April 2012 - FX ARCHIVE...

Living Place Project

Revd Chris Lewis tells how Mount Zion Baptist Chapel has turned a piece of its ground into a training garden as part of a Living Place Project. This project is generating 'spin offs' which are helping Chapel members to begin reconnecting with the community.

Mount Zion is still called 'the Mission'. Founded after World War I as a daughter church of a nearby Welsh language chapel, Mount Zion was designed to have a more missionary emphasis in catering for the growing English-speaking population of this part of east Swansea.

Like many chapels it dwindled but about three years ago we had an opportunity to apply for funding from the Welsh Government to improve the overgrown and rubbish-strewn area behind the chapel to make a training garden. This would be used to encourage people in our relatively deprived area to grow their own vegetables and improve their diets.

Working on the garden caught the imagination of a local secondary school head teacher. Soon, parties of young people began to get involved as part of the 'community service element' in their Welsh Baccalaureate programme. Some came in their own time and have since started attending our fairly informal Sunday afternoon services.

The garden has taken three years to create and now further funding from Health Challenge Wales will enable us to run courses linked with it. Local adults who were previously involved with Mount Zion through Girls and Boys Brigade hold it in some affection and the word is gradually getting around that the apparently quiet little chapel is still alive.

There are not many of us – we make double figures on a good day – but we're beginning to be approached about hosting community events. These include a performance of short plays written by the school pupils, a craft evening, a community archive evening and a 'visioning workshop' by the Transition Swansea organisation. We hope we might also become an outlet for the Trussell Trust food bank.

Slowly but steadily our network is re-growing. Our approach is not about preaching but it is about incarnation, befriending and responding. Incarnational ministry is reflected in our immersion in, and solidarity with, the area and its distinctive culture. Our pattern of ministry draws on the values of service represented in the church. One member, for instance, is a long serving councillor while others have had trade union and other community connections.

Our project definitely has a missional purpose but exactly how it will work out is not clear yet. The base is a small and traditional Welsh chapel congregation which may continue in parallel with a new congregation. To some extent, we are legally constrained by our governing document (the Baptist Union model document) but there are clauses within it which encourage the advancement of education and befriending of young people; it's on the basis of these that we're going ahead with this particular aspect of the work. Our underlying strategy is incarnational and is not necessarily therefore aimed at creating an institution but to be, in some sense, transformational in the lives of those associated with it. Transition Swansea recognises our project as one run on Transition principles – and its members, with or without church connections, visit us.

The result might be a classed as a 'para church'. As someone who spent a considerable part of my ministry in what used to be called 'Industrial Mission', I am reminded of the work of Ted Wickham as Industrial Chaplain in the Diocese of Sheffield many years ago. The then-Bishop of Sheffield, Leslie Hunter, had appointed Ted Wickham to further the Bishop's "vision of a revitalised Church and a Church re-established among the industrial working class."

Ted gathered together working people who were alienated from the institutional church. Their meetings were informal and he used to say that the job of the church was not to fish in the dirty waters of the world in order to transfer people to the clean waters of the church but to work to clean up the dirty waters.

That is what we are doing here In Swansea. According to government indices, we are operating in what is recognised as a deprived area. The training garden aims to address some of the resulting issues and later this year we hope to add the food bank. We are also looking to try and find opportunities for our growing number of teenagers to express themselves in arts and performance as they have a lot of interest, quite a bit of talent and a great deal of goodwill!

(CEN) Stepping out in faith

Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, Bishop Graham Cray, says there is often a reality gap between the language of pilgrimage and the experience of sitting in the same place doing the same things inside a church building each Sunday.

The Church is intended to be a pilgrim people, continually on the move in response to the call of Jesus to deeper discipleship and missionary engagement. The Church of Scotland report Church Without Walls described it as people with Jesus at the centre travelling wherever Jesus takes us.

Now Wood Green Mennonite Church, London, is giving this theological language new meaning by piloting a 'walking' fresh expression. Phil Wood, a member of Wood Green, explains how the monthly church is a mixture of walking, talking, prayer, liturgy and meditation.

