ben-clymo, Author at FX ARCHIVE...

FREEdom Café

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Well, not unless you're visiting the FREEdom Café in St Gregory's Church hall, Seaton. Its leader, Mary Casey, gives the lowdown on the church with a difference.

The monthly café itself has been running for just over 12 months but the story goes back a lot further, about six years, when I became very conscious of those people who found coming to traditional church very difficult.

At that time I worked for a charity promoting social inclusion for people with learning disabilities and I was concerned that when they went into residential care, it often meant the end of any opportunities for them to explore or celebrate faith. I persuaded our vicar at that time to hold a special service for those involved in care in the community, whether they were carers or those being cared for.

We still have those ecumenical services six times a year and they have been a great blessing. Simple worship followed by fellowship, afternoon tea and a sing along. As a result some of the carers at those services started to show an interest in knowing more but they weren't ready for the full-blown church 'thing' or anything like the Alpha course, so I wondered how we could do something about that and also include others in our community who might have preconceived ideas about 'church'. Then the answer came to me, food. I love it!

My faith is very simple in that Jesus was always talking about community, serving one another, friends and feeding people. As a church I felt we needed to be very much part of our community so about two years ago I went to our PCC and asked if I could have the use of the hall for three months because I wanted to open a café where people would not be charged for the food they'd be given.

I didn't know how we were going to fund it but felt it was time to put my faith where my mouth was. As a Christian I often shy away from publicly acknowledging my faith, but I felt Jesus was encouraging and challenging me to do something about this. We talk about a God who will give freely if we trust, let go and ask. I wrote a piece for the church magazine about the cafe and asked people to pray about it and pledge whatever they could, time, money or ingredients to the project. Such a lot of talent and produce was offered that I was able to create a rota for volunteers and a menu for the cafe, and we opened our doors in September 2009.

It was a huge learning curve for the church to trust that the money would be supplied. On that very first Saturday we had overspent by £39.42, when we looked in the baskets we had put out for prayer requests – not donations – we had enough to cover our deficit and over £100 more to fund the next café session.

I believed from the start that if God wanted to fund this, the money would be there. We have a rummage and book stall too but again, there is no charge for anything. The only baskets we leave out are those for prayers though our 'customers' have been so generous that we've been able to buy ourselves some basic kitchen equipment – at the beginning we brought in our own – and we've also given away over £500 in donations to local charities and community projects. To mark our first anniversary we held a special birthday café, with many from the community helping out and also gave a £100 to Seaton Primary School to help a project there for the young children.

We meet on the third Saturday of every month and we now have a core team of about ten and many, many volunteers – more than I can actually use for any one café session. That means I can give people time off for a month or two, they are very grateful and it does away with any sense of it being a chore to be completed rather than an act of joyful service! It gives everyone the freedom to move in and out of the volunteering rota, the message being that God doesn't 'trap' you into serving him.

Earlier this year I completed a Pioneer Discipleship course run by Exeter diocese [mission shaped ministry] and it was very helpful indeed. One of the things I had to come to accept through the course was that, for many, a transition from something like FREEdom café to a traditional Sunday model of church is almost impossible in today's culture. The course also helped me to get some input for myself and just check again if this project was more about self ambition than anything to do with the Lord working. Very quickly I had confirmation that if you gave God a space he would walk in it.

I constantly check on the project's motivation and make-up, if it starts to become a struggle because the Lord is no longer moving in it, then the volunteers know I will knock it on the head. But until then it will go on, not necessarily with me leading it, but that's fine – God has already raised up so many people to be part of this, I'm sure he'll have his eye on the next person in line.

The joy is that we've now got people meeting in the FREEdom café community who don’t go to traditional church but who are active in volunteering their time and talents. We open up at 10.30am and at 1.30pm when the café officially 'closes', I give a clear announcement that the team is going to join café visitors for lunch and at 1.45pm will have 3.2.1 for Jesus.

This is 15-minutes of worship time and people are very welcome to stay or leave as they wish at any time. At first I thought people would run for the door at that point but instead I've noticed that some now come later in the morning for lunch and then hang on for 3.2.1. It averages about 30-35, about 60% of which don't attend traditional church.

We light candles and hand around a simple service sheet with a few words and a clear outline of what to expect. There are then:

Three minutes of music for reflection;

Two short readings (one Scripture and something current today which fits in with the scripture);

One further song with lyrics that fit the theme and a short time of prayer based on the simple Celtic theme of 'circling'.

People are invited to join in aloud or quietly in their hearts if they wish. I quickly learned to include the words of The Lord's Prayer when I realised it's not known by everyone any more.

