Day: 28 June 2012

Discovery Days

In 2003, Church of England minister Penny Joyce moved to a growing new housing estate in Witney, Oxfordshire, to start a community project funded by the Diocese of Oxford. She spent the first three months of her new role, which followed a curacy, 'getting to know people', in particular local churches and the school.

At the end of those three months, she sent a newsletter to every house identifying herself as a community worker and inviting residents to a meeting with the local planner. Around 50 people from the 250 houses then established on the estate turned up. This residents' meeting continues to take place once every three months, attracting 50 to 80 people at a time to its community discussions around wine and cheese. It is particularly valued by newcomers to the estate, which has now grown to 960 houses.

The estate is home, Penny says, to 'a huge cross section of people'. Social housing, young families, home-based workers and early retirees all live together on what, in its early years, has been a building site as well as a place in which to build community. Through the community project, Discovery Days, headed by Penny, these different types of people are able to come together in their own groups at different social and Christian-themed events. Events are advertised on a monthly community newsletter written by Penny and delivered by volunteers.

She spent the first three months getting to know people

The need for various activities is exemplified by an encounter Penny had early on in her ministry to the estate. While out and about she bumped into a young mother walking, looking for someone to talk to. Following this, a mother and toddler group was set up which attracts around 40 women each week.

Other regular events run by Discovery Days are a mixture of social activities and those with a Christian flavour. Families meet for Sunday tea and Christian-based activities. Men meet for football. Readers meet in a book group. Home-based workers meet for lunch. Christians on the estate meet in one of two weekly small groups, Discovery 1 and 2, while a second kind of Discovery group happens for seekers. More generally interested residents of the estate may attend Breathe, a social evening with wine, chat, and the possibility of moving through a series of stations provoking reflection on a life issue.

Christians are present at all the different events and activities whether social or Christian-focused. Penny sees evangelism in terms of a line of 10 to 1 (the Engel scale), on which individuals may be at the Christian end or the disinterested end.

I place events along that line so that people can choose,

she says.

If you're journeying at 8 or 9 you won't want to come to straight into a church situation, but you might want to come to something which looks at the basics of Christianity. We journey spiritually with someone and don't expect them to travel from a nine to a one in one leap.

By listening to the needs of the different groups of people within the community, Discovery Days offers a chance for everyone to discover faith and friendship.

Threshold Church

In 1996 GP Pete Atkins and his wife, Kath, planted a new church called Threshold, with a vision to strengthen church in the villages of their home county, Lincolnshire.

Operating along the cell church format, Threshold grew and in 2006 separated into four separate congregations. Three were based in a different village and one in inner city Lincoln. There is a bi-monthly meeting of all four.

The congregations draw members from 15 local neighbourhoods and range in size from 20 to 100 members, who gather together in village halls and Lincoln YMCA.

But for Pete and Kath, this is not the end of ten years' work. They have given each congregation the challenge of multiplying further through prayer and planning. 

We are vision driven,

Pete says.

The vision has always been to establish church in the rural situation, with a focus on neighbourhood planting rather than network planting.

Pete believes that the success of Threshold lies in discovering and training new leaders.

The key thing is that by the grace of God we have managed to multiply leadership,

he says.

They have given each congregation the challenge of multiplying further through prayer and planning

Those who have perhaps led a cell have also been on a 'Mission-shaped leadership' training course [now developed into mission shaped ministry]. Leaders meet together bi-monthly and in between are supported by regular contact with the main leaders of Threshold. The Atkins' own role has moved to supporting the main leaders, who in turn support cell leaders.

All our developments are consistent with our original vision of seeing the kingdom of God re-established in the villages,

says Pete.

The leadership communicates this vision through preaching, through a slogan and by holding welcome evenings for newcomers to the villages.

Moments of multiplication, such as the division into four congregations, become opportunities to revisit the original purpose of the church.

By keeping in mind at every stage what they originally set out to do, the Atkins and the members of Threshold are achieving their aim of multiplying church.

Early Bird

When Victor Howlett began his curacy in 1997 in a market town in Wiltshire, he found that families were not coming to church.

Realising that it might take more than the four years of his training period to make existing church worship more family friendly, he decided to create a special service. On approaching the staff team he discovered a free half hour on Sunday mornings from 9am, after the 8 o'clock service and before choir practice, which he decided to call Early Bird.