We've had to take a close look at what we understand by the term, Walking Church. There are plenty of organisations for Christian walkers and many churches have walking groups but we are not looking at an ecumenical 'fellowship' made up of Christians who walk in their spare time but a church that walks! Imagine a congregation where the essential elements of church – mission, sacraments, worship and the Word – primarily take place on the move or in the context of hospitality along the way. The idea is to create a community of faith where the heartlands of 'church' happen in the course of walking.

My congregation at Wood Green caught the vision and, following an Epping Forest taster last autumn, we pulled on our backpacks for a full-blown 2012 pilot. We're walking four London locations this year with walks arranged for the final Sunday morning of the month, changing location every quarter. Every walk has a leader responsible for a theme and three or four reflections. We walk, eat, listen, meditate, pray and sometimes sing – though the latter is a topic of discussion. It also involves hospitality – whether in homes, pubs or cafes. Each time we learn a little more.

In February, I joined others on a walk between Highgate and Alexandra Palace. Wayne Hostetler led it on the theme of 'perspective' and there were some splendid views of north London to illustrate the point. We talked about the panorama from Alexandra Palace with the City skyscrapers to inner-city Tottenham and the 'smudge' of Epping Forest – all that poverty and power cheek by jowl. Since then, we have also tackled the 4.5 miles Parkland Walk in London's largest nature reserve following the old railway line from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace.

Where do we go next with this idea? We are trying to get our priorities right and inclusiveness is a challenge. How do we accommodate 'serious' ramblers, not-so-serious amblers, exponents of 'walking meditation' and pilgrimage and those walking for health and ecological awareness? Also, how do we go about youth and children's work and what provision are we making for those with limited mobility?

I see Walking Churches as having enormous mission potential. According to the Mission-shaped Church report, 20% of the UK population is involved in walking as a leisure activity – a figure just slightly lower than that of the entire British churchgoing constituency. There are 139,000 members in the Ramblers (formerly the Ramblers Association) alone. In large areas of Britain there are more people out walking on a Sunday than going to worship.

Of course, there are a number of potential pitfalls for Walking Church – with one of the most obvious being the weather! Although the main activity would obviously be walking there is clearly a need for some time indoors as well as outdoors – as long as this doesn't undermine the nature of the church. Hospitality is the bridge to providing this support, especially where a Walking Church is linked to an existing congregation. However, there's nothing to say that hospitality needs to be in a church building; it could be in a pub, a home, a youth hostel or any number of other locations. I believe the cell church model – with some adaptation – offers the best insights for structuring walking churches. I have been thinking too as what might be possible as Walking Church develops. Here are some of the early thoughts:

a link with a Tourist Information Centre;

launching Walking Church via a long distance path such as the Pennine Way or the Ridgeway, perhaps involving people from different churches along the route;

offers a natural window into powerful expressions of social justice in identification with the stranger, the homeless and the refugee;

Walking Church ‘guidebooks’ could be an exercise both in devotional and travel writing;

play a significant role in extremely rural communities;

could walk 'home or away' (i.e. near or far away from where most members live) or it might draw members from a wide area based on a network connection. So, a Walking Church might have a close association with one locality or much more of a network focus.

We're learning something about evangelism in the values driving this particular fresh expression. One of our walkers likes us because we don't 'proselytise', instead we 'reflect'. Are we too peaceable to share faith? I hope not – but our message isn't 'become like us and you will be saved'. We are 'peace church'. Yes, words are important, but mostly peace is in the pace. It's easier to listen at three miles per hour.

Church for Every Context: An Introduction to Theology and Practice

Fresh expressions of Church are one of the most important developments within the contemporary church. There has been – and continues to be – much learning about how to plant fresh expressions of church in contemporary culture and about theological resources to support this. This is the first textbook that reflects this learning.

Church for Every Context, written by Michael Moynagh, addresses the theology and methodology of fresh expressions and church planting. Topics include ecclesiology, fresh expressions in the New Testament, social forces behind fresh expressions today, theologies to underpin fresh expressions, how fresh expressions develop, the missional dynamics involved, discipleship, worship and how fresh expressions can be sustained and supported.

