Month: August 2015

A ‘quick response’ to the gospel in Hanley? (Simon Sutcliffe)

Simon SutcliffeSimon Sutcliffe explores a 'quick response' to the gospel in Hanley.

As many of you will know from my previous blog, I now work part time with Venture FX (vfxhanley) and spend the other half of my week in Birmingham teaching at The Queen's Foundation. By cutting back on my time, I have been able to free up some financial resources which will help to develop the project further.

This now means (drum roll) that I have a companion on The Way. Ron Willoughby, employed for one day a week with vfxhanley, has always been on the edges of this project and I am thrilled that he is now at the heart of it. Ron has arrived at just the right time. Amongst other things, we are developing a small community – a group of people who for one reason or another either don't attend church, can't attend a church or don't want to attend a (particular) church, BUT, they are curious and sometimes compelled by this enigmatic first century Jew known as Jesus of Nazareth. So we are going to get together and see what happens.

Exciting times!

Some of that excitement is also down to a project I'm working on.

Have you ever heard of the Stations of the Cross?

Or geocaching?

And how about Quick Response (QR) codes?

Well, I got to thinking, what would happen if you combined all three? The result is the (digital) Stations of the Cross hidden in a city centre (Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent to be precise), that can only be accessed digitally.

This is how it works:

  • Around the city centre there are 14 QR codes hidden.

  • Each QR code leads to a password protected post on the vfxhanley blog – the password can be found with each QR code.

  • Each post has a picture (Station of the Cross), a short meditation and the co-ordinates of the next QR code.

  • The first blog page that introduces the idea will not be password protected but will have a QR code that can be made into postcards (left in shops with all the nightclub fliers, etc), put on church notices in the city and, hopefully, printed in the local newspaper.

  • The first blog post will be the beginning of the journey.

  • People will be invited to journey through a physical/digital pilgrimage centred around the Stations of the Cross.

  • Once you have found one and reflected on the Station, you use the co-ordinates to find the next.

  • You can do it in a day, or a take a few months.

  • You can either use a smartphone or a good old-fashioned map and compass.

  • When you’ve found one, you can leave a comment on the relevant Station blog post!

  • The idea is that other artists will want to contribute to the art that is on each blog page (please get in touch if you would; I've already had a couple of interested folk), and that people can either use their smartphones or take pictures and use a QR code reader when they get home (and then go off to find another on another day).

Watch this space to find out how it goes.

The power of words (Norman Ivison)

Norman IvisonNorman Ivison explores the power of words.

I'm having the fascinating experience at the moment of watching my 18 month old granddaughter acquire language. She is already learning that if she wants a certain response she needs to use certain words. She is getting quite skilled at it  – especially when her doting grandparents are around.

As a professional communicator, I have always been aware of the potency of language. As the Fresh Expressions initiative emerged six years ago, I remember how important it was to get the 'language' right if the values and principles were to gain currency. But it is also easy to forget the power of words.

Reading a fascinating book at the moment on male spirituality (The Intimate Connection by James Nelson) has made me ask how different the Fresh Expressions movement might have been if we had adopted another kind of language. It's a question that has crossed Lucy Moore's mind recently and she responds with her usual insight and humour in the book Pioneers 4 Life, edited by David Male.

So, for example, instead of 'pioneer' with all its stereotypical masculine 'starting from scratch', 'going into foreign places' connotations, how about 'nurturing' with its gentle approach, 'developing what is already there', 'doing it in a safe place' connotations? In some ways nurturing language is more faithful to the theology of missio dei, believing as I do that we are going where God is already and that nowhere is really the Wild West.

To some extent we almost become what we say we are, and that applies as much to the missional church as it does to the individual. In using the language of pioneering or venturing, we are in danger of saying that when forming new contextual churches you need leaders able to go into unexplored places, to hack out a home in the wilderness, to bring civilisation to the desert.

How different might the Fresh Expressions movement have been if we had adopted another kind of language?

