October 2012 - FX ARCHIVE...

Graham Cray comments on Abide

Graham Cray comments on the story of Abide in a column originally published in the CEN on 26th October 2012.

The terms 'sodal' and 'modal' can be confusing to some, but missiologists Ralph Winter and George Lings speak of the church in these two forms:

modal – the local, well established, church, with a mission open to all (at least in theory);

sodal – the mission community working more flexibly and seeking to reach those untouched by the modal.

To belong to the first, you only have to turn up. Membership of the second involves commitment to its specific mission. This framework creates space to innovate within the existing structures of the church and highlights that innovation has always been part of the character of the church of God.

Just over 12 months ago Ben Edson became Vicar and Missioner to a parish in south Manchester. He had been in the city for 10 years, during which time he pioneered Sanctus1, a fresh expression of church, and helped set up the Nexus arts café.

A few months into his appointment at St James and Emmanuel, Didsbury, he found himself asking,

How can we affirm the modal yet at the same time search for something more sodal within it?

Play and Praise

Lay pioneer minister Di Woolridge has seen numbers steadily increase at a weekly 'play and praise' worship service for the under 5s. She now believes the community is developing into a fresh expression.

Three years ago I was employed part-time as a pioneer minister at St Lawrence's, Gnosall, to look at connecting with children, young people and their families who are not attracted to traditional church.

One of my first objectives was to look at the contact made through baptisms – of which we had a good number each year – but we were not seeing any on-going link with these families. We developed a structured approach to baptism preparation through three evening sessions where we explore God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and I talk about the events and groups we offer to children to help them in their Christian journey.

It was at the first of these preparation sessions when I mentioned our children's groups which, at the time, catered for youngsters of school age; I was really challenged when one of the mums then said, 'So, I have my child baptised and the next time I bring her back is when she is five?' From that I realised we needed to do something, so I launched Play and Praise on Thursday afternoons in church. From the start I made it clear that this is not a playgroup, but a worship service.

In terms of format, we have between 30-40 minutes of worship before the children get on with some art and craft activities associated with the theme of the service. It is quite structured in that it follows a traditional church pattern of liturgy, we usually have:

opening prayer;

song, usually with accompaniment from the children on instruments, bells or drums that we provide;

prayer, where we light a candle;

a couple of songs, usually in the New Wine style of children's worship with actions where possible;

bible story;

a couple more songs;

blessing;

we also now have a collection, interestingly that was something that came from the parents who asked if they could give;

interactive grace, usually the Messy Church grace;

notices and time to remember people's birthdays followed by arts and crafts while mums have a well earned tea break!

When we started Play and Praise, we had five children and three parents come along. Three years on, we are averaging around 18 children and 12 adults but we envisage numbers will build up again as we go through the autumn. We have about 30 children on the books in all. Some come every week without fail; most come three out of every four weeks and others come occasionally.

This summer was amazing in that we peaked at 26 children and 18 adults each week; we don't stop for school holidays at all because it's a worship service. Other services in the church don't stop simply because it isn't term time and I have insisted that we keep going too so Play and Praise meets 50 weeks a year. The only times we miss are Maundy Thursday (when all the ministers are at the Cathedral though we do hold a special event on Good Friday for families – including the Play and Praise families) and the week between Christmas and New Year.

Many churches only offer something like Play and Praise during term time but people appreciate the regularity and look forward to it as one of the highlights of the week. I'd say it's really important to look at how such things are set up in the first place and what the intention and the values are. We are only a small village of about 300-400 families. We have found we no longer need to advertise Play and Praise any more because families tell others about it and the health visitor, and others such as the local preschool, refer people to us.

We have just had eight of our Play and Praise church start school but others will certainly come to fill the gap. In the past, we – as a church – developed close links with the school and thankfully this is continuing with a ministry team there and areas of reflection throughout the school. The pupils also now come across to the church for services, prayer stations, events etc.

I've got a good team to help with it all now. I now alternate the running of Play and Praise with the rector, Mark Bridgen, and others from the Sunday congregations are involved on a rota basis. It has brought in people we weren't expecting; some of our 7.45am said communion folk, for instance, have come along to help and that's wonderful.