Michael Moynagh has written an indispensable book on contextual church planting and renewal. We have needed a book like this for some time now – a historical, theological, and sociological guide to new expressions of faith within Western culture. This is not a 'how-to' book on church renewal and planting techniques – anything but. Moynagh does so much more than play with church forms and encourage consumer analysis. Moynagh's approach to new expressions of church is theologically rich and missiologically astute, revealing a systematic way to think about church in a post-Christendom context. I plan to use this book as a core reference text in my seminary church planting course this Fall. Highly recommended.

Dr Ryan K. Bolger, PhD, Associate Professor, Church in Contemporary Culture, Fuller Theological Seminary

Letters home

Letters Home is a new research bulletin produced by The Sheffield Centre and Fresh Expressions. It is a collection of pieces written by pioneers called to follow Christ beyond the existing Church. The first issue looks at the tensions experienced by pioneers as they go, including some discussion of sodal and modal forms of church.

To read the bulletin in full, please download it below.

Introduction

In recent years we’ve seen various changes rocking the Church. The release of pioneer ministry and the development of fresh expression of Church have created an atmosphere of change and with that, excitement and struggle. For those called to follow Christ beyond the existing Church, to go and be the Church in new ways and…

Learning from Francis

By Hannah Smith. The monastics were the prime movers in mission for the church for its first 1500 years. From China to Asia to Europe, in the roots of the gospel in each geographical space, you find the marks of the monastics again and again. Their tight-knit, hardcore bands would incarnate themselves into a society…

Pioneer as Guest: the return of the Friar

By Simon Sutcliffe. Pioneer is a term which is being used very widely in the Church at present. In talking to various gifted pioneers I have come to see three kinds of pioneering ministries in the Church. Firstly, parish renewal is led by those who feel called to work within inherited modes of church. Secondly…

The parable of the Roving Rock

By Laurence Keith. This story is about a faithful Christian, Fidelis, and a difficult transition in his journey of faith as he takes the risk of stepping out into the ‘post’; into the unknown. There was once a man called Fidelis who built his house on the Rock, by the edge of the sea. Over…

Experiences of pioneers

By Beth Keith. During the last 4 years I have been listening to and collating the stories of pioneers. Whilst pioneering is often referred to as starting something new I have been struck by how common it is for pioneers to experience an initial period of dismantling before new growth occurs. This was evident in…

Remembering the song

By Karlie Allaway. Whilst I have loved reading and thinking about mission I found I got lost at times… Lost in concepts and descriptions of mission. Lost in thinking and reading about all the ways to pray and open ourselves to the grace that transforms us into a sent people, able to bring healing and…

To read these articles in full and comment on them, please download the bulletin below.

Walking Church

Wood Green Mennonite Church, London, is piloting a 'walking' fresh expression this year. Phil Wood, a member of Wood Green, explains how the monthly church is a mixture of walking, talking, prayer, liturgy and meditation.

Walking has always been a passion of mine – whether hiking, rambling, bird-watching or prayer-walking. I first came across Rebecca Seaton and a Methodist South Lakes 'Walking Church' experiment in Cumbria. Their 'boots on the ground' approach proved something of an inspiration.

It has taken a few years and a move to London for the idea to become reality. There has been much to consider. For a start, we've had to take a fairly close look at what we understand by the term 'Walking Church'. There are plenty of organisations for Christian walkers and many churches have walking groups but we are not looking at an ecumenical 'fellowship' made up of Christians who walk in their spare time but a church that walks! Imagine a congregation where the essential elements of church – mission, sacraments, worship and the Word – primarily take place on the move or in the context of hospitality along the way. The idea is to create a community of faith where the heartlands of 'church' happen in the course of walking.

When I first talked of this, responses were mixed. No matter how practised I become at explaining the notion of a congregation where church occurs in the walking there are still people who don't 'get it'. That isn't surprising. Walking Church was never intended to be in competition with worship inside a traditional church building – some still think it is a gimmick but I believe they are wrong.

But my congregation at Wood Green Mennonite Church caught the vision and, following an Epping Forest taster last autumn, we pulled on our backpacks for a full-blown 2012 pilot. We're walking four London locations this year with walks arranged for the final Sunday morning of the month, changing location every quarter.