But that is only half the story and in some places not the story at all. According to an online dictionary, a pioneer is 'a person who is among those who first enter or settle a region, thus opening it for occupation and development by others'. That's a very church-centric view of the way the Christian faith will emerge and develop in a new place. It can make the mistake of the hardened cowboy, herding the cattle and creating a homestead in the second half of the nineteenth century. They should have realised and we need to realise that wherever we go there are people already there. We will rarely be the 'first to enter and settle a region'. God will have long before started planting the seeds and tilling the soil and maybe even enjoying the growth.

So what kind of person is attracted to pioneering? Back to our choice of words. Would more women have applied to be missional ministers if 'nurturing' language had been available to them I wonder? I am in danger of making assumptions about gender difference I know – after all, there were some women pioneers in the Wild West – but how might the fresh expressions movement look if we emphasised the need to protect and foster the latent Christian faith we find, and stand alongside, holding hands and drying tears, rather than forging ahead, clearing the land and building church?

Before the Fresh Expressions office sends me my P45, I need to say that pioneering/venturing  language has and is serving us well. But we need other terminology alongside that if we are to do justice to our theology of cross-cultural mission here in the UK and to the wide range of people God could be calling into this work. It may make our communication more difficult and messy, but we are up for that.

The lesson for me as a paid communicator is always to watch my words and be aware of my own cultural background as I choose them. Certain words create a certain response. They make a massive difference.

Wrestling on the frontline of ministry (Richard Higginbottom)

Richard HigginbottomRichard Higginbottom is wrestling on the frontline of ministry.

We are going through a 'transformation period' with Tulloch NET. The vision to develop a fresh expression of inclusive and indigenous church in Tulloch, north west Perth, had come into being in 2004, three years before its official launch. The aim has always been for that church to be based on relational networking – not traditional ingathering.

The area is a mix of social and private housing with a population of around 4,000. In partnership with several denominations and supported by Church of Scotland seed-funding and grants from various agencies, we have been working hard to build up relationships within the community before setting up any sort of worship centre.

In September, the trustees and staff had a strategy meeting to address recent challenges. Having averaged 20 weekly visits to our Room 4 U drop-in earlier this summer, suddenly we attracted the attention of local primary age children and their parents over a period of six weeks or so.

Now we're averaging over 40 visits per week and are rapidly changing into a permanent holiday club for children! It's a great challenge, but has raised issues like staffing levels, child protection, health and safety, resources, etc. Do we extend our opening hours, change our direction, re-structure? We don't have easy answers, but the Holy Spirit is shifting us, nudging us, unsettling us.

It involves wrestling with being on the frontline in a deprived area of a council estate among totally unchurched people, in troubling times, learning as we go

We (our trustees, staff, volunteers) come from traditional church backgrounds. We struggle with such risks and challenges – as do our 'clients' (addicts, children, Forces' veterans, lone parents, ex-offenders) within our changing society in a double-dip recession. More than ever, we need to offer a safe sanctuary to vulnerable local people – while being constantly asked by our friends in traditional church: 'Do you have a Sunday worshipping group yet? Do you know how many converts you have?' The answer is 'no' on both counts. We're still building relationships, gaining trust, having spiritual conversations.

It involves wrestling with being on the frontline in a deprived area of a council estate among totally unchurched people, in troubling times, learning as we go. Yet, Kyra, one of our eight-year-old regulars, recently filled in a Beliefs Survey form and posted it in our prayer box – without any prompting from us. She says she definitely believes in God, wants to go to heaven, believes Jesus is the Son of God and yet is not sure if she wants to know God personally…

It's all scary and yet exciting. And, as we prayed on our strategy day, someone quoted Jesus' words in Matthew 9.35-38 in which he described the crowds as being 'harassed and helpless'.  Maybe we're a bit 'harassed and helpless' too but, unlike those crowds, we know our shepherd and we hear his voice… and we already have the harvest workers. Are we just too frightened to heed the call to carry on harvesting?

What is the true language of incarnational mission? (Paul Bradbury)

Paul BradburyPaul Bradbury asks what the true language of incarnational mission is.

This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.