Still unclear himself about what Early Bird would be, he invited a small team from the existing congregations to join him in visiting local children's groups with an invitation to church.

Posters were placed in shop windows for a monthly service, a method still used today.

Ten minutes before the first Early Bird service was due to begin, no one was in sight.

Then we heard the first buggy coming up the drive,

Victor says. That first half hour attracted 60 people, two thirds of whom were new to church.

It gradually developed into a service appropriate for 0-8 year-olds,

Victor says.

Always dads came rather than mums, which was unusual. They also automatically sat at the front!

By the time Victor left, a regular congregation of 40-50 was gathering once a month and continues to meet some years on.

The service is 'very unchurchy', with no candles, hymn books or robes. Songs of no more than two verses are sung from a book of six coloured sheets and announced according to colour. If one proves unpopular, it is replaced.

'Because it caters for children, the parents are pleased, but it also offers community.'

The service is 'always', Victor stresses, based on a Bible story.

If it goes well, we tell it again.

This spontaneity is important for success, Victor believes, something which sticking to a monthly rather than weekly programme encourages. Coffee is served afterwards and as people leave they are handed an invitation to the following month's service, which is always on the second Sunday since this never clashes with school holidays. Even if this Sunday falls on a festival such as Easter, it still happens. Children are texted or emailed between services to keep in touch.

It keeps working,

says Victor, who is now in his third parish and still repeating the Early Bird model, albeit under the name Jump Start Sunday. In the meantime, ten other Early Bird services have sprung up over the diocese (Bristol) and news of another in Berkshire and two in Wales has reached Victor, who occasionally gets

phone calls from the grapevine asking for advice.

Not all are called Early Bird, but all follow the original premise and emphasise that these services are church in themselves for the mostly fathers and children who attend, with some families choosing to come 'fully into the life of the church'.

We make a virtue of being early and design it for children and parents,

he says.

They know it's only half an hour and we describe it as 'the best way to start Sunday'. Because it caters for children, the parents are pleased, but it also offers community.

Fenland Community Church

Fenland Community Church - groupWhen Edward and Marilyn Kerr, with the support of Plumbline Ministries, planted Fenland Community Church in their Cambridgeshire town, they had no idea who they would meet.

Their new congregation of a small number of people who had moved from another church held an outreach week on a bus in the town centre. Among those who came were two women with learning disabilities in their thirties.

Drawn to this church community, the women also began attending a long-standing youth group led by the Kerrs. However, it was clear that this was not the best place for them.

We began to ask, what can we do for them?

Edward says.

At around the same time, two years into the plant, members began to leave. As the church collapsed, the number of learning disabled people showing an interest increased. They began meeting with the Kerrs, with the permission of their carers and residential home managers.

Up to 35 people, including carers, now meet three Sundays a month in a local scout hall, while the Kerrs open their home once a month for a prayer meeting. In addition, they take monthly meetings in six residential care homes where either a proportion or all of the residents take part, depending on the size of the home.

'Are we meeting their needs? If not, how can we?'

All this is very different from the Kerrs' original vision of evangelising their local community through events and a house church gathering.

We had to give way on a Fenland wide church with 'normal' people,

Edward says.

At first it was a struggle because we were just managing these people, not knowing what to do. We have had support from Causeway Prospects, and have adapted some of their material for our groups. However, much of our material for Sundays is 'home-grown'. It was about five years in that I realised, okay God, this is right, and we're not looking for 'normal' people now.

In fact, Edward and Marilyn, despite their struggle, have never said 'no' to the way Fenland Community Church has developed, their main concern being 'how'.

Even now we're still asking those questions,

Edward says.

Are we meeting their needs? If not, how can we? Within obvious limits no idea is excluded!

He tells the story of one man who has attended Fenland Community Church since its early days in 1996.

'Within obvious limits no idea is excluded!'

By nature he's quite diffident,

Edward says,

but he has blossomed over the years. He's now able to take responsibility for handing out percussion instruments and the flags we use in worship. He often volunteers to pray for people or to start the service. Every now and then he is prophetic, though sometimes he's a bit mumbly and we have to ask him to say it again!

Another young man with Downs Syndrome, who rarely talks and can sign only badly, is

wonderfully sensitive with flags, waving them over the congregation in a way that's very prophetic and moving.

What does the future hold? The Kerrs are fully committed to exploring ways of sharing Jesus with people with a learning disability, involving them in church life, using whatever works rather than whatever is traditional.