church online, in one in five cases, you simply won't find it.

And 30% of the URLs in the Church Finder are dead links.

Though in many cases the circuit website is still alive, the link is just pointing to the wrong page.

That's fixable, and it's one of the first things we want to sort out.

More than 35 different website platforms are in use across circuits.

That's a lot of independent effort, a lot of duplication, and a lot of maintenance burden sitting on individual people.

There's an opportunity to take some of that weight off people's shoulders while keeping the local identity that matters.

So what are we trying to do here? The program's vision is straightforward.

By 2030, every Methodist minister, volunteer, and worshipper can serve, learn, give, and grow through a secure digital ecosystem, freeing up more time for mission and ministry.

That's a mouthful, so let me break it down.

A secure digital ecosystem means connected, well-designed tools that work together, protect people's data, and are accessible to everyone.

Not fragmented systems, tools that talk to each other so that when you update something in one place, it updates it everywhere it needs to.

Freeing up more time for mission and ministry.

That's the point. The technology isn't the goal.

The goal is giving people back the time they're currently spending on things that could be simpler, so they can spend more of it on what drew them to ministry and service in the first place.

This isn't about making everyone into a tech expert. It's about making the administrative side of church life work better.

So the people who give their time to this church, remarkable people doing remarkable things, can do even more.

I want to be honest about the phrase "digital transformation" because it can sound like we're just buying new software and expecting everyone just to use it, and that's not what this is.

Real transformation means rethinking how things work.

Not just digitizing a paper form and putting it on a screen, but asking why do we collect this information? Who actually needs it?

Could this process be simpler? Could the system do some of this work for us instead of relying on a volunteer to chase it manually?

It means designing around people, not around systems. Starting with the experience of the church steward, the treasurer, the minister, understanding what their week actually looks like, and working backwards to the technology.

It means building on what's already working. Zoom is a success story. The Property Consents website has shown what a well-designed tool can do. The Christmas resources demonstrate what shared, Connexional investment looks like when it works.

We build on those, not throw them away. And it means being honest about what we don't know yet.

We're in the early stages of this program. We're listening before we build. The conversations I've been having with districts and circuits are shaping our priorities, and they will continue to.

We don't have all the answers, and I'd rather be honest about that than pretend we do.

Let me be specific about what this could mean for different people. For ministers and paid staff, fewer manual tasks, better integrated systems, clearer reporting, less time transferring records between systems, more time with people.

When you move to a new circuit, your records move with you.

For volunteers and church officers, simpler, more accessible tools, less duplication, more time for the work you actually volunteered for, and proper support. Nobody expected to figure out things alone.

For churches, circuits and districts, shared platforms that reduce the local IT burden, better data so that when something changes in one place, it changes everywhere. Not depending on one person who has everything on their laptop and hoping they don't leave.

And crucially, training and support. Nobody would be expected to figure this out alone. There will be online resources, webinars, face-to-face sessions where possible, and people in your own circuit and district who can help.

That's not an afterthought. It's a core part of what we're building, and that's a promise we intend to keep.

We're in the discovery phase. That means listening, researching and understanding properly before we start building solutions.

I've had detailed conversations with district chairs and nominees in seven districts so far, with more planned across the spring.

Plus sessions with superintendents and other groups. These aren't surveys, they're proper conversations, an hour or more where I ask people to describe what their week actually looks like, and the insights are shaping everything we do.

We've completed the first comprehensive digital landscape audit of the entire Connexion. That data is now informing where we focused first.

The program's governance is in place. There's a steering group providing strategic oversight, and we're building a stakeholder reference group and a champions network.

People across the Connexion who stay close to the program help share information locally and feedback what they're hearing on the ground.

We're not rushing to build things. The biggest risk in a program like this is building the wrong thing or building the right thing in the wrong way.

Discovery first, then design, then delivery. And at every stage, the voices of the people who will actually use these tools are shaping what we do.

If anything in this episode resonated with you, I'd genuinely love to hear from you.

Visit the Digital Transformation Program page on the Methodist Church website. There's information about what we're doing and how you can share your experience.

You can visit that by going to methodist.org.uk/digitaltransformation.

If you'd like to tell us what's working, what could be better, and what would be the biggest difference in your circuit or church, you can do that through the website, or you can email me directly at [email protected].

If you're interested in joining the Champions Network, a group of people across the Connexion who stay close to the program and help share information locally, let me know.

We're looking for people from all sorts of roles and all levels of digital confidence.

And tell someone about this series. If you found it useful, chances are someone in your circuit or district would too.

That's it for the first episode of Connected. Thank you so much for listening.