February 2013 - FX ARCHIVE...

Don’t forget joy and laughter in discipleship!

Messy Church founder Lucy Moore, in her latest interview with Fresh Expressions, emphasises the importance of joy and laughter in the journey of discipleship.

Watch or read the full interview below.

Hundreds of Messy Churches have been formed in the UK, and across the world, since the first one launched in Cowplain, Hampshire, nine years ago. Lucy says the question is increasingly being asked, 'Now what? Is Messy Church really making disciples?'

She comments,

This is a really interesting and difficult question to answer.

Messy Church congregations are starting from a different place than many who would normally be coming into some sort of discipleship process, comprising a different set of people with a different set of expectations and perhaps prejudices.

So what we've found really helpful is to think about discipleship as a process or a journey. Instead of simply asking if people have become disciples or Christians in Messy Church, we prefer to ask, 'Are they becoming disciples; are they becoming Christians?' The answer is, 'Yes, hugely,' but they are just starting from a long way back in many cases.

The result is that Messy Church is currently reassessing what discipleship involves in the way of learning.

It's not just cerebral learning, intellectual learning,

adds Lucy,

but it's also valuing the non-formal learning and the social learning which are hugely powerful in Messy Church and a crucial part of discipleship – whole life discipleship, not just head discipleship.

This is a long haul and it's why Messy Churches are there as church, not as events. They're there month by month by month over a period of years, carrying people through on their Christian journey and accepting that this is a very gradual process for them.

The challenge for those leading a Messy Church is to offer as many chances to encounter God as possible in the limited time span available.

I wouldn't want to undervalue what goes on through joy and fun and play in Messy Churches. I think that's actually very deep in many ways but it is probably undervalued when it comes to discipleship. We (the church) tend to value the quiet, solemn, mysterious, things and undervalue the joy and laughter and re-creation that goes on.

Lucy says Messy Church has considered devising a discipleship course but the feeling at the moment is,

Not yet. If ever. If we start prescribing what discipleship should be rather than allowing people to think it through for themselves, to allow each church to discover a way that's right for those people, those families, those teams; I think we could be missing out on something exciting that God's got on offer for us. So maybe the time will come for a course, I don't think it's yet.

Paul Moore's book, Making Disciples in Messy Church – Growing faith in an all-age community, is published in March. Lucy comments,

I hope it will help people to think through the principles of it all rather than giving them ready made answers and I think that could be the catalyst that could send us off in exciting new directions as each church attempts – and fails and succeeds – with its own Messy Church. It will make progress but there will be a lot of failures along the way because this is new, this is pioneering stuff and it's not been done before. How do you grow atheists into disciples in this context as families, all ages, together? As far as I know it's not been done in quite that way before so it will be exciting to see what God's got up his sleeve for us in the next few years!

Don’t be so defensive! (Ben Norton)

Ben Norton lays down a challenge to not be so defensive.

Reflecting on the developing fresh expression of church that I was part of in Bridlington, one thing has struck me recently – and that has been that when it comes to fresh expressions of church we should not be so quick to defend and justify them.

It is an easy trap to fall into, especially for the pioneer who will have ploughed a lot of blood, sweat and tears into birthing a new community. Of course everyone wants newly formed fresh expressions of church to be successful in reaching those who have no connection with either faith or church. We want them to look good, but it is easy to miss the reality of authentic markers of church. There is also the fact that at times we might want to measure how well they are doing by comparing them to other inherited forms of church to see how well they are getting on.

One of the hardest things I find when it comes to critiquing fresh expressions of church is that the only yardstick we have got is one that seems rather inadequate for the job. The tools no longer fit the situation, tools such as critiquing new communities using orthodoxy and doctrine as a way of interpreting what is going on. Whilst these issues are important they might not always be easily recognisable in the way we might want to understand them.