We talk of a God who speaks of freely giving us what we need, it's all about putting our faith on the line and seeing that God will feed us freely – that has certainly been our experience at FREEdom Café. When I first presented the idea to the PCC, I said the only way that everyone can be treated as equal in this café is for everything to be free.

Some of the initial reactions were that it was a ridiculous idea, that it would be 'awkward' if you weren't paying, that there was no such thing as a free lunch. People from the community were looking for the catch, saying we don't want to come here if you'll then say we need to come to church on Sunday, or have our children baptised, or be confirmed. The only way I could explain it was by saying, 'Nearly 2,000 years ago a friend of mine fed a crowd of people he cared for lunch. The loaves and fishes went down a treat. He's doing the same today only its called FREEdom café.' Those words are now on a poster on our wall. Christian visitors to our café have written these words down and taken them away to Wales, North Devon, Chester and even New Zealand!

Thankfully I could go back to the PCC after that initial three months pilot to say that FREEdom café was going well, and so it rolls on. One of the key things is excellence in all things and doing our best for God because, from the start, I wanted this café to look like it would fit into any high street, and operate like a restaurant. There is waitress service; and beautiful white contemporary crockery donated by the Churchwomen's Guild. The colour theme is black and white with a touch of colour and this reflects in the table linen and waitress aprons. The kitchen staff has to make do with green and white aprons, but we're working on it! Everything is branded with our logo. There are just no prices on the menu…

The other huge benefit with the development of the café has been the growing relationship between the churchgoers who lend a helping hand. Many people didn't know each other, even though they all go to the same church, because they attend different services. If they go to the 8am, 10.30am or Evensong regularly they may never have met each other. My question was 'How can we bring people to Christ if we don't even know the people in our own church family?'

There are now at least eight regulars at 3.2.1 who do not set foot inside traditional church, FREEdom Café has become their church and I pray that many more will come to know the God who loves them and gives so freely as we move into our second year.

What would I like to see for the future? I would like to see the ethos of FREEdom Café in every parish in the diocese, and in 10 years every parish in the land. One of the biggest challenges in that? Christians have to learn not to question, or even interrogate, the people they are there to serve. Don't quiz them, don't mention church, keep it on their terms and be ready to speak of your faith if asked – but not before. Just love them, serve them and watch what happens with God's help.

Knit and Natter

A fresh expression of church for knitting fans in Ellesmere Port has inspired several similar groups to pick up the needles and wool. One of the organisers Mrs Chris Crowder tells how the original vision has blossomed.

My 89-year-old friend Dorothy was terminally ill with cancer when she received a knee blanket from a church craft group in New Zealand just before she died. I thought of that precious blanket a few weeks later when I visited Somewhere Else, the 'bread church' on Bold Street, Liverpool.

I sat next to Anna Briggs from the Iona Community who runs two secular knitting groups in the city. She had a Knit and Natter bag on her knee; we got talking about what she did and that sowed the seed. Our Minister then met her too and we went on to have a get-together for interested parties at church. I searched the internet for copyright-free patterns and a couple of months later, in September 2008, we opened our doors for the first time to Knit and Natter in the reception area next to the Church.

It wasn't long before we had so many members we had to move to the hall and now our members meet every Tuesday afternoon in term time from 1.30pm–3pm. Over the past two years, have posted off more than a quarter of a tonne of knitted jumpers, hats, scarves and blankets to people in need at home and abroad. These have included the homeless, lonely, ill and bereaved of Chester and Ellesmere Port. We have also sent goods to South Africa, Haiti, Kosovo, Nepal, Kenya, Bulgaria and Eastern Europe, as well as having the pleasure of being able to knit for children by name at an orphanage in Swaziland.

At the start of the meeting we put out a cross in the centre of the room on a table covered with Dorothy’s blanket and members put their completed knitting on and around this table. We also place a collection plate on the table as we take donations rather than subscriptions. Our postage costs are covered by the monies donated: just like the feeding of the 5000, there is always enough.

Our meetings end with short devotions which, initially, we were rather nervous about, but how wrong we were! We were so wary of the missional side of things but it is now at the heart of what we do. Although the majority of our members are not regular churchgoers, they readily ask for prayer and acknowledge answers to those prayers. On the Knit and Natter membership card, it has this from Matthew 25 v37-40: 'When Lord did we ever see you naked and clothe you? I tell you that when you did this for one of the least important of my family you did it for me.'

Knit and Natter isn't just a knitting club making clothes for charity – it is a fresh expression of church which works on many different levels, giving people a purpose in life and sending God's love around the world. There is no doubt at all that many of our members see Knit and Natter as their church, they recognise the fact that we are meeting together in community and God is there.