Every walk has a leader responsible for a theme and three or four reflections. We walk, eat, listen, meditate, pray and sometimes sing – though the latter is a topic of discussion. It also involves hospitality – whether in homes, pubs or cafes. Each time we learn a little more. Much of our missional energy is focused before the day of the walk because it needs a good deal of preparation with routes needing to be surveyed, publicity disseminated and conversations had.

We have just completed our Highgate series of walks. In February, I joined others on a walk between Highgate and Alexandra Palace. Wayne Hostetler led it on the theme of 'perspective' and there were some splendid views of north London to illustrate the point. We talked about the panorama from Alexandra Palace with the City skyscrapers to inner-city Tottenham and the 'smudge' of Epping Forest – all that poverty and power cheek by jowl.

Since then, we have also tackled the 4.5 miles Parkland Walk in London's largest nature reserve following the old railway line from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace. Now Walking Church is preparing to travel south of the river to Richmond for walks in April, May and June. Our first is scheduled to take place on Sunday (29th April) in Richmond Park with the aim of covering 2.5 to 3 miles in about three hours.

Where do we go next with this idea? There are multiple possibilities but we are trying to get our priorities right and inclusiveness is a challenge. How do we accommodate 'serious' ramblers, not-so-serious amblers, exponents of 'walking meditation' and pilgrimage and those walking for health and ecological awareness? Also, how do we go about youth and children's work and what provision are we making for those with limited mobility?

Hospitality is the bridge to providing this support, especially where a Walking Church is linked to an existing congregation. What a wonderful way not only to cope with the weather but also to nurture a profound link between walking and welcome, between continuing and emerging churches. However, there's nothing to say that hospitality needs to be in a church building; it could be in a pub, a home, a youth hostel or any number of other locations. Walking Church also raises the possibility of linking together fresh expressions of church – for example by partnering with a café church.

Some provision has to be made for the practicalities of teaching, worshipping and sharing the Good News on the move but otherwise the business of 'church' remains much the same. A church that walks still needs leadership, administration, health and safety and safeguarding, for example. We would also need to bear in mind the optimum size of a walking church given the practical limitations of audible conversation and the challenges of arranging hospitality for considerable numbers of people.

In terms of organisation, I believe the cell church model – with some adaptation – offers the best insights for structuring walking churches. The largest investment in walking church from the outset is not finance; it's time – although salary, training and staff accommodation costs should also be considered.

I have been thinking too as what might be possible as Walking Church develops. Here are some of the early thoughts:

a link with a Tourist Information Centre;

versatility of Walking Church – urban, rural or suburban;

launching Walking Church via a long distance path such as the Pennine Way or the Ridgeway, perhaps involving people from different churches along the route;

there is a strong ecological dimension – opportunities for awareness raising and practical conservation;

walking with a webcam would enable a Walking Church 'service' (a walk) to be viewed live online. Potential to link congregations in different areas or across denominations;

offers a natural window into powerful expressions of social justice in identification with the stranger, the homeless and the refugee;

walking Church 'guidebooks' could be an exercise both in devotional and travel writing;

play a significant role in extremely rural communities;

could walk 'home or away' (i.e. near or far away from where most members live) or it might draw members from a wide area based on a network connection. So, a Walking Church might have a close association with one locality or much more of a network focus.

We're learning something about evangelism in the values driving this particular fresh expression. One of our walkers likes us because we don't 'proselytise', instead we 'reflect'. Are we too peaceable to share faith? I hope not – but our message isn't 'become like us and you will be saved'. We are a 'peace church'. Yes, words are important, but mostly peace is in the pace. It's easier to listen at three miles per hour.

Berkswich Luncheon Club – update Apr12

The good news is that Berkswich Luncheon Club has grown! It now meets twice a month and has the new kitchen it's members dreamed of. Superintendent Minister Jeff Reynolds updates the story.

Watch Jeff, and Rosemary Cooke, update the story below.

The luncheon club still meets within the church hall and does very much the same as it already has. We have hit on a successful formula, so why change it?

The clientele are mainly elderly, but continue to eat a 3 course meal together and have the opportunity to talk to one another and also the minister and members of the church, in a setting that is relaxed and develops those strong pastoral links.

There is a real sense of community there. It was never set up to bring people to the Sunday service. To me, Wednesday lunch at 12.30 is just as important as Sunday at 10.30am. This is church.