For example, one of the comments of the fresh expression in Bridlington was that it seemed that we never actively preached the gospel, in so much as there was no recognised reading and expounding of the scriptures. I believe the question therefore is one that can be found in the Psalms, at a time when God's people found themselves in an unfamiliar place, with no recognisable markers to order their sense of God. In Psalm 137.4, we read,

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

The ‘foreign land’ for us is cultural rather than geographical.

What we did do is take a hermeneutical approach to exploring issues in the news. Exploring, sharing and debating the topics that everyone was facing. It was through this way of engaging with each other that conversations of faith, ethical, moral, and spiritual ideas were put forward and critiqued and pondered by those who did not profess a faith-based worldview. Viewpoints were aired and language used that some people may feel shocked or offended by. Indeed I often asked myself the question 'what would people say if they thought this was church?'

Of course this was an environment in which everyone was welcome and all views were encouraged to be shared. They would be challenged at times and although there were never any serious consequences the debates would get heated. It was messy and I, as the pioneer, constantly felt vulnerable about what it was we were doing. With questions like 'Is this church?', 'Are these men seeing and hearing the teachings of Jesus?', 'Can we see authentic signs of the Kingdom here?' and always in the back of my mind were the voices of those who would criticise no matter what we did.

But on reflection, I believe that if a fresh expression of church is authentically engaging with and creating disciples then it will look most of the time anything but successful – just like the disciples, and the early church. In fact I would go so far as saying that a mark of authenticity would be that the community would be very fragile – and most of the time in crisis. I say this not only from my own experience but also reading Paul's letters to the early church (1 Corinthians 1.10-17) in which he sorted out the issues arising as new disciples worked out their faith in a messy and uneasy way.

There is an album by the band Dubh called 'Fractured, broken and beautiful'. I believe that this sums up the church in every place and not just fresh expression communities, but this is what we want. A church reliant upon the saving grace of God though the continued work of the Holy Spirit.

Vitalise – update Feb13 (formerly WPM)

Wolverhampton Pioneer Ministries (WPM) was established in 2007. As its current leader Tim Judson moves on to train for Baptist ministry, he tells how what is now known as Vitalise has successfully developed young and indigenous leaders to continue the work there.

Vitalise features in one of our case studies.

The shape and vision of this fresh expression has steadily evolved over time. I joined in September 2010 and, since then, the focus and direction has shifted again – much as a river will carve out its journey based on the terrain around it.

The vision we adopted at WPM serves as a holistic description of who we are and what we want to be, namely to worship fully, love all and serve the city. There is no doubt that God has used WPM in transforming lives around Wolverhampton but I would want to emphasise and honour the many inherited churches, organisations and people which work alongside us as well. We are a partnership of support and resources from the Church of England, Methodist Church and Youth for Christ, but we have almost every denomination represented in our community and that is without a shadow of doubt a strength for us, if at times requiring a little bit of dialogue!

It has sometimes been argued that WPM is simply a youth church. Whilst we clearly do work with a large number of young people, 47% of the 135 people we serve regularly in our community are aged 19 or over. Our activities include mid-week groups, mentoring, a Sunday gathering and other such events.

The Sunday get-together, Vitalise, currently meets in the basement of Darlington Street Methodist Church. This is focussed on authentic worship, relevant biblical teaching, community, creative prayer, exploring gifts and developing leaders. As things have moved on, the name Vitalise is generally used more widely with people in the community now referring to all that we are as Vitalise, they don't tend to speak of it as Wolverhampton Pioneer Ministries – though we are still very much pioneering in outlook.

We serve people from a wide range of church backgrounds, age groups and ethnicities. In terms of church, it breaks down along these lines: Anglican (32%), Methodist (7%), Baptist (5%), Roman Catholic (2%); Non-conformist (23%) and Non-church (31%).