A team of four of us usually co-ordinate it and we all play to our strengths: the other three are wonderful cooks and make delicious cakes whereas my efforts are rather hit and miss! They are also very adept at setting up the hall and clearing away afterwards. I lead the devotional time and try and write a prayer that's meaningful and pertinent to our particular theme of the day. In that respect, the members tend to think I'm the leader but there is absolutely no way I could run the group without the invaluable support of the others.

We usually knit at the beginning, have cake and tea at about 2.15pm and then have notices and devotions for the final quarter of an hour. I start passing round the prayer list about mid-way so it is complete by devotions time. We finish every week with the Lord's Prayer. We sit in a circle so that all are included and there are no separate cliques; it's as part of this community that concerns and questions are raised.

Sometimes we will have 45 come along, at other times we have 30. If one of our team can't get to a person who needs a sympathetic ear or to a new member who needs to be made welcome, we know that one of the established members will take on that role. Just because most of our members are older in age doesn't mean that they are immune from problems: one lady suffered suicidal thoughts, but came to see Knit and Natter as a reason to go on; another had lost her husband when she first came to us and was very low in spirits – however, she is now talking about approaching the local hospital to ask if she can start a Knit and Natter Group there to help people with mental health problems.

Other members do come to church but haven't been coming for very long and Knit and Natter provides contact with the regular church members and helps them to get to know us. A group come from the other Methodist Church in the town and we have got to know them really well – this has strengthened the bonds between us. We also have some members from other denominations and have also invited several speakers from different church backgrounds.

Knit and Natter has inspired people to start similar groups in Northolt, Bromborough, Lymm, Kettering, Little Neston, Heswall and Chester. The latter is an Anglican group that is going to approach the Methodists to see if it can be run jointly – again strengthening bonds between churches. We have even been Club of the Month in Simply Knitting magazine!

I'd encourage people to look at their own communities, listen to them and decide if there is an opening for a group. If so they should know that it will grow and mean more work than they initially anticipated but it's also gratifying and wonderful. I feel it's where God wants me to be because it's practical Christianity.

We let members knit what they want. I even have a couple of ladies who can only natter rather than knit, but they have proved a real asset in their contribution to the group.

Looking forward, we have been approached by the local Academy to see if they can bring a class of 14-yr-olds to join us to learn to knit and crochet and the local Women's Refuge is also very interested – it's all very exciting!

But for me the most important thing is not how much we produce in terms of output but it is the love that exists between our group both for one another and for the world at large.

Christ Church Brighton – update Oct10

Christ Church Brighton was established five years ago as an Anglican church without a parish. Meeting in pubs, cafes and a school, leader Carl Chambers explains how the church is developing.

Our Friends and Family meeting continues on Sunday mornings at a local school and we remain committed to being a church for those who don't normally go to church.

We are an Anglican church without a parish that started as an initiative by the Bishop of Chichester to be a fresh expression of church in Brighton. We are not a parish church, we don't have a fixed geography as such – instead we are very much a network. Although we have started a church that is certainly not traditional, we are wholeheartedly a Bible teaching and following church.

Our aim is to: 'cast intriguing and accessible Gospel lifelines into the diversity of Brighton from a growing Jesus centred community'.

In some ways we are seen as being terribly traditional in that our Sunday meeting would be very familiar to anyone who has attended inherited church services, I don't robe up but the format is a recognisable one. For me, being a fresh expression of church – rather than a fresh way of doing worship or children's work – means that it's got be right that we are doing 'churchy' things but we are also always looking to reaching those who wouldn't dream of attending a traditional service in a traditional building.

As a result, we also have a meeting in the upper room at the Circus Circus pub in Preston Circus, Brighton, every Sunday night. Church in a Pub is all about providing a safe space to engage with the big issues of life, a safe place to ask questions about God, living in this world, wondering about who we are and where we are going and if indeed we can know any of the answers to those questions. We have different themes and might do things like watch part of a TV programme or section of a film and talk about the issues raised in it. Themes would include hope, technology, religion, health and forgiveness.

We also have Gospel Communities – these are the way we as a church express the fact that being a Christian is about more than just turning up on a Sunday morning. It is how we show our belonging to each other during the week by meeting up formally or informally in large or small groups, with or without the Bible and with or without prayer – those the last two are great and we often do have them. The aim of a Gospel community to share lives deeply and naturally during the week. They can take place almost anytime and anywhere.

A number of people involved with the Gospel Communities very much associate themselves with these groups as church but wouldn’t dream of turning up on a Sunday.

We do have a core group of people but Brighton has a very transient population so as much as we have grown in recent years we have also seen people leave. There have of course been disappointments and challenges along the way too. Relationships with other churches have mostly been very good but sometimes it has not been so easy for a whole variety of reasons.