Mark 4.26-27

Three years into a pioneer post in Poole, Dorset, I get asked a lot: 'How's it going?' I hate this question. I haven't really worked out how to answer it. We've made progress, built some good relationships, seen people start to explore faith. But the questions behind the question seem to be: 'How big are you now?'; 'Have you seen much growth?'; 'Are people becoming Christians?' The answer should be in the form of a number. A big one would be nice. But somehow, even though I could, I don't want to answer that question in that kind of way.

It's not that I'm not interested in people becoming Christians – I am, passionately. It's just that the kind of culture and approach that those sort of questions and assumptions are associated with does not do justice to the mission I am engaged in. These questions, this hunger for results, numbers, growth, etc, seems to belie an impatience, a belief that God, who we rightly believe to be capable of extraordinary things, is somehow in a hurry.

Our culture is saturated with hurry and urgency, with growth and with graphs that head ever upwards and to the right. At times we import this culture, its assumptions and techniques into our mission, and in the most part it is in danger of killing us.

I am trying then to explore and give voice to a different language to describe mission and its progress. The roots of that language are in the gospels and in the parables of the kingdom. They are in the trajectory of the gospel story which climaxes in an event that is about as far from growth language as you can imagine. The cross was an utter failure to those disciples who witnessed it. A hopeful, fruitful ministry had come to an end. Three years of building momentum, with a growing following, seemed to be about to climax with a major PR launch in the nation's capital. But it didn't work out that way. It was shattering.

Kingdom mission is organic, not mechanistic – it will not fit the sort of charts we dream in our minds

'How's it going, Jesus?' After three years, not very well perhaps. But Jesus was working to a different beat. The disciples were in a hurry too. The completion of the project was surely round the corner when Jesus came triumphantly into Jerusalem. Yet Jesus had laid down enough clues to suggest that that was not the scenario they should have expected. The parables speak a different language, one of organic, slow, patient transformation. A process that starts with the death of a seed. The burying of a small insignificant grain of matter. The humble, vulnerable downward movement into darkness and hiddenness of something that holds great hope.

Kingdom mission, mission in the wake of Jesus, is organic. Not mechanistic. It beats to a different drum. It speaks a different language. It will not fit the sort of charts we dream in our minds. It will not bend to our logic and our demands. It is paradoxical and out of our control. Our call is to partner with it, not manage it for our own schemes. And it requires a spirituality and life that is downwardly mobile, able to walk humbly in step with it.

I've been invited to explore this theme in a series of pieces on the Share blog. What does an organic approach to mission and ministry look like? What does it require of us? How can we be faithful to the pace and rhythm of God's Spirit and his kingdom? We need to tell an authentic story of incarnational mission in a language that is true.

Sharing together, learning together (Andrew Dunlop)

Andrew DunlopAndrew Dunlop asks how we share together and learn together.

I recently spent a very enjoyable day meeting pioneers on new-build developments from the St Alban's diocese. Both Peterborough and St Alban's dioceses receive money for pioneer posts from the Church Commissioners and we have a reciprocal arrangement for mutual accountability and encouragement in how the money is being spent.

I found it immensely useful to hear from others about what they are doing. It was also clear that although the house designs may look similar, no two new-build developments are the same.

I first visited the de Havilland Community Project near Hatfield with Nik Stevenson, a pioneer in Oakley Vale, Corby, and Brian Withington, Bishop's Adviser on Pioneer Ministry in Peterborough diocese. The project is run by Community Development Worker, Jason Blight. The development is built on the site of a former British Aerospace factory, where the de Havilland planes were built.

The first thing to note was that Jason was moving into a development that had already been there for seven years before he arrived, so there were lots of issues from the start. After seven years of not much community engagement, there was a high level of anger against the developers and others for things that were promised but not yet completed.

His role was envisioned by local ecumenical groups to build community, not to start a church. This he has been doing very well over the last two and a half years, running summer clubs for children, Saturday gatherings for the whole family, youth clubs, a community choir, mentoring disadvantaged children from the local school, engaging the students who live on the development into joining in (Hertfordshire University campus is on the doorstep), and even running free guitar lessons.

Although the house designs may look similar, no two new-build developments are the same

He wasn't really expecting church to form and tries not to assume the label 'pioneer minister', but there have been enough people asking questions about faith to warrant starting a 'not church' group, as he called it. This 'non-pioneer' is starting a 'not-church'!

