As the Dean of Liverpool, Justin Welby, prepares to leave Merseyside to become Bishop of Durham, he spoke of the need to continue to focus on growth in his future Diocese.
Justin, whose final service as Dean will be on Sunday (2nd October 2011), explains,
The business of growth encompasses growth in depth of spirituality, growth in engagement with communities and many other things, but in this context I mean growing numbers. If the Church is to meet the challenges of today – not least those that are posed by government funding cuts – we have to have more people on the ground. Jesus spoke of praying for people to go out into the harvest. The fields are white for harvest and we haven't got enough people to get out there.
As he bids farewell to the Diocese of Liverpool, Justin hails it as a leading light in its approach to pioneering new forms of church.
I have learned a great deal here, and especially from Bishop James,
he says.
I think he's someone who has – with a good deal of questioning in a very affirming but very, very challenging way – worked away at developing fresh expressions. The Diocesan Secretary, whole senior staff team and clergy across the Diocese have seen this as something that's important.
One of the good things about Liverpool is that they haven't thought, 'OK we'll plug fresh expressions in and then everything will be solved.' Because it isn't. But, on the other hand, they haven't said, 'Well because it's not a black box which would solve all our problems we won’t do it.'
He credits Liverpool's achievements to a willingness to ask 'quite difficult questions' about what the results of any such efforts should be.
It's an approach that helps to avoid misconceptions as to what is being attempted.
Fresh expressions is increasingly a technical phrase and it's a misused one,
he adds.
It's one that's being used so widely that it often becomes meaningless. You end up… where everything is a fresh expression of something and therefore nothing is.'
In acknowledging that Durham Diocese has some of the lowest churchgoing in the country, he warns against seeing the development of fresh expressions as a 'cure all'.
He explains,
Fresh expressions of church are something that need to be calibrated and thought through very carefully rather than just done ad hoc as a sort of knee jerk reaction when we need to have a fresh expression. You need to ask yourself, 'What do I mean by that?', 'Is it genuinely a fresh expression?' 'What's it trying to achieve; in what way does it add to the work of the Church and the Kingdom of God in the area?'
When asked what he will do as Bishop, his answer is that he will pray a lot, listen a lot and test out some principles including,
If fresh expressions is not at its heart involving an encounter with Christ then I’m not remotely interested.
However, mixed economy working already looks set to be high on the agenda after his consecration on 28 October at York Minster and enthronement at Durham Cathedral on 26 November.
He explains why mixed economy is so important to him,
I think partly because historically the church has always operated mixed economy when it was at its best. If you go back to the Middle Ages the great growth of the monastic movement was essentially a mixed economy, Benedict was a fresh expression in his day. So there's nothing new about the mixed economy idea. Mixed economy is essential because it gives the balance between what Benedict called stability – a location in place and nature – with the catalyst of an openness to the Spirit of God doing new things. And we need both.
Without stability you end up just following fashion, Benedict knew that very well, and without the catalyst of the Spirit you end up just becoming utterly embedded and unable to move in what you’ve always done.
The initiative is generally reaching folk who are 'coming back to church' after a while away but we are also seeing a small number of completely unchurched people coming to faith as well.
In the summer we hold an outdoor community event. This year it took the form of an Inflatables Day at the Carlton Boulevard sports ground. We had Sumo suits, bungee run, inflatable boxing ring, gladiator duel and a bouncy castle alongside a free BBQ – the event attracted over 500 people. As well as providing a great community event for the Carlton area, the aim was to publicise a Christian youth event called 'The Bank' at the Lincoln City football ground. We also hosted two special Christians in Sport evenings at Yarborough Leisure Centre and hundreds of flyers were given out.
From October we will begin meeting every week with a whole-church joint celebration at Eastgate at the end of every month. We will also have the opportunity to come together once a month for an evening Praise & Prayer meeting.
I went to a Deanery Chapter meeting where someone from the outlying villages talked about their monthly Breakfast Church. What a great idea I thought – I can nick that! So I discussed it with my wife Sandra and Children's Worker, Sharon, and we worked with a design agency on a logo. It was then that Sandra came up with the name Breakfast@9, deliberately not mentioning 'church' because we didn't want to put people off. We also decided that rather than re-instituting the 8am Book of Common Prayer service every week – which had become monthly during the interregnum – we should instead hold a new service at 9am in our Church Centre and call it Breakfast@9.
So far, it's going a storm with whole families coming regularly, about 40 to 50 parents and children each week. In the first week of August, traditionally such a quiet time, we peaked at 67 mums, dads and their children.
GLO's commissioning service took place at All Saints and it was great to see it publicly welcomed by vicar Ian Parkinson; Alan Bell, Rural Dean of Stockport; Mrs Lois Haslam, lay chair of Stockport Deanery Synod – as well as a local police inspector and a community worker.
We meet for worship on a Sunday afternoon in a local primary school but GLO Church is offering lots of different sorts of opportunities to be involved in it and build community as a result. One such opportunity is The Young Mums Way – a group for Offerton mums under 21 years old. It runs every Wednesday afternoon during term time at a local Children's Centre.
In August we organised a Serve Week so that we could serve the community of Offerton through things like car washing, gardening, litter picking and sorting The Garage. We feel very privileged to be working alongside the police and the council; they are extremely supportive of GLO. We were invited as 'stakeholders' in Offerton to be part of a meeting with all of the interested agencies to look at the Urban Priority Area plan. I was amazed to see that all of the Plan's aims could clearly be seen as signs of God's Kingdom. It was also amazing to know that we arrived just as the local authority started to draw in the community's 'leaders' to change the face of this area and improve it as a place to live. They know that we at GLO are an extremely motivated volunteer force and that has to be a good thing! We've had the opportunity to pray and talk with council workers; I would never have expected that.
Another very positive step forward has been the approval of our application for charitable status. We have also had planning permission granted for a coffee shop; the idea being to establish GLO Coffee as a place in the heart of Offerton for people to gather as community, train for employment, provide internet access for homework clubs and more. We're just waiting to see what's going to happen with the extremely run down precinct where the coffee shop would be. There are all sorts of discussions going on as to its future and we want to be wise as to the right thing to do next.
The Lab was initiated by the Bishop of Monmouth five years ago in order to develop a church community of students and young adults in Newport who would otherwise not have contact with a traditional parish church. It involved trying to be church in a different way. At first we used to meet in a pub but now our gathering takes place on Sunday evenings in the hall of St Paul's City Centre Church in Newport City Centre. We also have a weekly community meal in which people take it in turns to cook and serve each other.
For instance, the parents of younger children in the area asked us if we could run some sort of summer holiday club. We did, and lots of families came along to join in. As a result we've had a lot more contact with the mums and dads.
One of the challenges we have encountered is people being interested in spirituality and faith – but as individuals not as part of a group. We think that perhaps this is the direction youth culture is going, as we seem to be meeting lots of young people whose reliance is not on a particular friendship group.