However much we advertise something it can come to nothing – people will decide to join in because of personal connections, relationships are vital. We had an Easter egg treasure hunt in a local park and 80% of those who came were not known to us but at harvest time we organised a celebration to mark our fifth birthday and things turned out very differently. We leafleted 600 houses, told all the local schools, took out newspaper advertising, organised a fantastic day with lots of activities which the church family and their friends hugely enjoyed but only one couple came we didn't know. It was quite shocking but a timely reminder that not everything works out simply because you’ve promoted it all over the place.

Christ Church Brighton

Christ Church Brighton is a fresh expression of church in Brighton, established in 2005 under an initiative from the Bishop of Chichester. Meeting in pubs, cafés and a school every Sunday morning, Christ Church is a community of a dozen nationalities, from 1 to 85 in age, with a wide of backgrounds – very much reflecting the makeup of Brighton.

Church at Innsworth

Troops from across the world are living 'on the doorstep' of Revd Debbie Forman, Curate and Pioneer Minister for Innsworth, Gloucestershire. How is she working on her own estate and with people serving in NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC)?

Imjin Barracks in Innsworth welcomed almost 1,000 servicemen and women and their families to swell the ranks at the ARRC base this summer. In all about 520 new families from 15 countries came to Innsworth, some are living on the camp itself and others on the estate just outside.

There are lots of facilities on the base and they also have a padre but people are encouraged to worship outside the camp at churches in the town, there is no provision for church worship on the base itself. This can be quite difficult for people to access in an unknown place so I see part of my role as being that of a welcomer. I speak several languages, including French, German and Italian so I'm hoping that I can make myself understood when the time is right! The influx of people comes from all over the place, including Italy, Poland, Portugal, Turkey and Spain. The whole world appears to be on my doorstep.

This is an estate of mixed housing stock: some Ministry of Defence, some social housing, some owner occupied, with other property comprising ex-military housing that has been sold off. It's quite isolated as an area – on the one side we have the base and on the other we have a flyover over the ring road.

It's not a huge estate, the original houses were prefabs and the ones in the middle of the estate are in the process of being bricked up. People came to work on the then RAF Innsworth camp after World War Two when the houses were new. There is a significant elderly population because those who came at that time are now in their 70s, 80s and even 90s.

Alongside them we do get some younger families but we haven't got as many in the middle age group. I am curate at St John the Evangelist (Churchdown and Innsworth) but there wasn't a church presence actually on the estate which meant that people could feel a bit isolated from the rest of the parish – part of a Local Ecumenical Partnership which supports the Pioneer Minister work.

We have a Council of Reference which contains a representative from each of the churches involved in that LEP. They were running a little service in the Innsworth community hall when I arrived. It now happens twice a month and the clientele has changed – there are now two or three who support us from St John's but I'm glad to say it's now largely people from Innsworth itself. The largest number we have would be 17-20 and sometimes it's fewer than that but the balance has definitely shifted.

The estate definitely needed a bit of tender loving care. To reflect that in The Church at Innsworth services, I work with a group of three others, one lady who lives on the estate and a couple who live on a neighbouring estate. We decide on a theme, such as the Church's year, but we always attempt to put some sort of creative aspect in the middle of it. I'd probably go a little further with it as I've been part of an alternative worship group but we have to maintain what can sometimes be a tricky balance between a challenge and a comfort.

To get the message out I do something very old-fashioned and deliver to every property on the estate, that's over 700 houses. I'm a well known figure because I cycle everywhere and when I first arrived I did quite a bit of cold calling. In the past I would never have done that but it just goes to show how God moves us on. In the first year I delivered a flyer for every service that happened; now I deliver a programme. I also put up notices on the Parish Council noticeboard and write a regular feature in a magazine for Innsworth.

During Holy Week I put up installations on the green spaces in the community. It was quite funny getting permission; I went into the police station and said, 'Can I have some police incident tape? I would like to create a scene of arrest.' They agreed but said they thought it would be vandalised. I was putting it up when a car full of young lads came to a screeching halt alongside me. They asked if there had been a crime, I said no but it was meant to remind people of a man who was wrongly arrested for what he did for us. 'Can we help?' they said. I asked them to make sure it stayed safe. I don't know what they did – or didn't – do but it never got vandalised.

In other public places around and about I had a Pilate judgement seat and, for the Last Supper, I super-glued plates and cups to a groundsheet on the green – it was like a mini art installation really.

This year during Lent, I got people to think of three things – Kindness, Giving, Generosity and we put out a public challenge to 'do something nice for somebody today'. I've also hung Advent boxes on the trees and put things in them to tell the Christmas story.