Vitalise has organised, or been heavily involved in, a number of initiatives and events in recent years. These have included:

three members of staff being trained to deliver the Christians Against Poverty money course;

the Community of St Chad. We pioneered an exploration of the rule of life known as the rule of St Chad in September 2011, looking at rhythms of grace as a tool for discipleship;

contemplative prayer. A small group explores the use of contemplation for prayer, based on a lot of teaching from St Benedict, the Iona community and the Northumbria community;

HIV/AIDS day. Apparently no other church in the city had organised a service to remember those who have died or suffered because of HIV and AIDS. We arranged a service where we invited people, including those from the gay community, at St John's church;

inter-church relationships. A lot of time has been spent investing in relationships with local church leaders, youth workers and other significant people;

internships. In 2010, WPM took on four interns, the following year three 'companions' were enrolled and this current year we have an intern from the Methodist One Programme working part-time;

friday in the pub. Meeting on a Friday morning at the Lady Wulfrun pub for breakfast and Bible study. People from other church or non-church backgrounds come along to join us;

morning prayer and Bible study. Meeting at a Starbucks from Monday to Friday at 9am to pray for the wider world, our city and each other.

organic groups. Small groups operating in a cell church model, geared towards food, worship, biblical study and missional growth

PODs – Prayer, openness and discipleship are the three areas that these prayer triplets look at. The intention is for them to grow and then split so more people are being discipled.

One thing I think we are very strong in is leadership empowerment. WPM's previous leader, Arun Arora, really invested in that when he identified a few people who would have longevity in their leadership potential. I have taken that further and exponentially there are now many people who have developed as leaders, both in church and other work. They are active in various areas of the community's life, including worship leading and speaking.

Some might say, 'You are fortunate to have such a lot of leaders', but the truth is that a culture has grown up where leaders are highlighted, developed and empowered. In the last two years WPM has released five people for ordained ministry, two for Methodist local preacher courses and six for roles as lay workers. Others have been inspired to serve God overseas. This is a real melting pot for leaders!

There have been 10 baptisms in the last two years, one of which was actually at the Vitalise Sunday gathering. Three people have also been confirmed. A number of non-church people have come to faith through WPM, including staff at Starbucks and people in the homeless and homosexual communities.

Quite early on I had to recognise my own strengths and weaknesses in this role. Two people work alongside me and they do brilliant jobs, each of them gifted in different ways. When Arun left, he actually commissioned the three of us as the team with me acting as an overseer. It works really well and means that not everything rests on one person. We are all journeying in this together though, in terms of responsibility for the whole thing, the buck does officially stop with me.

I have heard of fresh expressions where their future and their progress are all tied up in one leader. When he or she leaves it can bring the whole thing down. Whereas, when I leave for ministry training, I know that things will very much continue because there will be plenty of people to carry on with the ministry. I think that, right from the start of our time as leaders, we should be looking to work ourselves 'out of a job' through the development of others.

It's very difficult to define Vitalise in a way. I often refer to it in different ways in different contexts, sometimes it's a project, sometimes an organisation, sometimes a church or community. That happens because everyone who's part of Vitalise would see it differently themselves. For some, they don't go anywhere else in terms of church; it’s where they go for strength and growth and encounter with God. Others are based at local churches but will come to the Sunday gathering or prayer triplets, seeing Vitalise as 'another' church they go to or at least something which is part of their Christian growth. I'd say we are like a hub; a group of disciples making disciples.

Accountability is very important. We continue to be strongly supported by the Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury District of the Methodist Church, the Diocese of Lichfield and Wolverhampton Youth for Christ, and we have very good relationships with many local churches of various denominations. It's so important to be transparent and for people to know that we are not out to 'sheep steal' from them. It all comes down to relationship with integrity.

We have got secure funding for the next 18 months and we are grateful for continuing discussions about the way forward for that. However a lot of these new schools of church don't have someone on a stipend, and that's why – certainly in our case – we need to keep on finding and encouraging people who are committed to Wolverhampton on a long-term basis to continue the work. Then, by having a team leadership model, we could have something which is sustainable because it doesn't necessarily need any direct funding.

mission shaped intro: course notes and DVD

mission shaped intro helps people to reconnect with the communities they are called to serve and to re-imagine the forms of church that are needed for the 21st century. It takes you on a creative and reflective journey looking at the need for new ways of being church.

