Welcome to the Gray Matrix
Need some help in understanding your ministry and moving it forward?
The Gray Matrix is a valuable tool that will help get that process underway… It has been around for a long time yet still proves to be useful in a wide range of Christian ministry contexts – communications, training, church activities, developing new strategies – and provoking constructive thinking on how we as Christians do ministry in this 21st century.
The Gray Matrix Handbook will get you started
Ministry Development and Networking
The Gray Matrix provides an excellent starting point for planning new ventures and ministries. It also highlights the importance of networking as we partner with others who are like-minded and share a similar vision…
The Matrix Approach
We have to avoid jumping into new ventures without having properly done our homework….
The Gray Matrix has proved to be an extremely helpful tool for understanding and explaining the long journey that families with little or no church background are commencing when they start coming to Messy Church and find themselves experiencing and exploring Christian faith in community through crafts, worship and prayer.
We have often gratefully referred to the Gray Matrix when explaining to impatient church leaders, and treasurers and others why it may take much longer than six months to see people converted, baptised and becoming disciples through Messy Church.
I’m grateful to have this tool and framework available in the workshop. It’s been a very useful popular approach to starting discussions among production teams, about how their content connects with their audience. The feedback I’ve received from teams across multiple workshops regularly highlight how valuable the Gray Matrix has been to create future content for impact on their audiences.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Gray Matrix Good For?
It has a number of uses but three of the main ones are:
1. Understanding our audience, 2. Planning new ministries and 3. Diagnostic – evaluating impact of our current ministries
Are there other Journeys?
The Gray Matrix draws a distinction between two of our primary journeys through life – our Head Journey (what we know) and our Heart Journey (our relationships, attitude and openness to change). We might also want to consider the educational journey, or our career paths and the impact these have had on us. There are more…
Could there be a third axis?
The Gray Matrix focuses on two primary axes – the horizontal x-axis (openness to change) and the vertical y-axix (knowledge) . If we were to add a third z-axis what would that represent? We are currently exploring this. Why not join the discussion?
How Does the Work of the Holy Spirit fit in?
Our reading of the New Testament suggests that the Holy Spirit is a continung presence who makes himself known to us and guides us along life’s pathway. This means that the Holy Spirit plays an active part in our lives, helping us understand God and opening up our attitudes and relationships. The work of the Spirit cannot be quantified or measured. So we take the Holy Spirit as a given.
What about Behavioural change and Actions?
Our behaviour is an indicator of our values and the underlying beliefs we hold. There is strong support for the suggestion that the third axis – if there were one – would indicate behaviour. The discussion is on-going and we invite you to be part of it…