But what I am actually doing for most of the time is basic pastoral ministry. It's all about being known and being trusted. People will ring me up if they want their child baptised or if they want to get married. I feel well supported; I have a lovely training incumbent who has allowed me to have as much rope as I wanted. I also have accountability to the Diocesan Missioner and that's very valuable. There are four designated Pioneer Ministers in Gloucester and we are going to meet together for mutual support.

What I suppose is lacking at the moment is people emerging from the community to be leaders but it's early days yet. When people want things 'done' – like baptism or a wedding – they actually still tend to look for a tower or spire but for those who are unchurched, a church building and a normal church service is too much. I'm not in the business of forcing people to come into traditional church.

In another development, Age Concern used to run a weekly lunch club in the community hall but said they would have to close it because of cutbacks so I stepped out in faith and said the church would keep it going. I now have a team of helpers so I go there to cook, complete with dog collar and apron! We have up to 20 regulars – where would they have gone if the club had disappeared? It has been good to see where God is already at work in Innsworth and join in with it, who knows what will happen next.

Scarborough Deanery

Revd Sam Foster is fresh expressions pioneer missioner for the Scarborough Deanery. Numerous projects are now underway, among them a fresh expression of church in Hub Groups. Sam tells us more:

I am a fresh expressions missioner for the whole Deanery instead of a single parish and that has made a huge difference. Although I work for the Church of England, I work ecumenically – mainly through Churches Together – helping churches to step out in faith in building community and supporting Parochial Church Councils and ministers along the way.

I now have an Anglican team of about ten people, including Church Army officer Shena Woolridge. Church Army gave us full funding for five years and Shena works full time on spirituality and the arts. The entire Deanery is represented in the make up of the team, we have got 27 Anglican churches here for instance but five of those churches may be in one benefice so one person will represent that group.

The team overlap a lot; and the beauty of it is that everyone has responsibility for a project or particular area of work. The groups of people helping us to run these projects are ecumenical, everything from Anglo-Catholics to Pentecostal Baptists. If we want things to be sustainable we must equip and encourage lay people to do all sorts of things; I am against the model of a vicar as a Jack of all Trades. I have been ordained for seven years and I don't want to have a breakdown because I’m running around trying to do everything.

We also have a mix of lay and ordained as well as some people who have recently come to faith. Whatever their Christian story so far I look for people who don't speak church 'language' all the time – it's very easy to slip in to that but it ends up meaning nothing to the people you're trying to reach. It's interesting that people who don't know anything about church tend to respond to friendship and support but the de-churched people we meet along the way look for some form of accountability so they know if we are 'safe' or not.

To work across the Deanery means that I can go anywhere and open things up, not only to our own CofE churches but also ecumenically. Part of that work is getting as many churches as possible to support and fund the initiative. Twelve churches of different denominations have done just that though this comes with its own challenges; namely that we have to make sure that everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet by using the same national material from Fresh Expressions. It sounds a bit heavy but in order for this to work it has to be that way.

Our team also meet regularly to share in the vision. That really helps when facing criticism from the various denominations – whether it is not preaching the Gospel enough or preaching it too much!

Healing on the beach for example is a bit controversial among the churches but most people on the streets – faced with things like regular Mind Body Spirit Fairs – are saying, 'It's about time Christians were doing something like this'. The media around here call me 'the vicar without a church' and I'm fine with that. I don't face too much opposition as such – mainly because I'm ordained and the vicars see me as being in the same boat and also that I came into this job because I truly felt that God was telling me to do it; to be a church without walls.

The Hub Groups are part of our fresh expressions faith community, discovering together what it means to be disciples of Christ in the 21st Century. There are three groups now with the first one coming out of an Alpha course we did in a Travelodge. It was New Year and they let us advertise on the railings outside because they were promoting New Year's breaks and we were looking at Resolutions in one way or another. We had a real mix of people there and by the time we got to the end of the course they wanted something more.

Another of the Hub Groups is made up of people not really involved in their own churches but who still want to be disciples and deepen their faith journey. They are our potential leaders.

There's also a 20s/30s group and that's more flexible. That started with a young married couple who said they had no friends. I asked them to stay on for six months, start something, and see if they could build it up. It is now a very social group meeting twice a month in all sorts of places. The others meet weekly in people's homes. We also bring the three Hub Groups together for different occasions.

Our next step is to think about something on a monthly basis; we currently do creative prayer days around the town and it would be good to expand on that possibly. One thing is for sure, we are not at all interested in just starting another church. We share people and share resources but that would possibly change if we were in one distinct building.