Our world and our lives change at an ever faster pace, but how does the church respond to this change? Are new ways of being church possible? If so, what might they look like?

msi has been used by over 75,000 people worldwide and is ideal for those starting from scratch or with a basic understanding of fresh expressions of church. It features six lively and interactive 120-minute sessions with creative activities, film clips, discussion, worship and prayer.

mission shaped intro is also available to download.

mission shaped intro: workbook

Our world and our lives change at an ever faster pace, but how does the church respond to this change? Are new ways of being church possible? If so, what might they look like?

mission shaped intro is also available to download.

The Order of the Black Sheep – Feb13

Cringleford Community Project

Heather Cracknell, a pioneer curate near Norwich, is looking to establish a social enterprise café and community project on a new housing development. She hopes it will develop into a fresh expression.

Since I was ordained as a pioneer minister in 2011, the diocese of Norwich has encouraged me to explore what it means to be 'church' in an area of new housing.

Launched in June 2007, the Roundhouse Park development is on the outskirts of Norwich at Cringleford. Building work is still going and eventually there will be 1065 homes. In the next six to nine months there should be a school and eventually a community centre but, at the moment, there isn't a public place to meet at all.

I live in a house bought by the diocese at Roundhouse and my role is split between pioneering there and a traditional curacy in St Peter's Parish Church, Cringleford.

New housing areas are interesting because they have a very distinct culture and don't tend to integrate well with the villages around them. This is compounded at Roundhouse because the development is separated from Cringleford village by a dual carriageway so it's not easy to grow it as one community. Another factor is that the people moving to the new housing tend to be younger than those in the village. Cringleford is near the hospital, research park and university so the new development offers many young professionals and their families a more varied mix of housing.

I have been here for just over 20 months and, in that time, my priority has simply been to get to know as many people as possible. I started by having regular curry nights at my house and, from that, people would suggest different things we might do. This led to 'Stitch and Yarn' which involves people coming together for crochet, knitting or some sort of stitch craft; a cup of tea and a lot of chat. We've also had quizzes, running sessions, picnics and even a 'bake-off' around the kitchens of Roundhouse Park. We are trying to offer as diverse a range of activities as we can but we are still in quite an exploratory phase.

Once a fortnight I host something called Table. People come together for a meal and they're free to explore Christian faith in a safe space. We eat together, have a simple reflection (usually with bread and wine) and get to know each other.

It's so important to try and discern what people are concerned about in the area rather than make any assumptions as to what you think they are concerned about! As part of that, we launched an online community survey in the autumn to find out more about what people wanted and why. The idea was that it would encourage increasing numbers of people to get involved in building community spirit.

We also used the survey to suggest the idea of creating a community project. This involves setting up and running a cafe to provide a place for people to go, spend time with friends, meet others and join in with community activities. It's good to try and get feedback on something like that because there's no point doing something that people don't want in the first place!

The café would not only provide a physical focus for activities but, from the very start, be a spiritual hub. For us it's very important that Christian contemplative prayer and prayer stations of some sort would be 'built into' the rhythm of all activities there to give people the chance to explore Christian spirituality in a very familiar setting. It would be part and parcel of what's available and should beg the questions, 'What does it mean to live well? What would that mean to a community of people exploring faith together, meeting in a café space or school?'

The exciting thing is that we already have the embryo of that community at The Table. We are small in number but I can see the beginnings of a prayerful and supportive group of people.

St Peter's Church is fantastically supportive of what I'm doing on the Roundhouse and they have given me time for that. They also recently launched an appeal for various things associated with mission at the church, including updating of the church hall – and my community café project. If the fundraising goes well, then we will go out and find some match funding.

I have been very clear with St Peter's right from the beginning that the Roundhouse work is not about getting people to come along to the traditional church; some may well want to do that and I'd be delighted if they did but that's not the purpose of developing community in the new housing area.

As a giving, supporting, encouraging new community of faith is formed at Roundhouse; that will be 'proper church' too.