We have a Facebook Play and Praise page and it's great to see how the mums connect with that all the time, commenting on what has been happening and even asking each other to pray for particular situations or illnesses in their families. Other developments which have come out of Play and Praise are Yummy Mummies – a monthly coffee morning and discussion group for young mums where we use table talk to stimulate discussion; a monthly support group for mums with anxiety issues; and we have recently started a house group for those who want to look a bit deeper at the Christian faith for themselves.

Play and Praise is a growing, Christian community and I would say it is now maturing into a fresh expression. It's connecting with the children – and their parents – and they are all moving on in their journey of faith and starting to do what any other Christian community would do. They have the DNA as to what Christian living is all about. It's all about trying to serve in ways that can be understood and are appropriate for people who haven't previously been involved in church.

Ancient Faith Future Mission: fresh expressions of church and the kingdom of God

This important new book shows how fresh expressions of church are serving the kingdom of God, as well as growing the church.

Contributors, including Rowan Williams, look at issues around mission as social transformation and highlight stories of how it is being achieved.

Theological reflection and stories from front line practitioners in churches in the sacramental traditions (with their heritage of service in poor communities) combine to create a unique, timely and valuable resources which includes contributions from leading names in the study and practice of mission today.

Time for liturgy to find a different ‘voice’? (Kim Hartshorne)

Kim Hartshorne asks whether it's time for liturgy to find a different 'voice'.

I lead a small missional community in a small market town that is socially and economically polarised. The aristocracy are often present in the parish church on Sunday mornings, reading the lesson with cut-glass accents gleaned from an elite education. On the other hand, a national survey showed our town to have very low levels of literacy and numeracy with many people barely able to read at all.

At the Upper Room, we serve and journey with people who find themselves at the bottom of the heap and we are learning to walk slowly together towards Christ. We are presently going through a Bishop's Mission Order process and are committed to the Church of England as the part of the Body we live within. But there are many tensions and dichotomies that we wrestle with in our calling to this context, with conflicting family groups.

We are sure Christ would have spent time listening to the difficult stories of our people. He would have used the language of their everyday lives to weave his story into theirs, showing compassion to those who hung on to him to find hope and healing. We depend on the Holy Spirit for creativity to tell that story in ways it can be grasped and made available, for Christ was accessible to all.

This brings us to a thorny issue, for the Church of England is very dependent upon its liturgy and use of authorised texts for worship, believing that these shape us into God’s people as we say the words together. However, we find many of these are words we cannot say as a community, as they do not reflect our experience of life, or of God. These are not our words; culturally they have not come out of our hearts, our streets or our struggles, and so cannot easily come out of our mouths. What happens in this situation is that many fresh expressions or new forms of church do not use the authorised texts and forms of worship, but creatively frame their own liturgy, empowering people who use indigenous language and expression to find their own authentic voice in lament and worship.

There have been some surprisingly savage critiques evaluating new forms of church and I wonder if this is one of the unacknowledged reasons: 'If these new expressions keep exploding and growing, while some parts of the parish system shrink and close, will we lose our liturgy, identity, tradition and all we hold dear as a Church?' This is a real question which perhaps needs to be aired much more openly.

These questions are about power, accessibility, and who writes liturgy – who is allowed to determine how we will speak of God, and to God? Much of the language beloved of the Church historically has been written by people who are white, male, middle class, likely to be privately educated, and perhaps middle aged. It is unsurprising that the language does not reflect my life experience or that of friends in our community. All those descriptors bring with them perspectives – liturgy or theology are not written in a vacuum, but in a context that brings a certain slant and set of assumptions to bear on the words.

In recent years, the area of theological reflection has bourgeoned as many others voices have begun to be heard. Second- and third- world theologians (labels that are now themselves rejected!), feminist and Marxist theologians, the voices of the marginalised and dispossessed are being exercised. The dominance of the northern hemisphere during Modernity and its academic system is probably over, and as such fresh expressions are not causing this to happen, only following the leading of the Holy Spirit into broader pastures, as many more voices begin to be heard.