When the team reflect back to the early days, they would never have considered they would could have managed twice a month. It essentially felt very resource-heavy to cook 60 cooked meals, but now they can do it – and they can do it comfortably.

We don't have an idea of where it is going… you have to be lead by God and for that reason we don't know what shape it may take but we continue to serve and share food together, as Jesus did.

We are also beginning church in a pub on a Sunday night. Again, we don't know how it will develop but we love a challenge and it's so important to build relationships with those around us.

Berkswich Luncheon Club

Barbara Rigg reports on a fresh expression for older people in Stafford.

We should never assume that only in deprived inner city areas is there a need for the church to have neighbourly concern and involvement. In our experience at Berkswich Methodist Church we have found that in a relatively affluent leafy suburb of Stafford there are many people who feel isolated and lonely.

Forty years ago many young families moved into new housing in this area. The children are now grown and have flown the nest, leaving residents who, though elderly, still are eager for life and have much to offer.

We at Berkswich hope that in some small way we are helping to address the situation. Let me introduce: Berkswich Luncheon Club

It was about five years ago when two or three of us, quite independently, thought that a church luncheon club would be a good idea. Our minister, Jeff Reynolds, was enthusiastic. Some of us youngsters (we're all over sixty) who were to become the cooks attended the local college to gain qualifications in food safety; and we were ready to start.

We now have about sixty members and have had to start a waiting list, as we cannot physically cater for more. We serve a three course meal of good home cooked food at a cost of four pounds. (Our generation does not need Jamie Oliver to tell us what's good for us).

We have after lunch entertainment; very often provided by our own members. In school holidays grandchildren entertain with dance, juggling or magic tricks. Highlights of our year include the birthday celebration, a summer outing and a traditional Christmas dinner. Each year any excess income we give to a worthy charity.

Our guests are by no means all members of our worshipping community. Referrals and requests come from many quarters. However, we view the Luncheon Club as more than just a social gathering for the community. It was set up to be church in a totally different setting. Our aims are to be a church congregation that meets monthly on a Wednesday lunchtime and to offer the challenge of the gospel through our hospitality, conversation and service. For many of our regulars, the Luncheon Club is their church and we hope that it will continue to grow into an established church community within the existing church structures.

For the future, first of all we'd love a new kitchen. We would like to start to have a lunch fortnightly with two groups of guests; there are many people who could benefit and we don't like to have a waiting list. We have also thought of tea dances (after all we are the Victor Sylvester generation).

Our neighbours, the local comprehensive school are interested in sending some of their older pupils to help, as part of their social awareness programme.

Some of our members say:

Christian care and compassion; fellowship, conversation, entertainment; good food at a reasonable price; fresh flowers, real tablecloths and much more.

A monthly 'High Day' with delicious home cooked food served by lovely helpers in an atmosphere of warm friendship and good fellowship.

A welcome opportunity for us oldies to meet old and new friends. We are greeted by smiling workers in caps and aprons. We are grateful to all involved, including the men who give lifts when needed.

Sunday Sanctuary – update Apr12

Mark Rodel is to leave Portsmouth in September to become Tutor in Pioneer Ministry at St John's College, Nottingham, and Priest-in-Charge at a benefice in the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. What is to happen to Sunday Sanctuary?

I have real mixed feelings about moving away; I wasn't looking for a move. Instead I was thinking about how taking things forward needed committed presence and then I noticed the job at St John's… I tried twice to seriously put it aside but it wouldn't go out of my head.

It's a big step for me in growing as a minister and as a contributor to the whole church but I am stepping aside from leading the Sunday Sanctuary here at a sensitive time. I know there is probably never a good time to leave but it does feel quite soon in Sunday Sanctuary's lifespan.

The news has been received with sadness but people are not devastated; they are sad that we won't be part of the future of Sunday Sanctuary but positive that there is a future. I'm not leaving them without leadership and support – thanks to my marvellous colleague, Rev Dr Alex Hughes, Priest in Charge of the parish of St Peter and St Luke. We were licensed together in the same service in 2008 and we have worked and prayed together very closely ever since. He is now bearing full responsibility on his own for both parishes and Sunday Sanctuary.

