Day: 12 August 2015

Dorking’s ‘church with a twist’

Graham Cray reflects on the story of St Paul's Café Church.

Fresh expressions of church develop one step at a time. Long term blueprints don't drop out of the sky! First the nursery contacts, then the Earlybird cafe, then Café Church.

The, as yet, unanswered questions, like how to develop a depth of discipleship in this sort of monthly congregation, will unfold in the same way, as long as St. Paul's stays faithful to what it has learned already.

Perhaps the most fascinating question is how will Café Church help to reshape St Paul's in the future?

Moving on with GraceSpace

Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops’ Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, looks at how a fresh expression of church can both continue and develop after its founders move on – and that the gift of pioneering has little to do with age.

GraceSpace in Bradford is 'a church for people who don't go to church.' It started life five years ago when Andy Bowerman was appointed as Pioneer Minister and he, and his wife Ali, set up the Vicars Café in Saltaire with a vision to create a community in the Aire Valley. The Café continues to operate today, providing a 'third space' where people can enjoy hospitality while building relationships and sharing God with those who are interested. When the Bowermans moved to Dorset, the Café became a social enterprise with a project manager.

Colin and Katy Blake arrived in 2009. Colin had been ordained for 27 years and, at 59, thought he was 'one of the oldest pioneer ministers in CofE history!'

A four month gap between Andy leaving and Colin arriving meant that the community dissipated – with only six or seven people turning up at the licensing service to represent GraceSpace. Colin said,

Many people associated with GraceSpace related to Andy and Ali very strongly but it was clear, when we came on the scene, that they weren't relating to each other in the same way. As a result we decided not to get involved in lots of missional activities initially; instead we wanted to help people to get to know each other.

Mine is a five year appointment and we knew it was vital to get strong building blocks of community in place right from the start. We moved a lot of events away from Vicars Café and hosted them in our home. We began to meet together as a group around meals. Food and drink became the staple of what we were doing and when people eat together, somehow there is a little heaven in the ordinary. The number has now grown to 25 with many people coming who have either been bruised by church in the past or with no previous experience of church at all. They range from families with teenage or adult children through to people in their 50s and 60s. We also have about 10 younger children, aged from two to 12, coming along with their parents. Some come as a result of personal invitation from a friend though many have turned up as a result of the information and publicity we put out through our website.

A turning point came when GraceSpace came up with the idea of a different meal theme for each Sunday in the month. On the first Sunday we have Breakfast when people turn up at 10am to help us cook breakfast together; we will then organise a spiritual thought or reflection while we're eating. The whole thing can run for about three hours as people often want to stick around and discuss things.

The second Sunday is Lunch. This starts at 12.30 and people bring different foods around a theme so we might have a Chinese meal or what we call 'Yorkshire food' which means three types of curry! Everyone takes part; we don't offer separate things for different ages.

The third Sunday is Tea or 'Creativitea' at which we bring along cakes and biscuits and make big crafts together from 3pm. I'm a regional co-ordinator for Messy Church but we don't have enough space to run a Messy Church. However, Creativitea is a variation on the theme because we do have a celebration, activity and food as part of the mix. The adults are happy to join in with cut and paste but generally they want to make things that will last, something with a purpose.

The fourth Sunday is based around supper time at about 6pm. It is called Ikon; this is more reflective and allows people to share what comes out of that time together. Typically they will have bread, soup, pate and cheese at that one. When there's a fifth Sunday in the month the children choose what the adults have to do on that day and tell us what the spiritual element is going to be.

We also offer Explore sessions during the week. These are cell church like in structure but are about Bible application rather than Bible study, giving the opportunity for a much more interactive approach. It's all about giving people the freedom to have different opinions. It's no good saying, 'this is the only answer to this passage'. Instead I approach it as, 'I know what I think this passage is about but tell me, what do you think?' It's about trying to step back, not telling people what to think but allowing them to grow.

At the end of 2011, Colin had to take some time off work for health reasons but he was very encouraged to see what happened at GraceSpace while he was out of action.