Liberation theology from other parts of the world brings a fresh and vital perspective on living through the struggles of life. In this it shares a similarity with life in a British 21st century small missional community affected by issues of powerlessness, worklessness, debt, hunger and chronic sickness.

The scriptures do express much of this range of emotion found in the Psalms and the minor Prophets, urging society and the Church to express the justice and mercy that God requires. If we had liturgy which voiced this more urgently, then perhaps we as the Church of England would be changed and shaped, even radicalised, by these words and spill out from our pews to change the world again. Maybe the Liturgical Commission would give up power to groups such as ours to shape our own poetic cry to God, or hire pioneers to help it to listen. Until then, we will do the best we can to honour God, our people and our life experience, and our mother Church and its traditions.

Abide

My appointment to St James and Emmanuel, Didsbury, in 2011 meant that I was moving into a more settled expression of Church. I found this quite a challenging move as I asked myself questions such as was I selling out to the institution and how was my experience of pioneering innovative Christian communities going to impact on a more settled expression of church? Perhaps this was one of the reasons that I moved into this post, I'm of the firm belief that fresh expressions of church need to be fully integrated into the life of the Parish church community and I sensed an opportunity to do this.

I'm sure that many people will have read Ralph Winter's and George Lings' papers on sodal and modal expressions of church. The sodal and modal framework creates space to innovate within the existing structures and also highlight that innovation has always been part of the character of the church of God.

A few months into my appointment I found myself asking, 'How can we affirm the modal yet at the same time search for something more sodal within it?' So I started to search, I started to listen, I continued to pray.

We're a medium-sized church of four congregations. One of those congregations was struggling for a sense of identity and yet alongside this there was a desire for authentic community and a deeper life of commitment to God and to one another. Over the first few months of my appointment I worked with this congregation to listen to God and to one another and also to dream, to open our eyes, to envision and inspire about what we could become.

An early realisation was that the attractional model that had been operated on for so long would no longer work; it would mean be a slow and painful death. Yet, we also recognised that we wanted to be committed to one another in a common lifestyle, in mission and in prayer. And so we went away together to explore what we could be.

Six months on and 'Abide' is what has come into being. I'm never sure how to describe it, it's a community, it's missional, it has new monastic elements to it but I think that the reality is that it is ordinary people with ordinary lives, exploring and learning how to walk an extraordinary path together. We're not experts, we're certainly not spiritual gurus, we're just normal people trying to work it out.

We've found our sense of identity in three places:

The Five Rhythms of Grace

Gatherings

Mission and Prayer

Five Rhythms of Grace

The Rhythms of Grace have been developed by the community of St Chad in Lichfield Diocese. We found them and liked them and so we've adopted them! We think that they encourage us to live as believers in the real world, not in some kind of holy huddle. The term, Rhythms of Grace, is taken from Eugene Peterson's translation of Matthew 11:28, 'Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace'.

The five rhythms are:

By God's grace, I will seek to be transformed into the likeness of Christ;

By God's grace, I will be open to the presence, guidance and power of the Holy Spirit;

By God's grace, I will set aside time for prayer, worship and spiritual reading;

By God's grace, I will endeavour to be a gracious presence in the world, serving others and working for justice in human relationships and social structures;

By God's grace, I will sensitively share my faith with others: participating in God's mission both locally and globally.

These are not rules that dictate behaviour but a starting point to help us to understand who we are and what we need to do to grow as disciples of Christ. As our community takes shape these rhythms will provide the framework that some of us chose to live by.

Gatherings

As Abide we get together in a more organised capacity twice a month. On the second Tuesday, we have a shared meal in Emmanuel Church, Didsbury, where we encourage and support one another in our desire to become people rooted in God and grow in spiritual maturity.

On the fourth Sunday of each month, at 6.15pm – also at Emmanuel – we host a service which is pretty experimental in nature. It could be contemplative, a jazz mass, alternative worship or Taize but, quite simply, it's a space to experiment and to be.