He already has an inherited expression of church, St Peter's, to sustain and look after and he is considering the shape of his own vocation in this place now that things have changed. We have to take a good look at what Sunday Sanctuary needs now. Does it need another priest and would that priest also take on a bigger role within St Peter's to release Alex a little more? Or do we need to be looking at an evangelist, a schools' or youth worker, or a community person?

Establishing Sunday Sanctuary was part of pushing out into the community. What we definitely don't want to happen is to retrench but we do need to ask, 'How much are we actually doing to make a difference in the life of the poor?'

We get 25 people on average, sometimes 30. There haven't been new people at Sunday Sanctuary for quite a while but, to be fair, we haven't told people we are there for quite a while either. More recently we did make a bit of a splash with the local community again when we brought a mobile farm – including a donkey – into the courtyard of the tower block where we had a short celebration for Palm Sunday.

We put out 2,500 invitations and I spent about eight hours personally delivering most of them. We had an estimated 150 people coming for breakfast and the farm visit, with at least 60 of them staying for the short service at the end. The children loved seeing the animals, we had chickens and sheep and all sorts of things – though the donkey flatly refused to take part in anything! I also gave away 86 tickets to the Easter egg hunt which took place as part of a joint service at St Peter's on Easter Day.

We also had a parish weekend away in Bournemouth when about 70 people from both communities, parish church and Sunday Sanctuary, came away together to consider the future. We had a lot of fun together and talked about lots of things there, including 'What is the Church for?' and 'What should it look like?'

As part of this transition period, I know there are people to whom I can hand over more responsibility for the Sunday Sanctuary sessions. In fact, we can see that this has already started to happen.

One of the questions I'm personally asking about the whole thing is, 'Why did God need me out of the way?' Maybe having two separate things on a Sunday morning (in the parish and at Sunday Sanctuary) – a home expression and an away expression – isn't what needs to happen any more. We are apprehensive about Sunday Sanctuary just 'being absorbed by' St Peter's because that would mean that St Luke's, as it was, has simply disappeared – and that feels like a retreat.

We will use this opportunity to look at everything, including the place where we gather. The City Council housing department, which runs Wilmcote House where Sunday Sanctuary meets, is very happy we are there but we will review what we are doing. Is it the still the right place to be? We would have to think very carefully about what it would say to the people in the block itself if we did decide to change. Another thing we'd look at is the focus on all-age; the way I have led certainly reflects my preoccupation and priorities with that – I was committed to adults letting go of their addiction to words but is it the way it should continue?

The language of fresh expressions is not one I'd use with the community because it would be meaningless to them; instead it's language that we use with the hierarchy of the church. I'm wary of it sometimes because it can make people shut off to the reality of what's happening on the ground. In terms of a sort of 'shorthand' it has some use but maybe decreasingly so. What it does do is keep on the agenda the question of looking at what the church is doing in any given place and time.

None of us yet know how we take this forward and we won't know by the time I move on but hopefully we will be nearer an answer as to what sort of licensed, ordained or authorised ministry needs to be part of this mix. It's difficult to think about leaving it all behind because there is so much that I'm passionate about and committed to here but there are now increasing times when I have to draw back and let people do it for themselves so that I become a consultant to the process – rather than leading it.

We have been very fortunate to be part of a very supportive cluster of parishes in the city centre; the personal relationships are good and the respect is strong. The Bishop of Portsmouth (Christopher Foster) twice came to Sanctuary as our guest, on a Sunday morning and at our Tuesday evening gathering, and that was wonderful. He also wrote to me to say how hugely appreciative he is of this unique community and what it is doing. We know that no one model of fresh expression should be 'pickled' and preserved as it is and the people at Sunday Sanctuary would expect to see it change – though nobody is going to want it to move backwards. The bishop assured us of his support and that means a great deal to us.

A lot of changes will start to happen after Easter. St John's College wanted to do some preparatory work with me before I officially move in September so, from Monday 16th April, I will be spending three days a week in Nottingham before returning to my family in Portsmouth for the rest of the time; they will move up with me permanently at the end of the school year.

