In the second episode of Connected, Ben Hollebon shares what's emerging from the Digital Transformation Programme's listening exercise across the Connexion.

Since the start of March, Ben has been having long conversations with District Chairs, superintendents, circuit administrators, youth and children's workers, and people in local churches. Not surveys or consultations -- proper conversations, an hour or more, where people describe what their week actually looks like.

Without naming names, Ben describes the energy and creativity he's seeing across the Connexion, the connexional resources that are valued more than the centre realises, the administrative weight that has outgrown the tools meant to manage it, and the voices from people doing the day-to-day work that are reshaping how the programme thinks.

The episode closes with an honest invitation: if you have a story to share, please do get in touch. This programme is being built on what people across the Connexion are telling us.

In a church somewhere in the country, an administrator opens her laptop on a Monday morning and starts working through a list.

She's been doing this job for a long time. She knows everyone in her circuit.

She knows which ministers prefer email and which prefer a phone call.

She knows where the safeguarding records are because she keeps them herself in a system she built.

She knows because if she didn't, nobody would.

In another part of the Connexion, a minister gets a new appointment. He moves circuits.

The information about him, the things the new circuit needs to know, the records that should follow him, has to be retyped by someone, somewhere, into a different system.

Nobody is sure quite who or quite when. It mostly happens, sometimes it doesn't.

In another district, a district chair tells me about a moment when a member of one of her churches couldn't read the page she was trying to use on the website

because the assistive technology she relies on had stopped working.

The member is intelligent, articulate, deeply involved in church life. She just couldn't read the webpage.

I've been listening to stories like these for the last few weeks, different parts of the country, different people, different roles, but a remarkably consistent picture is emerging.

This is Connected, the audio series about the Methodist Church's Digital Transformation Programme.

I'm Ben Holleben and today I want to share what we're hearing.

[Music]

In the first episode, I talked about why this programme exists, the creativity I see across the Connexion, and the chance to make the administrative side of church life work better so people have more time for mission and ministry.

If you haven't listened to that one, I'd recommend it as a starting point.

Since then, the programme has been in what I think of as a deep listening mode.

I've been having long conversations, proper conversation, an hour or more, sometimes longer, with district chairs and superintendents across the Connexion.

I've sat with a group of circuit administrators on a video call and asked them to describe what their week actually looks like.

I've spoken with people in local churches who are quietly carrying enormous responsibility for keeping things running.

These aren't surveys, they aren't tick box consultations, they're conversations.

I ask people what they're proud of, I ask what takes up their time, I ask what they want to change, and then I mostly listen.

What I want to share today is what's emerging from that listening.

Not conclusions, it's too early for conclusions, but the picture that's starting to take shape.

I want to start somewhere positive because it's where the listening starts.

There is real energy and creativity across the Connexion.

People aren't waiting for others to fix things, they're building their own solutions.

Districts are sharing templates with each other, circuit administrators are creating tracking systems out of spreadsheets and sheer determination.

Ministers and volunteers are setting up peer support groups on WhatsApp because nobody else has built the channel they need.

The capability is there, the commitment is there, the willingness is there, the problem isn't that people aren't trying.

The problem, and this is important, is that hundreds of people are solving the same problems independently in different ways,

when a shared approach would help everyone and take a lot of weight off individual shoulders.

The second thing I want to name is that the Connexional resources we are already providing are valued more than we realise.

The Christmas and Easter campaigns, Singing the Faith Plus, the property consents work, training materials.

When these things work, they genuinely help, and people are quick to say so.

One minister told me about how much time she saves because her liturgies are downloadable in formats she can adapt locally.

That's the Connexion at its best, shared investment that helps local churches do what they do.

So the starting point is not deficit, the starting point is real strength, with some specific things that are getting in the way of it being even stronger.

Then there's the other side, the honest reality that alongside those strengths, too much time is being spent on administration that could be simpler.

The compliance demands on churches have grown steadily, and for good reason.

Nobody is questioning why safeguarding matters, nobody is questioning why accountability matters, but the way those demands are managed hasn't kept pace.

Records have to be tracked across multiple systems, guidance is hard to find or out of date, processes designed for paper have been moved online without being properly rethought.

Somebody put it to me like this, all we've done is just paper online.

That phrase has stayed with me, because it captures something important. Putting a paper form on a screen isn't digital transformation, it just shifts the burden somewhere else, often to the same people in less convenient ways.

