Author: ben-clymo

The Point Church

Jules Middleton, Pastoral Assistant at The Point Church, Burgess Hill, tells how it is re-evaluating its role as a fresh expression.

We are at a very interesting stage in the life of The Point because we have been looking again at our vision for the church and really seeking God as to what we do and how we do it.

The church started in 2004 when our vicar, Will Kemp, and his family moved from London and a group of people started meeting in their home. The then Bishop of Horsham, Lindsay Urwin, offered great encouragement and support at a time when the Church of England was really starting to think quite seriously about church planting and 'fresh expressions'.

Bishop Lindsay initially also helped to guide our thinking about the BMO process. This was finalised about 18months ago but it certainly took a lot of time and effort to get it right! It's a five-year Bishop's Mission Order but, if all goes well, we would expect it to be automatically renewed at the end of that period.

The Point - crossIn the early days of The Point, it was very much 'café church' and low key in its style, focusing mainly on families and young children. What happened over the years was that a lot of what we were seen to be doing focused on a Sunday morning gathering with modern, contemporary worship. The result was as more and more people came, we struggled to maintain our original vision to reach the unchurched, and the majority of those we were reaching were 'de-churched' and some transferring from other churches.

It was time for us to review what had gone before and look ahead to something new by asking 'what have we got now?' and 'what are we going to do next?'. To do this, we went through a twelve month vision process in 2012/13 which included a whole church questionnaire, a prayer week and input from members of the church.

I also started ministry training in September 2013 at the South East Institute of Theological Education (SEITE) and this, in conjunction with the vision process, has really fed into my role as Pastoral Assistant at The Point, particularly in the area of exploring how we can be more intentionally missional in our approach.

As part of finding more ways to reach people who wouldn't set foot across the threshold of the church, we now run 'Church in a Pub' which meets every quarter at The Woolpack in Burgess Hill.

The Point - pubIt started in July last year at the invitation of the landlord who was really keen for The Woolpack to be seen as a community pub. We had over 50 people come to that first session. It's all very informal and we have a Church in a Pub team to coordinate the interviews or testimonies, songs from a small worship band and a thought for the day. It's early days but response has been very positive so far and we're looking at whether it could go into different places or roll out to other pubs in the area.

One of our existing projects is 'The Sanctuary'. It's much more than a parent and toddlers group, it's a place where a mum with pre-school kids can come and be 'pampered' a little. They can relax, have a chat, maybe have a hand massage, that type of thing – and a few dads enjoy coming along too!

The Sanctuary meets on Monday mornings in term-time at Hurstpierpoint Village Centre and it aims to be a really welcoming place to build friendships and community in that area. We are really excited about something growing from that, for those who might want to explore faith issues because people would find it a very big leap to go from The Sanctuary into what we would recognise as a church setting. There are some really interesting conversations going on at the moment about how that might happen and we look forward to seeing it become a reality.

The Point - treeAll in all, it feels like a very exciting time at The Point because we have regained our focus as to what and who we're doing it for! We want to be a transforming presence throughout mid Sussex and part of that involves pioneering authentic communities of Christians to reach out to those around them. We've been thinking a lot about context in recent months and being relevant to that context is vital – though it does throw up some challenges.

The vision process helped many of us to realise that we needed to be doing something different for the Kingdom but we reach about 300 people in the Sunday morning gathering at St Paul's Catholic College, Burgess Hill, and we have to ask if we will alienate many of those by taking a new direction? How do we release something new? How do we remain true to what God wants of us and help others to catch that vision too?

They're not easy questions to answer and much of it will only become clearer as time goes by. For now, we are looking to God to help us in this fresh expression as we reimagine what it means to be church in today's world.

Space (Mawsley Church) – update Jul11

Pioneer Curate, Rev Captain Richard Priestley oversees the leadership team in Mawsley and serves in the parishes of St Andrew's, Cransley, and St Andrew's, Broughton. He has been an evangelist with Church Army for over 20 years.

Space - Centre

Mawsley Church is a growing Christian community in the village of Mawsley, Northamptonshire. Together with our sister church, St Andrew's, Cransley we seek to show God's love in our local community.

We meet in The Centre at Mawsley and also in people's homes. In November 2010, SPACE on Sunday – a monthly 'café with a bit more' – was launched in The Centre. It offers a variety of spaces – a quiet space to think, meditate or pray; a space for children with Bible-based activities; and a common space for everyone to enjoy a coffee, bacon roll and a chat.

Space - MawsleyMawsley is a new-build village, the oldest house here is eight years old, and it's two miles from the next village and four miles from the nearest major café or shop. It has a very young population of fairly middle-class, aspiring professionals. There is also a social housing sector in the village but it's a bit hidden away. On the whole, it's a 'living the dream' type of place.

The Church had tried different things to reach non-Christians, including messy church, but they were pretty much variations on an inherited theme. When I arrived here, about two years ago, I spent the first 18 months just listening to the community and looking at what was going on. Our services themselves weren't bringing in new people in any way but I could see that there were signs of community, with a lot of children in the village and people out and about walking their dogs.