Mission and Prayer

For us, mission and prayer go hand-in-hand. All we want to do is follow the example of Jesus in his life, death and resurrection; demonstrating and reflecting God's love. It's our aim to enable and encourage people to do this where they live and work.

At midday each day we encourage people who are part of Abide to recite the Lord's Prayer. We're grateful to the 24-7 Prayer movement as this is something that we borrowed from them. The whole idea of praying at 12noon is that it allows God to interrupt our day. Whether you're into a regular time of prayer or not, disciplining yourself to pray slap bang in the middle of the day means your mind turns to God, irrespective of how busy your day is.

So that is Abide. The journey started about a year ago but we've only just gone public. We think that we're in the process of discovering the sodal within the modal, and in this process of discovery we hope and pray that we become a community that helps to bring renewal to the modal.

Zac’s Place – update Oct12

work:space – update Jun12

The Order of the Black Sheep – Apr12

Presence – update Oct12

Presence was formed by Bishop's Mission Order in December 2009 to set up a new church to the west side of Leicester's city centre in an area of new apartment blocks, waterside redevelopment and the DeMontfort University campus. Its leader, city centre pioneer minister David Cundill, gives an update.

Our aim is to provide church for people who don't go to church, never did, don't anymore, don't think they fit in, doubters, sceptics, seekers and the spiritually curious. We've adopted a grass roots approach built around relationships that embraces festival and fun, hospitality and welcome and safe space to ask questions. One of our regulars describes us as working out together and for ourselves what it means to follow in the way of Jesus.

We've met and made many new friends along the way as we attempt to help grow community where it doesn't exist. We're regulars at a local pub quiz, enjoy nights out at the cinema together, run men's events and weekends away in the hills, girls' nights in and lots of parties. We've tried some open mic nights and got involved with Christians Against Poverty and tried worship in many unconventional ways.

Our journey has been eventful and wholly unpredictable not least due to the dramatic change to our BMO area in this time. Our first base was a pub, which was bought by Tesco for a convenience store, just prior to the widespread collapse and closure of most pubs, bars and most meeting places in the area. Building work has largely stopped – with even the biggest waterside development having to put plans on hold for the community elements of their project, including space for shops or new meeting places. We've had to be very flexible and adapt to significant changes in the various neighbourhoods that our BMO area includes. This has been very much like a wilderness journey, looking for where God has been at work, for people of peace, and places to meet them.

As a result we've done a lot to make spirituality accessible in public spaces, in the parks for instance and through shared community rituals such as floating lanterns and memory gardens at the city's riverside festival. We've got accustomed to worship in the rain and expert at putting up gazebos. The church year has been really useful in helping people connect with us and God in new ways; we’ve reinvented festivals and claimed secular ones back, celebrating with food a lot and always providing space for spiritual encounter: Todos los Santos at Halloween/All Saints, beer and carols, Rasa/Mardi Gras, curry feasts for harvest, and even our own annual mini 'Greenbelt-style' festival under canvas at the diocesan retreat centre, Launde Abbey.

Over time, our connections with the local community have grown. We now have good links with a local primary school and have hosted a community cafe to help the university's Square Mile community outreach programme which falls into part of our area. An engagement with ancient future, involving labyrinths and Easter sunrise services, has proved popular and – combined with endless opportunities to show hospitality, welcome the stranger and share fellowship round a table over food – we're finding much of what we're doing is similar to others exploring new monastic approaches to church and life.

We're conscious that our name has had a significant part to play in this in that we've increasingly worked on helping people connect with the presence of God through what we do as a presence for God in the local community. This is now leading us to plan about how to put down roots in a local redundant church to create a community meeting place that will connect arts and spirituality amongst other things. A monthly cafe church event has evolved into a near weekly pattern of worship in many different forms, all aimed to help seekers encounter God.

Our story shows that often you cannot know the shape of church when you start to form it and that the way God builds it can be both challenging and deeply rewarding. We’re discovering the gift of not fitting in, resilience and optimism based on realised hope of what God can do for, with, and through us. Three years in, things constantly evolve and we keep finding that God opens up ever more possibilities for us to enjoy.