The people have been brilliant,

he said,

offering their homes and their skills to keep things moving along. My absence prompted the devolving, training, encouraging and mentoring of new people into leadership. For this fresh expression to develop we want to create another network of community – a second GraceSpace and, for that, we need leaders but we have also taken a long, hard look at our purpose in all of this. It can't just be to build community. How do we look outside and make a difference?

Working the ‘Night Shift’

Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, explores the story of Night Shift at Hereford Baptist Church to see how the clientele of a fresh expression of church may change but its core ministry – to reach those unreached by other forms of church – remains the same.

Mair Granthier is one of the organisers of Night Shift, which runs on Saturday evenings from 12 midnight to about 3am when the church's front entrance is opened up so that those in local pubs and clubs can finish their evening with a hot cuppa or coffee and a chat.

As part of the regular Night Shift team since it started just over nine years ago, Mair has seen many changes and met hundreds of young people – and some not so young – during that time.

A small team of volunteers are on duty every week to provide a welcome for anyone who comes through the door. Since Night Shift was featured on expressions: the dvd – 1: stories of church for a changing culture, the process remains the same and what's on offer remains the same but there is a significant drop in the numbers of those coming in.

Mair puts this down to several key things,

The licensing hours have changed so people filter out of the venues at different times and local fast food outlets now have to shut by 1.30am so you no longer have huge queues of people waiting for their fish and chips. However, the fact that fewer people are coming in does offer greater opportunity for us to speak to them. Looking back on those early days it was more like crowd control! Week by week, we continue to feel that there is a reason why we are still around. The clubbers now expect us to be there – though it's not just clubbers we serve. We also have the homeless call in on us and people who would be seen as the misfits of society; they view Night Shift as their 'night out' or at least a place – maybe the only place – where they can feel welcome.

Another thing we've noticed more recently is the increasing call on team members' time, which unfortunately limits their availability. The needs of the people we serve don't change so the availability of sufficient staff is really important to us. We always try to have at least three or four on duty at any one time and there's probably about 10 people involved all together.

We offer hot drinks, toilet facilities, and a safe warm place to sit, wait for a taxi, eat a burger or rest their feet. We've also had people who get thrown out of clubs; they come in to Night Shift and text their friends to tell them that they are 'at the church'.

Some of them we see very regularly, in fact we know most of our visitors by name, but a lot of those we used to see don't tend to go out drinking any more but will occasionally drop in and say hello. We have built up a lot of friendships over the years and it's great to see how people are getting on. We’ve also had parents and grandparents of young people say to us how good it is to know that there is somebody trustworthy there to help their kids or grandkids if they get into trouble on a Saturday night out.

We have come to accept that Night Shift really is church to quite a few people, and even if they only come in for 20 minutes or half an hour they know who we are and why we do it and who we do it for. There was great joy at Christmas when we gave out carol sheets to them and we all sang favourite carols; they really enjoyed that! We pray that Night Shift will be part of people's faith journey; it may be that someone else does the harvesting, but that's fine.

We have a small prayer team of predominantly older people who support our work. We write a prayer request report for every Night Shift that they use to identify prayer needs; the report is also useful because it means that we have a record of who comes in.

Our greatest desire at the moment is to recruit more volunteers – even if it's just to do one stint every couple of months. Our team members are all getting older and so we would like to encourage others to be part of the welcoming team. They could come along to 'taste and see' what it's like; if they do they could well become hooked on it – just like us! We recognise that very elderly people or those with young families couldn’t help us in this way but it would be good to see some new volunteer faces.

The people we meet at Night Shift wouldn't normally consider going through a church door and it's a privilege for us to be there for them. We believe that the church more and more has to be prepared to reach out to where people are, rather than expect them to come to what we call church and 'fit in'.

Bishop Graham comments,

Not all fresh expressions are meant to be sustainable, some are seasonal. They run their course while a door of opportunity is open and come to a natural end when that door closes, without having failed in any way. But many are to be long term sustainable. They are new engagements on the front line of mission, developing into permanent congregations and communities.