The second place we visited was the village of Wixams just south of Bedford. This is being billed as four adjoining villages, but when it is finished it will be one fairly large new-build town with its own railway station on a line into London. Tim Jackson, the pioneer minister, has been in post for about six months.

This development seems more straightforward. A pioneer moves onto the development near the beginning of the building (there are currently about 450 houses built), so the issues he faces are more familiar: lack of places to meet, lack of shops, lack of infrastructure, developers still in charge of the land and open spaces, etc. He has begun by learning as much as possible from an existing community worker employed by the local housing association and by getting stuck into meeting people in the local school. In many ways he is still searching for a strategy and a core team, but I'm sure it will come. A village hall will be ready in the next six months and he is in talks to ensure a management committee is ready when it opens.

The benefit from days like this is in hearing, being encouraged and working out whether anything you've heard can be applied in your own locality. I've taken a few ideas away and I'm sure the others were similarly challenged too. In a few weeks, Jason and Tim will come to Northampton to visit me and Jacqui Burgess, pioneer with the Wellspring project in Wootton Fields. Sometime after that, we'll all make the trip to Corby to visit Nik and the new pioneer who will be installed there.

Soul of Sheffield: after the dam, the monster (Ric Stott)

Ric StottRic Stott discusses what happens when the dam bursts.

A group of us in Sheffield have got together to develop an idea we're calling the Soul of Sheffield. The plan involves exploring the stories of the city and how places hold meaning for us, how our lives are shaped by the places we live and work in and how they in turn are shaped by us.

From autumn 2011 we will be using an open space in one of the empty shops in the city centre where we will be building a model city based on the plan of Sheffield.

Artists, local businesses, schools, community groups and passers-by will all be invited to contribute – to build the model city in as concrete or imaginative a way as they wish. The exhibit will evolve and grow over time just as the city has done and will be a celebration of the history, the stories, the joys and sorrows of all who make the city a living and vibrant thing.

There is a great creative energy in our group, but all of that energy is being held back behind a dam as we try to find a suitable venue. But when the dam bursts and those with the power say 'yes' then that creative energy will be released.

In recent weeks we've been shown round some of the empty shops in the city centre for possible use. One or two of them look quite promising, so it seems that we will be able to press ahead soon.

Whilst there's an excitement at the dam bursting, along with that comes trepidation. If we had a firm 'no' then all our dreams and ideas would have been able to stay pristine, if unrequited. Now we have the dirty business of trying to make a dream work in the real world. Talking with other artists who are involved in this project, I get the sense of a seething mass of untamed energy that somehow needs to be corralled into something concrete and real without losing its life and vitality. As the dam bursts, so the monster emerges.

Five behaviours of disruptive innovators (Kim Hartshorne)

Kim HartshorneKim Hartshorne outlines five behaviours of disruptive innovators.

Pioneers are often people who find the status quo innately frustrating – mainly because they have seen a glimpse of how it could be better, improved, changed, more fit for purpose. But how do we get from where we are now in our organisations, to where we'd like to be? A bull in a china shop approach might not be the best way!

This article from the website of American media and publishing company, Forbes, talks about 'disruptive innovators' who agitate and help create the conditions where change can begin to happen:

Successful innovation requires the right culture but new or incumbent leaders frustrated with a slow pace of innovation can start making change happen by behaving differently. It takes work, and may require some retraining, but the authors’ point is that anyone can innovate if they follow the five skills of disruptive innovators. They are:

Questioning, which allows innovators to challenge the status quo and consider new possibilities. Example: Howard Schultz of Starbucks and Pradeep Sindhu of Juniper Networks.

Observing, which helps innovators detect small behavioural details – in the activities of customers, suppliers, and other companies – that suggest new ways of doing things. Examples: Rakesh Kapoor of Reckitt Benckiser and Jean-Paul Agon of L’Oreal.

Networking, which permits innovators to gain radically different perspectives from individuals with diverse backgrounds. Example: Marc Benioff of Salesforce. Victoria Barret's take on Benioff.