It's taking time to develop a team to help me with what's developing at Roundhouse, and a number of local people are involved in helping create the community project planning. They're not necessarily involved in the parish church but they all have a heart for doing something in, and for, community.

I'm trying my very best to create a team but young professionals are understandably very busy. Many of them have got young babies or they're working full time, are in the process of setting up their own businesses, or work irregular shifts – so I am still doing most of the work on my own but I don't think there's any way round that at the moment.

This is an unusual area in that – although we have a German Lutheran congregation which meets at St Peter's – we do not have another church, of any denomination, in our parish. We are fortunate in that we have had some great support from Methodists who are not too far away and they have helped me to link up with regional Methodist projects, but there is no other Christian community on the doorstep.

Officially I have two-and-a-half years to go here but I hope I would be able to stay on as an associate priest licensed to the newer church. I don't know yet whether it will be a BMO but my aim would be to stay on in order to see it through because it is now generally recognised that seven years is the minimum time required to make something sustainable. We'll see!

Leadership training reaches ‘tipping point’ (Alan Roxburgh)

Alan Roxburgh believes that leadership training has reached a tipping point.

The amount of change we are facing as national and regional church leaders in the United States continues apace. I believe the same is true of the UK.

Institutions we've come to take for granted are coming under pressures that fundamentally change their identity. I have heard about a number of large, significant seminaries struggling with massive challenges around debt and student decline. We know that large numbers of small, struggling seminaries across North America won't survive into the next decade. But when large, well-established, prestigious schools are confronting big financial challenges, one's sense of confidence in the stability of systems is shaken a bit.

We are working with a number of national denominations, listening to regional executives describing the ministry challenges they're facing. A common theme that keeps cropping up centres on concerns that they're not getting the kind of congregational leaders they need from the seminaries, persons able to lead congregations engaging rapidly changing communities. Some of these regional leaders are now seriously asking if they shouldn't be developing their own regionally-based training programs for clergy. They may be onto something!

I recently read an article in The American Interest (volume VIII, number 3) in which its lead story was The End of the University as We Know It – an article by Nathan Harden. The inside page headline was,

Everyone knows that change is coming to higher education but few realise just how destructive (and creative) the coming revolution will be.

Harden argues that in less than a generation, half the colleges and universities in the US will no longer exist. What is also clear is that in less time than that the majority of seminaries and Bible schools will no longer exist.

There are three reasons for this massive change:

Economic: Seminary education is now far too expensive. It's less and less affordable to students who are acquiring more and more debt, and the schools themselves are less able to keep ahead of overhead costs through endowments etc. There is a wave of deferred giving up ahead that will last for a short window while the 'loyalty' generations pass on and their gift promises pay out, but after that, the money simply will not be there the way it has been in the past. At the same time, we are reaching the point where, in many denominations, over 50% of congregations can no longer afford full-time clergy and many of the remainder can't pay their clergy the salaries needed to maintain a decent living and pay down their student debt.

Technology: This, when combined with the financial challenges, is the game-changer. The classroom is about to go virtual. Tablets and the revolution in connectivity are now fundamentally changing the nature of higher education. We are now able to connect students to the best teachers and learning experiences at a fraction of the cost of existing campus-based schools. And, this distributed, on-line education can be done in ways that enable students to do much of their learning on the ground, in their local settings rather than be pulled out and located within some distant campus for three-to-seven years.

Disconnection: There is a disconnect between the kind of leader that seminaries are producing and the growing sense of the kinds of leaders now needed on the ground in congregations. There is a heightening of anxiety across church systems that what seminaries are producing is simply out of step with what is needed. There is a growing conviction that the established model of the 'professional' clergy will go the way of the Dodo. We are in need of shaping new kinds of contextual learning communities which are working at discovering together what the new leadership needs to look like. This is not an abandonment of classical or intellectual skills but a loss of confidence in the existing professional, graduate models of leadership.

This set of new realities is providing regional and national church leaders with an array of possibilities for those ready to embrace the space opening up before us. There is a confluence of factors coming together to remake the education of church leaders.