The nine years of Night Shift show that the clientele of a fresh expression may change because culture isn't motionless but its core ministry, to reach those unreached by other forms of church, has to continue. The work can be long and hard. It is a persistent challenge to disciple established and newer Christians so that they are willing to serve at inconvenient times and places. Fresh expressions of church are certainly not a quick fix solution to church growth but they are here to stay, a vital part of Christ's missionary call to his Church, for the sake of many for whom he died.

Kairos – one step at a time

The shape and ministry of a fresh expression of church tends to unfold one step at a time. It is much more a question of discernment in context, than long term strategic planning. Listening to God and then joining in what God has prepared is the key each step of the way.

The vision of Grange Park Church in Northampton is to follow the call of Jesus to be the good news to Grange Park and beyond.

Grange Park - Charlie and clockIn 2001 Charlie Nobbs was completing his curacy at St Giles Northampton when it was suggested he do a church plant in the Grange Park new housing area. He discovered that the local Baptist church had the same vision, to plant a cell church. They joined forces, and Grange Park Church is a local ecumenical partnership.

Ministry in new housing areas is easier to get off the ground if a Christian presence can be established at an early stage. Just a few hundred houses had been built when Charlie joined the parish council, while his Baptist colleague helped to set up Neighbourhood Watch in the area and got involved when the primary school was being built.

Initially the strategy was attractional: with a traditional Sunday service plus small groups. But the team were keen to connect with those who might not attend traditional church and focused on young families in particular. To make contact with young families a children's holiday club called Kidzone was held. The assumption was that attendance at Kidzone would lead directly to church attendance; which didn’t happen.

But the team noticed that groups of parents would be chatting together while waiting for their children and a typical conversation went. 'Where do you live?', 'Oh I'm just round the corner from here, come and have a coffee.' Community building was to be the means of being good news and bringing the good news to Grange Park. It is easy to plan the right events but to misunderstand their long term significance.

New housing areas run the risk of becoming soulless dormitory estates. The church is working hard to build community and combat isolation. They learned from a health visitor that the doctors' surgeries were over-run with depressed new mums. Charlie and his wife Charlotte suggested she use their home for appointments with the mums and so Talking Point was started on Thursday mornings. Visitors are offered tea, coffee, cake and a warm welcome. They meet and chat in the lounge, comparing birth experiences and sleep patterns. The health visitors love it because they can see eight or more at a time; the mums love it because they make friends and realise they are not alone. There aren't many babies born in Grange Park that haven't been through Charlie and Charlotte’s house!

The Health Visitors believe Talking Point has significantly improved the mental health of struggling mums. The church now runs various Talking Point groups in and around Grange Park. They use cell principles and organise a social night for the parents without their kids; it welds them together as a cohesive group. Midwives in the area have also picked up on Talking Point, telling mums-to-be about it as a place to go after the birth.

Grange park - clockThings shifted again when one of the people coming along to the sessions asked about getting their baby baptised; another wanted to do an Alpha course. The upshot is Stepping Stones which now runs fortnightly on Tuesday mornings in the Community Centre, offering breakfast for carers, mums and children, telling Bible stories in creative ways, and providing a craft activity. It has been going for nearly four years with about 50 mums and their children attending.

That in turn has developed because several mums said they wanted to find out more; their children were asking questions they didn't know the answer to and the parents also thought of the Bible stories as being a 'good thing' to teach the little ones. To meet that need, a five-week introduction to Christianity course is offered through a DVD series called Journeys. A number of people have come to faith.

The most recent development is the opening of the Kairos Centre, a central place where people can get together from all walks of the community, for all sorts of reasons, at the same time. The church worked with South Northamptonshire Council, to transform an empty shell of a building into a much-needed facility. The vision is for a place that provides facilities and a home for the existing church family, provides services and relationships with the wider community and ultimately will be home to future fresh expressions of church. A café style evening service is being relaunched and they hope to develop an after-school club fresh expression and maybe even a film church.

At least that is the plan – but the key will be to follow Jesus one more step at a time.