Experimenting, which prompts innovators to relentlessly try out new experiences, take things apart, and test new ideas. Example: Bobby Kotick from Activision Blizzard.

Associational Thinking – drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields – is triggered by questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting and is the catalyst for creativity. Example: Natura Cosmeticos, the 'Avon' of Brazil, which uses such cross-disciplinary teams to dream up new personal care products.

That's as good a description of pioneering as I think you'll see and I think it can be applied to so many situations we find ourselves in vis-à-vis the inherited church. Slow and steady sometimes wins the race and these skills will be incredibly useful for that.

You can read the full article on the Forbes website.

Welcome home? Hospitality as mission (Steve Taylor)

Steve TaylorSteve Taylor explores hospitality as mission.

'Welcome Home' is a song by New Zealand singer/songwriter, Dave Dobbyn. The chorus is gorgeous: 'Welcome home from the bottom of our hearts/from the bottom of our hearts… So welcome home, see I made a space for you now.' It is a song sung in response to a racist incident, in which a far right group suggested Chinese migrants were no longer welcome in New Zealand.

Which got me thinking about the church and hospitality. First, it's one thing to say 'Welcome'. Words are easy. It is quite another to move, to actually 'make a space'. This expression of hospitality is physical. The welcomer must move, must let themselves be disturbed in this act of space-making.

So all this talk about the church being hospitable, all this talk about the church being mission-shaped, must be more than words. It asks that we shift, we make changes, we let ourselves be disturbed as we explore the mixed economy and fresh expressions of church.

Second, there is a much deeper mission-shaped question around the phrase: 'Welcome home'.

I wonder what it means for the church to see itself as homeless rather than home-owner? To forget practising welcome and instead go looking for welcome?

Theologically, did Jesus ever say, 'Welcome home'?

Is it not the opposite, that in the act of incarnation, Jesus left 'home'? What about the fact that much ministry was done not in Jesus' home? Rather, Jesus constantly experienced hearing the words 'welcome home' – at Matthew's house, in Zacchaeus' place, at Mary and Martha's.

It is like Jesus is the song hearer, the migrant, not the singer.

Which makes me increasingly disturbed by a hospitality which places the church as the singer of 'welcome home'. This was the dominant ministry posture of Christendom, an era in which the church was the host and we expected the world to come to us.

Now in a post-Christendom world I hear people rifting off the Prodigal Son, the church becomes the father, waiting for the culture, which has stomped off. So if we are patient, like the Waiting Father, in time we will get to welcome the returning. 'Welcome home.'

And all the time I keep hearing the incarnation. And wondering what it means for the church to see itself as homeless rather than home-owner? To forget practising welcome and instead go looking for welcome? To make ourselves reliant on people to make space for us?

Which is certainly the heart of Luke 10.1-12, in which the disciples are sent, speaking peace, to be reliant on the welcome and hospitality of another.

August: sunshine, holidays – and cleaning up after the riots (Arun Arora)

Cleanup in BirminghamArun Arora reflects on sunshine, holidays and cleaning up after the riots.

In my previous churches, summer has been a time for rest: annual family holidays, lighter service rotas and genial informality all under the shade of a summer sun.

This summer has been rather different.

At the end of July we worked hard as a church to run Wolverhampton's very first Street Festival in the city centre: a four day long event with busking, live music (mixing secular and sacred), drama, free face painting, fire juggling and even group street dancing (imagine a flash mob doing the Macarena on a city centre high street and you get the idea). The sun shone all week, and the response was incredible. As a church we felt that we had gone a little way to living out our mission statement of: worship fully, love all, serve the city. Summed up, we felt we were 'putting a smile on the face of the city the way Jesus would have'.

We had barely had time to reflect on the festival when, in a meeting, my phone began to buzz with text messages about the riots in Birmingham. I returned home and watched on television the violence unfold in the city of my birth.