Some of these new realities are:

A massive shift in power. National denominations and schools, in partnership with credentialing organizations, have been able to set the agenda and standards for the training and education of leaders for the churches. They have determined what is taught, how it is taught, where it is taught, and who will be taught. It's all about to end! For those ready to embrace it, new kinds of distributive, learning networks are waiting to be created. Regional leaders thinking about how to train leaders for the realities the churches are asking the right questions in a moment when this confluence of change is picking up speed.

A significant overproduction of PhDs coming out of theological schools and seminaries. These represent bright, young men and women looking for places to teach that no longer exist. There are fewer and fewer positions available. As more and more schools struggle to survive, there will be even fewer positions in the classic, traditional teaching profession of the seminaries. This means a growing pool of young, energetic, creative teachers are becoming available. Will they be open to participating in creating new forms of training for a networked world, one in which they will not have salaries and tenure to lose? A majority of young people are less and less willing to move across the country to spend three-to-seven years in an on-campus school getting an education because that is the established requirement of denominational and accrediting agencies. In other words, there is a growing pool of young, creative men and women ready and eager to experiment in the emerging virtual classrooms that allow them to stay local for most of their experience and do this at a fraction of the cost of traditional seminary education.

Once dominant denominations are waning and morphing. They will soon be unable to plug the dike and maintain their controls over the credentialing of clergy leaders. Established credentialing has lost its gloss; it no longer holds the prestige and privilege it once did. Current critiques of on-line and networked education simply don’t hold water anymore. We have reached the tipping point in terms of the interactive technologies being available for creating rich educational experiences, and there are enough studies emerging to show that this kind of learning can be high quality.

There is now a new environment of experimenting. Some schools are putting 'everything' on the table in an effort of discern the adaptive shifts they need to make. This is creating a new openness to developing experiments in learning and training. We are in a space of new learning and discovery. No group has an inside track on what it all needs to look like but… regional and national leaders of churches have before them an unparalleled opportunity for cultivating new ways of training leaders for their churches. A distributive, networked, interactive world is not a futurist's prediction; it's already here. Technologies are now available that make it possible to create just-in-time learning and training educational experiences.

We are seeing tectonic shifts reframing how emerging generations live and think in a networked world. It is not all wonderful, there are downsides, but we are, unquestionably, in the midst of the ending of practices long thought essential (the 'seminary' as we know it is mostly a 20th century creation). We have entered yet another time of amazing opportunity and creativity. A confluence of factors provide a moment for church leaders to heed the Spirit's invitation to experiment and learn together how to form leaders for the strange new space into which God has brought us.

The Dock – update Feb13

Chris Bennett, a Church of Ireland chaplain in Belfast, gives an update on the Dock, including a new café and the development of the Dock Walks.

The Dock began 2012 as the church with no building, just a group of people with a vision for a shared church for the Titanic Quarter, this fantastic, vibrant new part of Belfast. We were walking (our Dock Walks are a new way of doing church, on foot, and they still take place every week); we were praying; we were meeting the neighbours – thanks to the permission of Titanic Quarter Ltd we were allowed occasional use of a vacant shop unit for pop-up coffee mornings, barbeques and community events. We were also open to whatever God was going to do with us which turned out to be more than we could have asked or imagined.

The Titanic Quarter developers agreed to enter Belfast's first 'Meanwhile Contract' on that vacant shop unit – allowing permission for The Dock to use it for a peppercorn rent as a base of operations, a coffee shop, an art gallery and a chaplaincy centre – in the 'meanwhile' time before a commercial tenant could be found for it.

They also gave us a deadline of six days because a BBC crew were arriving in the area to film Titanic Songs of Praise. Was there any chance we could be open and ready in time for them to film in Dock Café?!

Well, there's nothing like a deadline for motivation. The people we had met and started to get to know over those months of walking, praying and talking threw their energy into everything from sweeping the concrete dust from the floor to constructing flat pack furniture. We filled the space with squashy sofas, cosy corners, art, photography, light, life, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. In the nick of time, we were ready for the film crew and the grand opening of Dock Café.