This is a real mix of an area; it's a seaside town with a middle class suburbia that attracts visitors all year round but two locations in Scarborough are also nationally recognised areas of deprivation. We also cover many rural villages too and this rural focus makes up quite a lot of the Deanery.

Part of our role is to try to encourage churches to shape a team and take over building community when they feel equipped to do so. At Christmas last year, St Mary's, Cloughton, staged a live nativity on Town Farm in the village. It was the first time the church had ever been involved in anything like that. It has since moved the local post office inside the church to ensure that the community doesn't lose that vital service. They also have a fresh expression café church called Café Refresh which meets in the village hall.

St Thomas', Gristhorpe – part of the Filey group of parishes – is an iron clad shack that came in a flat pack from Harrods 150 yrs ago. In April 2009 the fresh expressions team set up a Community Cinema in the church.

St. Mark's Newby, Wreyfield Drive Methodist, St. Luke's and St. Joseph's RC Churches and some members of the Barrowcliff Residents Association are in the process of looking at how we can best serve and be part of the community of Barrowcliff. We are also following the stages of the fresh expressions mission audit 'Listening to the Community' which involves asking local residents, youth workers, councillors, to tell us what they are already doing. What they share is forming our prayers.

Sacred Space on the beach is very popular with people lighting a candle to give thanks or commemorate something or remember someone. In the pilot project last year 150 candles were lit on South Bay, Scarborough. We are not there to Bible bash or collect money. As a result people stopped and said, 'We don't go to church but can we join in?'

The Deanery actually pay for my post, the Diocese provide the house and pay my expenses. Initially it was for 5 years – now they have said they want to continue with it. At the moment we don't give anything to the parish share.

As a team we meet together monthly and pray together and we dream dreams but I'm also very much a member of the Clergy Chapter and Churches Together. I like to see us as one church.

Needing a Bishop's Mission Order (BMO) to go places and do things clearly works in other places but in this area it would be such a poor witness, this attitude of blessing from God is to work all together for the needs of the people.

The only way we can get through to people is by God's good grace and through relationships. Two years ago I had a blank canvas, now God is filling in that bigger picture.

XY Church – update Oct10

XY Church started three years ago as a developing community of spiritual travellers. Pioneer Minister Ben Norton gives an update on what has happened to the lads' church meeting in a pub every week.

We still get together every Sunday night in Wetherspoons, Bridlington, for a drink and a chat about key issues of the week and what the Christian faith has to say about those issues. There is now a core group of about 10 guys who come along to that and there's another 10-15 who drop in and out depending on family circumstances, work commitments or money. Similar pub churches for men have sprung up all over the country and it has been great to see the idea catch on.

Things are going really well but, of course, there have been questions along the way – things like 'What is it really achieving?', 'Are we a church or a drinking club?' The fact is that all of the core guys who come along now have some affiliation with church, some going on a Sunday morning to Emmanuel Church, Bridlington; others going to different churches in the area or our other fresh expression of church, St Max's.

Although XY is about discipleship and people have journeyed on in faith through it, it's interesting that the guys have become involved in other Christian communities. It has proved to be an easy way to access the Christian faith.

There have been lots of lessons learned along the way, particularly leadership lessons. At what stage do you bring people through into leadership roles? Some of these guys don't resemble the sort of leaders we have come to expect in the Church but I find great comfort in the thought that if St Peter and St Paul were within many of our church communities, they wouldn't fit in at all!

We just keep focusing on what we are doing and learning. The guys come from very varied backgrounds and are at very different stages in their own faith journey; sometimes it's difficult for me – as leader – to recognise their development. It's like you never see how your own kids are growing up because you are there with them all the time; it often takes others to remark on how much they've grown and then you realise they have travelled a long way.

We are doing things like running Alpha all the time but I'd love us to reach a point where we are a Eucharistic community – something that would be terribly normal for us to do. It is one of the benchmarks that we tend to measure this sort of community by.

It has always had the feel of being an open group so we are accustomed to people just turning up on the night to see what we do; the guys take it on the chin. Interestingly we have had some Christians come along with very firm views on certain things and they have found it uncomfortable to be challenged on those views. Yet that's how I believe men begin to grow and become disciples.

The age range remains roughly 18-40. It has been interesting to see how the community grows and develops and how it deals with issues. One of the big questions revolved around 'who buys the drinks?'. Of course we had never had any rules about it but at one point it was a little unfair because it always seemed to be the same people getting a round in. It all just bubbled to the surface, there were a few big swear words and quite a lot of finger pointing and then the whole thing was sorted out – much easier than trying to resolve issues in church sometimes!

A lot of churches are going out and doing events for blokes but I haven't seen many people discipling blokes. That's what the XY stuff is beginning to achieve.