* On Sundays, Presence meets weekly at 3.30pm at 12 Frog Island, LE3 5AG, (next to All Nations Church) for informal worship or prayer. We also host 'Cream Tea Communion' featuring cake, community and cream tea – organised with the University's chaplaincy centre – at the same time and place on 28th October and 25th November.

What (or who) shapes church and why? (Clare Watkins)

Clare Watkins asks what (or who) shapes church and why.

Many of the disagreements within and between ecclesial communities of Christians are concerned in some way and another with the structure of church life. The question is one of shape. But in focussing on these matters we quickly forget a more fundamental set of questions about what (or who) shapes church and why. To ask about the shape of church is to enquire into some deep questions about what church is, and – most importantly – what (or who) it's for.

Pondering on the shape of the church, informed by my own Catholic theological tradition and the witness of fresh expressions communities with which I've worked, I find myself thinking about the following points:

The 'shape of the church' is always a problem

Right from the earliest days there has been a sense that there is more to 'the church' than meets the eye. This community of ordinary people is also 'the Body of Christ' (1 Corinthians 12); it is a group who knows its real home is 'in heaven' (Colossians 3.1-3). From St Paul through Augustine, Aquinas and the Reformation period right up to the present, the visible form that the church takes has always been in some kind of tension with the sense that it is 'more than this'. The visible ecclesial patterns of life reflect a deeper mystery – often rather imperfectly.

The shape of the church is contextually realised

This fundamental tension of the visible and invisible in ecclesiology is a theological reality of church. Whilst there is in church history stories of continuity and (sadly) fracture, there is also a sense in which, even within the most continuous organisation, these forms of life have reflected the cultural context. Both as counter-cultural witness, and as a reality of its time, the church always relates in a variety of ways to its context. In particular, the history of the church in mission teaches us the importance of changing and adapting shape in order to speak the Gospel more clearly in a given context.

The shape of the church is formed by its mission and vocation in Christ

At the same time, the shape of the church is always governed by its unique identity as 'the Body of Christ'. In relating to our cultural context, Christians not only adapt to their surroundings but also critique them when necessary. Not everything in our society is good and not everything bad. We discover the shape of Christ's church in our world by a careful and prayerful living in the heart of the world, whilst always embodying Christ's true presence there. The church is shaped by sociological forces; but is constantly in need of hearing and re-hearing its call to be something other than an organisation, a human community. We are shaped by mission, by vocation.

The shape of the church is best described in terms of its centre rather than its boundaries

Perhaps the most striking feature of work with fresh expressions initiatives is the way in which being the church in the places of 'non-church' – the places where people are – challenges the notions of what is or is not 'church'. These practices of mission lead us to realise that the notion of church being some kind of club, of which one is either a member or not, fails to do justice to the experiences of long journeys into faith and the discovery of the Gospel in the particular circumstances of people's lives. Church has a shape which is not so much delineated by its boundaries – who is in and who is out – but rather takes its form from its central reality the Trinity's love of all people and the outpouring of that love into all corners of human living. The church is a centred rather than bounded reality.

The shape of the church is Spirit led – it is a question of discernment

These reflections bring us to the heart of the matter. When we ask about the 'shape' of the church, we are in danger of working with an implicit model of church which sees it as an object, with definable edges. What we see embodied in fresh expressions practices however reminds us that the church, as the community responding to the Holy Spirit in the world, is not so simply objectified. Church in mission, church in the world, is more organic, more mixed up than this – as St Augustine clearly understood (City of God). This calls us more and more to learn discernment of church and discipleship, even within unlikely looking forms and places, rather than seeking after some kind of hard and fast definition of 'what church is' – or ought to look like.

The brevity of these thoughts fails to do justice to the questions and to the learning experience from which they spring. However I hope they can act as something of a stimulus to further reflection in maturing our thinking about what being church in, and for, the world today means for the Christian community as a whole.

The context of this Comment is the ARCS project in practical church mission and the book Talking About God in Practice, Theological Action Research and Practical Theology by Helen Cameron, Deborah Bhatti, Catherine Duce, James Sweeney and Clare Watkins (SCM, 2011).