There were about 100-150 people who had all turned out with brooms, bin liners, gloves, but most of all with a desire to stand in solidarity with a city that they called home and loved – it was a stand against the darkness

Soon after, the first messages began to appear on my Twitter stream about #riotcleanup, with a suggested meeting place the next morning in Birmingham. Five of us travelled into the city the next day to help with the clean up, only to discover that most of it had been done. However, our journey had been far from wasted. Standing and talking with the others who had turned up, we spoke of our shared love of the city and of our desire to stand up for something more, something different than what we had witnessed the night before. Call it incarnational theology if you want, but simply being there was a statement.

On our return from Birmingham, we became aware of some of the text messages being sent out to organise riots in Wolverhampton that night. Those of us qualified as Street Pastors took the decision to go out and patrol the city centre – to pray God's peace over Wolverhampton. It was clear within 20 minutes of our arrival that something ugly was going to happen – just like the strong thickening smell in the air prior to a downpour –  so the timbre of the city centre was thick with anticipation of  something evil to come. The riot was brewing. The police had told shops to close at 2pm and by half four they advised us to leave. We did so. An hour later the riots began.

The next morning we gathered again in the city centre for the clean up. This time there were about 100-150 people who had all turned out with brooms, bin liners, gloves – but most of all with a desire to stand in solidarity with a city that they called home and loved. It was a stand against the darkness. Most of those gathered were young, and the sight of so many young people gathered to join together for the city as opposed  to what had happened the previous night was a timely reminder of the motto  of Wolverhampton: 'out of darkness cometh light'.

At the end of the clean up, as an act of comedy in the midst of tragedy, we decided to reprise that part of the Street Festival where we invited members of the public to join in a group street dance. So it was that barely eight hours after the last rioters had left the streets, we invited people to dance the Macarena in Queen’s Square to the sound of laughter and applause.

At our weekly gathering on the first Sunday after the riots we reflected on one of our foundational texts as a church: Jeremiah 29 – God's instruction to the exiles not to listen to those who counselled remaining apart from the city, but rather to seek its welfare. Not to be assimilated by the city, but to seek to engage fully with it. To remember God’s promise to prosper us in the place to which he has brought us and to be a light in a place of darkness.

Changing patterns of ministry. Roll on September! (Simon Sutcliffe)

Simon SutcliffeSimon Sutcliffe reflects on the changing patterns of ministry as he looks forward to September.

One of the great joys of being a minister is that you get the chance to diversify and grow in your chosen fields of interest. In my ministry I have been able to pastorally care for rural church communities, for middle class suburbs and in an urban city centre context. I have also been able to explore youth ministry, fresh expressions, church growth, training and education and lately emerging church and academia.

I have been lucky enough to have been a lay worker in the Methodist and Anglican Church, a youth worker for local authorities, a circuit minister, a circuit superintendent, a church planter and a pioneer minister.

In each case it has been important to locate what model or style of ministry resonates most closely with my experience. Lately, as a pioneer minister, I have felt the call of the wandering friar. Often I spend my time wandering around looking for moments of what I believe are God's activity (and that is always a personal opinion – others might see nothing of the divine in it!). When I see that activity, I decide to rest a while and eventually move on. It is a wonderful way to live and begins to make sense of the rather pointless endings of Paul's letters along the lines of, 'Say "Hi" to Pete and the gang and tell Gary I'll pop by the next time I'm in town.'

This is a dream come true – I now get to push the boundaries of church and get to explore that academically

Well it seems my style/pattern of ministry has changed again! As many of you know, I am appointed as a pioneer mission leader with venture FX of the Methodist Church. I am now going part time with venture FX and have taken up another part time appointment as the tutor for evangelism and church growth at The Queen's Foundation, Birmingham. So basically I am working part time for venture FX and part time as a theological tutor at Queen's.

Those who have known me for a long time will know that this is a dream come true. I get to have my cake and eat it! I now get to push the boundaries of church and get to explore that academically.

I cannot overstate how excited I am about this appointment. For the romantics, this is everything I have dreamed of. For the working classes (which I am proud to have come from), this is everything I have worked for. For the theists, I feel completely blessed!

That's not to say I'm not daunted about the future. But for now I'm going to bask in the absolute joy that today I am a pioneer minster and theological educator.

As a colleague wrote to me: 'Roll on September!'