Connected: Episode 5 — What You Told Us

In the fifth episode of Connected, Ben Hollebon marks a milestone — the publication of the programme's Master Discovery Report — and walks through what the listening surfaced.

In June, the Digital Transformation Programme published its Master Discovery Report: the full, single record of everything heard across the discovery phase. It went up on the Methodist website for anyone to read, and was sent directly to everyone who took part.

Ben opens with the scale of the listening — over 100 in-depth conversations, more than 300 survey voices, seventeen of the twenty-three districts reached at Chair level, and all twenty-three engaged in some way. Then he sets out the report's five headline findings, each traced back to what real people said: people are the glue holding disconnected systems together; the church on our screens isn't always the church we hold on record; compliance is eating the time meant for mission; the Connexion is already adapting, with paid lay "operations" roles appearing in five districts independently; and adoption, not technology, is the hard part.

He's honest about what the report doesn't yet capture — younger voices, ordinary members, Black-majority and diaspora congregations, and four districts not reached directly — and about the move from discovery into design, framed by five areas offered as possibilities to shape rather than promises.

If there's a perspective you'd like to add — especially if you're one of the voices we've heard less from so far — please contact us.