Since then, the months have passed in a blur of answered prayer, conversation, laughter and life. The Honesty Box – which replaces a price list for every single cuppa, sandwich, scone and bowl of soup that is served in the cafe – has provoked countless conversations. The volunteer team has grown month-on-month, so we are now able to open six days a week. Students, residents, tourists and businesspeople have all found a safe haven and a warm welcome – a 'local' for a new community.

My contract has been renewed for another three years on the basis that I now work part-time in the Quarter and part-time as Bishop's curate to the parish of St Clement, East Belfast. Part of my role from the very beginning of The Dock had been to find a viable long term, part–time post which would be a solid foundation and support for the more experimental, 'out–there', work in the Titanic Quarter. In the first year of the Dock's existence I did something similar, filling in as temporary minister in Carrowdore and Millisle parish during their vacancy. I then did some tour–guiding with Titanic Walking Tours as a different, and challenging, way to make ends meet while The Dock project made its way forward.

It has made such a difference at the Titanic Quarter to work alongside my Methodist co–chaplain, Karen Spence. We're hoping to see further working partnerships develop in future.

The Dock Walks are still our intentional way of doing church, on foot, in the midst of the Quarter. Everything else that happens through The Dock is focusing on building community and seeing what develops. It's wonderful to now have a physical space at the Dock Café because I know we could use it for all sort of things. Those who struggled to understand the vision of the Dock, or what we meant about encouraging and sustaining a new form of church through the Dock Walks, see the Cafe as being what it's all about. That's not the case because, although it's brilliant to have the premises, The Dock involves a lot more than that!

There is a core of about 10 people who regularly come to the Dock Walk on Sundays. We always have others dipping in to find out what it's all about and, in recent times, we have welcomed walkers who have never had any previous links with church at all. I find that very interesting because it's impossible to come to us and 'hide' in a seat at the back; it's a bit more demanding than that because you simply can't be a 'spectator' on a Dock Walk!

In saying that, no-one is put on the spot, made to speak or pray out loud – and we don't sing, or preach, or walk around with sandwich boards. I find it really encouraging that people without any church links feel able to pitch in with their thoughts and discussions and I like to think that it's because we make everyone feel welcome and part of what's happening. I think there is something very fundamental and natural about going for a walk that releases people to be a lot more personal and to share their opinions with each other. It's also not weird or awkward to have a time of quiet when you are walking.

We start off by walking for about 25 minutes, during which time we just chat to each other. Then, about half an hour in, we stop and listen to the reading from the Wordlive multimedia resources podcast. We then walk for another 10-15 minutes to chat about what we've heard before stopping again to draw together all our thoughts. After that we will listen to the reading again because I believe we can get so much out of it second time around. Onwards again for a while and then we stop to share personal thoughts and discuss the opportunities or challenges we get from the reading.

By then we'll have walked through the Quarter and areas around it; that's when we stop to listen to some worship music. At that stage we make the return trip and head to the Café for a coffee and more time together. All is constantly subject to change due to weather, people and what is happening in the Titanic Quarter. The whole thing takes about an hour and a half.

Sadly, Belfast has been hitting the headlines again with bad things going on rather than good but The Dock is now making connections with all of the churches in the city and I believe it's one of our goals at The Dock to show the other side of Belfast's story here.

[Part of this article first appeared in the Church of Ireland Gazette.]

10 How should we teach and preach? (Share booklet 10)

How should we teach and preach? explores the place of preaching and teaching in fresh expressions of church. Has the sermon has had its day, why do we need alternatives, what might be some teaching strategies for 21st century contextual churches and how might we change the preaching and teaching culture of the Church?

This Share booklet is one of a series which aims to help you to think about how to start, support and sustain a fresh expression of church. Buy multiple Share booklets for a discount (applied automatically at checkout): other offers and packs are detailed on the Share booklets page.