There is an incredible amount of pressure these days on men, whether it's about gender roles, there being no such thing as a job for life any more, becoming unemployed, or living with a partner for a long time but not committing to marriage. Statistically the suicide rates among young men are dreadfully high because they are very vulnerable. At XY, they say they really need to come and be there at the end of the week because they can just talk everything out. Looking at it traditionally it's simply confession so that they can start again afresh.

The dynamic of what works in the XY context is that of small growth. I would very much like to see the leadership develop and eventually take on XY for themselves; I would then step out of it and do something else. But these things take time.

XY Church

Ben Norton, who appears on the Fresh Expressions DVD, on the edge, traces the history of XY lads' church in Bridlington.

The idea started back in September 2007 when I was thinking about what it meant to be an ordained pioneer minster and how that was going to work out in Bridlington. So I made lots of contacts with people in the town – but most of them seemed to be with blokes my age. So I began looking into how we could begin to reach them with the gospel.

I met with two other guys in my church to think about creating some events. The first event we had was a curry night at the church, which was really well attended. The month later we held a pizza night, again in the church. The atmosphere was laid back and relaxed and the idea was just to get to know the guys better. We continued to run events like, paint-balling and we also had a meat and beer night.

The momentum quickly grew and we had about 20 lads that we got to know really well. We began thinking about how we could develop the relationships and how we could engage with the gospel. We came up with the idea of meeting weekly in a pub and having a discussion based around the Bible.

So I began printing off a flier with some Scripture and some questions. The idea and the structure of the night worked well and we soon got a small group of five or six lads every week. But we began to find that starting the conversation with Scripture put some people off.

So we changed the format to picking an item from the news and basing the discussion around that with some faith-based questions and relevant Scriptures. This has worked really well. And, a few months in, we had a core of about ten lads who came every week, and about 30 who came to our events.

Over the last 18 months we have continued to make contact with more lads and things are going well. 'Where next?' is the huge question that we are looking at and praying about. I would love to see us develop into our own church that has a Eucharistic focus. But how we get there is another question! However, it is a hugely exciting part of the journey.

The most compelling thing about all we are doing is that we are meeting men who are interested in the issues we look at from a faith perspective, and how this changes their world view. One guy who came recently said: 'I don't do religion but this is really good!'.

I believe very strongly that as the church we need to go and meet people exactly where they are at, and allow them to see that we value their thoughts and ideas. We want to live a life that says: 'Have you thought about life the way that Jesus did?'

Cave Refectory Road: new book from Ian Adams

Cave Refectory Road: Monastic Rhythms for contemporary living, a new book by Fresh Expressions Associate Missioner Ian Adams, is out now.

Available from SCM – Canterbury Press or from Amazon, the book has already garnered extremely positive reviews:

This book is a gem. For those seeking to follow in the way of Christ today, Ian opens up the gifts and insights of religious communities in a very imaginative fashion. He manages the difficult art of writing in a way that has real depth but is still accessible and easy to grasp. It's heartfelt and inspired.

Jonny Baker author, blogger, CMS pioneer mission leadership team leader

If you know someone (perhaps yourself) who is spiritual but not religious I strongly suggest giving them this book. Ian Adams has beautifully and unabashedly mined the Christian monastic tradition and found gold for our spiritually impoverished time. You can find no better guide.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, founding pastor of House for all Sinners and Saints, a Lutheran mission church in Denver Colorado and author of 'Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television'

In Cave Refectory Road, Ian Adams has produced a book that can be guaranteed to open up new vistas for anyone searching for an authentic spirituality that will make sense in the context of today’s 24/7 world. By combining threads of wisdom long forgotten or overlooked and showing how they can be interwoven so as to offer fresh insights into our everyday challenges, Ian has crafted a rich tapestry of scriptural and historic patterns for living that will be both empowering and sustaining.

John and Olive Drane, authors, Visiting Fellows of St John's College, University of Durham

Ian skilfully opens up the Christian contemplative tradition as received from the monastics and friars in a grounded and accessible way for today's spiritual seeker. In an age when many are spiritually hungry, Ian opens up the Christian tradition in a way that is dynamically spiritual and authentically religious. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is seeking to establish a deep Christian faith and practice that can thrive in the complexity of the modern world.

Ian Mobsby, New Monastic, author and Priest Missioner to the Moot Community, London

Cave Refectory Road: Monastic Rhythms for contemporary living

Ian Adams

Canterbury Press Norwich, 2010

978-1848250284

The Ruth Project

The Ruth Project, part of the North West Durham Methodist Circuit, has been building community on an estate in South Stanley. Grace Cauldwell became its first project worker in September 2006. She explains how patience is a virtue when it comes to relationship building:

South Stanley is an ex-mining village in County Durham. It has seen some difficult times and I was employed in 2006 to come and live on an estate here. It is a very deprived area with a high rate of unemployment but there is such a very strong sense of community.