The systems don't join up. When a minister moves circuit, information has to be manually transferred between systems that don't share data. Correspondence goes to the wrong people. Records get lost in transition.

People describe themselves as the human glue between systems, holding things together by sheer effort and goodwill.

That's not a good use of anyone's time, and it's certainly not what they signed up for.

And digital confidence varies hugely. Some people are brilliant with technology. Some are anxious about making a mistake or have tried before and been burned.

Both ends of the spectrum are real. Both deserve to be designed for. Any program that only designs for the confident will leave behind exactly the people we're meant to be helping.

One of the things I've been most struck by is who I've heard from since I last spoke to you. A few weeks ago, the listening exercise was mostly district chairs.

That made sense as a starting point. They have a perspective across many churches and circuits, and they can spot patterns.

But the picture only really comes alive when you also hear from the people doing the work day to day. I've now had conversations with a group of circuit administrators.

The people who keep the circuits running, who know everything, who do most of it themselves. The honesty in that conversation was striking. Things they couldn't say in formal meetings, things they'd been wanting somebody to ask. Patterns of communication that had landed wrong. Tools that had been launched without a thought for how they'd actually be used.

Pages on the website that had been quietly broken for months without anybody noticing because the people who needed them had simply stopped trying. I've spoken to a circuit youth and children's worker about what it looks like to do digital ministry on the ground when nobody is helping you and you're making it up as you go.

I've spoken with a digital inclusion specialist who happens to also be a Methodist Church member and who has thought more carefully about volunteer IT and trusty liability than most people in the entire system.

These are the voices I needed to hear and the voices I want to keep hearing. If we only ever build with the people in the middle of the structure, we'll keep designing for the structure rather than for the people.

Here's what gives me genuine hope. Every single person I've spoken to, without exception, wants things to be better. Nobody is cynical. Nobody is resistant to change for its own sake.

People are frustrated because the systems haven't kept up with the demands being placed on them. But they're not bitter about it. They're willing to engage with something that genuinely helps. They want to be part of the conversation.

That's a powerful starting point. You cannot transform a system if the people inside it have given up. The people inside this system have not given up. Quite the opposite.

They are running ahead in lots of ways, building what they need, sharing it with each other, helping their neighbours. Our job is to come alongside that energy, not to override it. And one more thing, something I'm only now starting to see clearly.

We are slowly gaining the ability to see the Connexion as it actually is. To know how many people are members of churches across the country. How many people are gathering for worship. Where the strengths are and where the gaps are.

Not as an annual report number rounded to the nearest thousand, but as a living picture we can refresh whenever we need to. We're not there yet, but we can see the shape of what it could look like. And it's a much more confident place to make decisions from.

So what does this mean for the programme? A few things. First, the listening continues. There are still districts I haven't spoken to. There are circuit and church voices I haven't yet heard. I'd rather take longer and get this right than rush to conclusions on incomplete evidence.

Second, the synthesis. Over the next few weeks I'll be pulling together what we've heard into a clear, honest picture. A what we heard summary that goes back to the people who shared their stories with me so they can see themselves in it and tell me where I've got it right and where I've got it wrong.

Third, the early work continues. We have small pieces of work already taking shape. Not finished products, but explorations of what better could look like. A simpler way of managing circuit information. A way to ask questions of the rules without having to read a 600 page book. Help for churches to make their online worship better.

None of these are commitments yet. They're prototypes. Ways of testing whether an idea is worth pursuing. And fourth, and this is the thing I want to keep saying every time, nothing is being built behind closed doors.

If you have a perspective, I want to hear it. If you've tried something that worked, I want to know. If you've tried something that didn't work, I especially want to know.

The more honest we are with each other, the better the programme will be.

If anything in this episode sounded familiar, if you recognise the experiences I've described, or if you've got your own perspective to share, I'd really like to hear from you.

You can email me at digitaltransformation@methodistchurch.org.uk. There's a programme page on the Methodist Church website with more information and the details are in the show notes.

In the next episode, I'll be talking about the tools and the approaches we're exploring, in plain language, without the jargon.

What could a simpler system for manage your circuit actually look like? What are we thinking about for church websites? How could the Connexion know itself better? We'll dig into that next time.

For now, thank you for listening. And thank you to the many people who have given me their time, their stories, and their honesty over the last few weeks.

This programme is being built on what you've told me. I'm grateful, and I'll keep listening.

I'm Ben Hollebon, and this is Connected.