Space - playgroundThe idea of this latest venture is to create a variety of spaces for people, a communal space, quiet space, children's space, and then at 11am I call everyone to order and we have a Thought for the Day in the bar area.

One outcome of this is that I had a really interesting conversation with someone on the board of this Centre. He had no concept of the church except to see it as a private club, there was no idea that what we do is for people who are 'non-members'. I had to explain that when we want to hire the centre it's not for what we want to do, instead it's to use it as a base for services to the wider village.

Space - signSPACE is about the church trying to speak and connect and do things that are noticeably different and relevant. Just to meet and have a chat is valuable because there is only a small coffee shop, but nowhere else in this village for adults to go and relax together. We are going to try and do it for a year on a monthly basis. We will then reflect back on it in the autumn to see if we have made any inroads into people's perception of 'church'.

Fresh expressions: follow the leader? (Al Lowe)

Al Lowe asks how we deal with leadership and team dynamics in fresh expressions of church.

How do we deal with leadership and team dynamics in fresh expressions of church? It's something I have been thinking of a lot in relation to Sanctus1 and Nexus, Manchester.

There are two principles of leadership that I want to highlight:

  • there is not one, good model of leadership; instead there are appropriate and inappropriate ones;

  • nature abhors a vacuum. Where no leadership exists, or it is weak, someone will ultimately fill the gap. If there is no agenda, then one will be imposed.

These points apply quite universally but are particularly relevant for those fresh expressions pioneering in the postmodern waters of anti-control.

Leadership happens in fresh expressions from the very beginning – otherwise nothing would be started and there would be no vision or direction. However, that leadership does not have to come entirely from the pioneer – nor is there necessarily just one lead. As the nature of a fresh expression is dynamic, responding to different changes and situations, it is often best that the leadership emerges from more than one source. What is important is how that leadership emerges, how it is appointed and practiced and how it is supported with good accountability.

A classic model of leadership is the autocratic/democratic continuum. As with most voluntary organisations, there is little room for a truly autocratic style. If things are to grow then people need to feel included, consulted and involved in the decision making. The more individuals are allowed to get on and do what they feel needs to be done, the more creative and dynamic the entity will be. Democracy works well within defined boundaries, which need to be established from the beginning. However, the more autocratic style comes into play, as within any disaster movie, when the ship starts to founder on the rocks. In order to save the community from imminent danger; someone, somewhere has to take charge – and that is not always the pioneer. This is very much supported by my experience of my time both at Nexus and Sanctus1.

I came into these particular teams as the second generation minister. The DNA of the pioneers who started them was still very much part of the way things had been set up, with the result that these established teams were very different in nature. The first thing I had to do was to understand the nature of what was going on and how to influence (not necessarily lead at this stage) for the better. Sometimes I got this right and sometimes I think it was made worse but, in general, something must have worked well.

The nature of what was going on meant recognizing the fact that both groups had existing leadership structures in place:

  • Sanctus1 was by far the more structured with a leadership team which seemed to be working well. However things were not necessarily easy.Within two months of me arriving, three of the leadership team naturally moved on. It was important at this stage to hold things together, without being autocratic, until we managed to get a new team together.

It also became apparent during this transition that, if we were to claim to be democratic then we needed to be more transparent, and this was overcome by subtle changes to what was a 'loose' constitution. In some ways, it has been easier to work collaboratively with Sanctus1 because there was a more open way of working alongside people who understood how to operate within a corporate framework but who could also be creative, knowing the overall boundaries of being a welcoming, serving community rooted in the Christian tradition. Sanctus1 wanted to be creative in the way it told its story about Christ… but importantly it still wanted to tell the story of Christ.

  • Nexus was quite different. That doesn't mean it was wrong (it's important to remember there are no rights and wrongs) but it was simply different. Nexus was highly dynamic and creative – and engaging in an amazing way with the Manchester arts scene. Its organisation was far less structured but, despite this lack of formality, something was clearly established. This was evident in the fact that there was a general manager employed to oversee the Nexus cafe staff and its related activities.

Enthusiasm and passion made up for experience but I found that this did lead at times,to differences in opinion -the biggest of which was the lack of agreement as to what Nexus was about. It was a great art space, great community space, great gig venue but not anything to do with faith, Jesus or mission. It took considerable patience, listening and care, to bring this back onto the agenda. There still remains a tension in how to engage with our fast, postmodern world without losing the sight of what mission is about.

The lack of policy and procedures meant that, at times, we were sailing too close to the wind – and a 'hands off' approach sometimes quickly became a lunge for the tiller as we sailed from one financial crisis to the next. As Nexus has developed, it has become much more structured in order to meet the demands of legislation. The challenge is to allow this to happen but still hold onto the creative spirit that it was born with.

And in all this is the team dynamics that always play out when a group is formed. People have different views, priorities and passions – and there are individuals who try to influence outcomes, some in an open appropriate manner and others manipulating behind the scenes. Some members of the group seem to be more involved than others but each member of the community brings something to the whole. The dynamics change every time a member of the team leaves or a new one joins but, in these changing groups, there is the sense that we are heading in the right direction – even if, at times, we may still discuss exactly what that means!