I settled in straight away and spent the first 12-18months just getting to know the area, joining in with what was already happening and becoming known in the community centres. My dog Jasper, a black and white labrador pointer cross, was absolutely key at the start of it all because I'd go out for a walk with him and many people would stop to say hello.

As a qualified youth and community worker we did loads of things when I first arrived, most of which were failures! People were asking us to do social things for their families so we started a family evening called Saturday Night Takeaway. After eight months the highest attendance for that was four families. After a while it became clear that when people said they wanted things to do with their kids, what they actually meant was, 'we want things for you to do with the kids so we don't have to'.

After a while, more relationship building, and various other failed 'events' we started something called Friday Fun Factory. At first we got 10 kids, then it was seven, then two, then six. At one point near Christmas we had just one child. When the New Year started, we republicised it – through all the local schools, shops and school assemblies and the children started to come. We visit all the families every week with a fun sheet to tell them what the children were doing as part of the Fun Factory (and with the hope of a prize on it's return!)– and that has been a really good way to get to know people.

We changed venue to another community centre. It was only about 150 yards over the road but that was a major shift in South Stanley because it was like crossing a boundary and some people weren't sure about the kids making that extra journey. We invited the parents to come with them, saying that we'd get the kettle on and give them tea and biscuits.

Since January 2010 we have had six to 12 parents and their friends coming along and they have been getting really involved in what has been going on. It has become a sort of family church with none of the hang-ups they see as being part of traditional church. We worship (without hymns or singing mostly!), have a silly Bible story with a life application, and enjoy a great time together with arty crafty stuff and a lot of games. In the last two or three months the children have started asking to pray. Praying is something we really believe in, but getting them to say prayers out loud in a circle seems very religious- however this has come directly from the children – they do it comfortably and it's something they asked to do! Spirituality in a lot of families has just started to blossom, with people meeting Jesus in very real ways.

Three kids petrified their mum by saying they wanted to be christened to be part of God's family. I offered a service in the community centre and a local minister was happy to come and do it but the mums said no, that the church up the road was 'where you went to be done' and they wanted it done 'properly'. So instead we all went up the hill to the chapel. It was about as informal as church services get, only half an hour, but the families were still a million miles out of their comfort zone. I don't think they will be going to a church building again in a hurry.

My post was originally for five years with promises of continuation funding for 10 but funding is sadly no longer available and I leave this summer. It's incredibly difficult; what's here at the moment is not self-sustaining and it's going to be at the very least another five years before it is. I am hoping we can try and keep something going because a lot of what I do is simply about being here, having a physical presence.

The big plus is that I am not a vicar or a minister, I am just a part of the community and I have never been labelled anything other than Grace. I live in a council house and I get to whinge with everyone else. The most 'religious' description of me in my time here has been, 'This is Grace, she works for the church'.

It's the people I will miss; people like Joe, his wife and daughter. Joe is clearly a man of God but doesn't quite know how to put that into words because he would say a Christian is boring, wears a suit and is rude to people. Raising indigenous leadership is difficult but Joe now volunteers for everything we do. He started coming to us to make our refreshments; he now looks after our registration and acts as 'security man'. Getting him to have the confidence to do that was difficult enough without asking him to take on leadership. You can't expect to raise up a confident and humble leader in a short period of time.

People don't feel empowered to do it. They have always been told, often since they were at school, that they are not clever enough or good enough. The most outspoken people are not usually the best for shepherding a flock, people like Joe are not going to share the Gospel like our local preachers and understand the depth of transition theology but they can share their faith, in a way that makes sense to those around them – but they must be given time to grow and be discipled.

Many people I've come across here do not read often, sometimes they can only read with great difficulty so it's about making discipleship that's right for them. So many resources are too text based, and often speak into a middle class situation, and so providing suitable and relevant teaching and discipleship is not an easy task.

As a minister's daughter I know how to pack my stuff up and move on, I know you just have to let go, but for the people here I am fearful that they will be forgotten. Those of us in the Church need to remember it takes a long time before anything begins to look like a Christian community.

At my last get-together with the kids they didn't know I was leaving. The theme happened to be The Last Supper; we baked bread and then ate it and drank squash together. We talked about Jesus saying goodbye to his friends and the kids were really touched. They were really quiet and had obviously met with God again – something that usually happens when I least expect it.

There were 12 kids there aged 5-11, plus parents and volunteers. I shall miss them but I know that God is bigger than all the ins and outs of church life here, and he will look after them.