I do think that as we ask all these questions of Sunday Sanctuary, we also need to be asking the same questions of St Peter's. I wouldn't be devastated if the outcome of my leaving was that the bigger, broader Christian church regrouped in order to look at how we reach out in a different way. Things can be for a time, for a season and I think those things can discussed a lot easier when I'm out of the way. But one of the big things for me has been working in a relational mode. The people I'm leaving behind are not my congregation, they are my friends…

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(CEN) Serving up the gospel at Café Lite

Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, sees how God is blessing imaginative, contextually appropriate, mission when churches take the risk of attempting it.

In most parishes clergy and lay leaders can be overburdened simply continuing their current work,

he said.

But if they are willing to stop something, so that they have the capacity to start something new, or – as the following story shows – to release a key leader for a new venture, the results can be out of all proportion to the sacrifices being made.

Café Lite, a fresh expression of church, meets in Droxford village hall, Hampshire. Launched in September 2011, it now attracts up to 100 people to its informal gatherings. The Rev Stuart Holt is the Rector and says,

My parish released me from services in Droxford, Exton, Meonstoke and Corhampton twice a month so that I could front Café Lite and a puppet ministry in schools. This means that I now have two fresh expressions of church in these ancient, rural benefices.

It's really encouraging to see new people coming to Café Lite and they're bringing their friends with them. We've never seen these people before. The numbers have reached 96, which is quite something for a tiny little parish of 1,600 people in the middle of Hampshire. Our immediate challenge is that the hall is licensed for 120 people. If everybody in the Café Lite community turned up we would be over that! We're also having fantastic conversations. People have asked if I could do a wedding blessing for them because they were married in a register office; others have asked about preparing for baptism for themselves or their children.

Café Lite runs on the third Sunday of the month and we have Sunday newspapers, bacon rolls, worship and chat. I thought it important to offer excellence, which is why we've also got a professional Gaggia coffee machine for all those 'flat whites' we have to prepare! We have made it self-supporting with private individuals funding different components so – for instance – someone has sponsored the bread for a year, somebody else has paid for the bacon and another person buys all the papers.

When deciding what resources to use, I finally went for what was around when I came to faith in 1967, Norman Warren's Journey into Life – mainly because it's very clear and simple. For worship, I also returned to my roots to use Youth Praise because it really deals with key issues of faith; I found that it was as powerful now as it had been all those years ago.

We started from the beginning with the music because it's for the dechurched as well as the unchurched. I know it can seem strange to many people involved in fresh expressions that we would focus on worship and singing at such an early stage in the life of this community but the people really wanted the music to express some strong messages about God and Christianity.

It doesn't seem to be off-putting because we're drawing in a huge cross-section of people from all walks of life, including residents of a local social housing estate and those recovering from drug and alcohol addictions based at a nearby rehab centre. We are now also actively involved in Christians Against Poverty and have CAP money coaches on hand too.

Almost as soon as we started in the hall, I was asked, 'What is your strategy for these people?' My answer was, and is, 'Preach the gospel and be open to the Holy Spirit. That's it.'

When it became clear that people had taken up the idea of Café Lite, I was asked what my strategy was going to be for discipleship. I said the answer was definitely not to make them go on some sort of organized course; people wouldn't want that – especially as they had never been to church anywhere before and had actually turned up because we offered them a bacon sandwich! Instead we are now developing a nurture course to help them tackle some key issues in a way that's relevant to them.

We also have lots of children at Café Lite, usually around 29. It was suggested that we should 'do' something for the children as a separate entity but I said we needed to ban the words 'ought', 'must' or 'should' in our Christian lives and that I didn't want Café Lite to be turned into a Sunday school in the village hall. It's a church in its own right.

Interestingly some people got very indignant about seeing kids with iPhones at Café Lite. It doesn't bother me because that's what kids do, they text each other. What was wonderful was the fact that they were actually texting, 'I'm at Café Lite, it's brilliant.' Another girl filmed what was happening on her phone and sent it to a friend to say how good it was.

The churches here have been serving this stretch of the Meon Valley for hundreds of years and we are so thankful that Café Lite and Puppets in Praise are also helping to meet the spiritual needs of those around us.

I've no idea what will happen or who will come week by week but I want us to take some risks in spreading the gospel.