Michael Moynagh asks why the church is flying with only one wing.
The church has been flying with one wing when it comes to making disciples. It is high time it flew with two.
Withdrawal
The traditional wing has involved withdrawing from the world for short periods. Believers have withdrawn into God's family in Sunday worship, small groups, conferences and retreats to be immersed in the Christian story. With their faith deepened and invigorated, they have re-entered the world to serve God.
This model has deep roots in the Christian tradition. Indeed, it's what Jesus did. At times he withdrew from the crowds and instructed his disciples privately, as in Matthew 13.36-43. Christians need special times together to be formed in the faith.
But what happens if the church flies with this withdrawal wing alone? Christians gather to be spiritually nourished, but then they scatter to live out their faith as individuals. Practising the faith on your own can be difficult.
Engaged
Alongside the withdrawal model of making disciples, fresh expressions of church are showing how believers can take the church with them when they engage with the world. As they join fellow Christians in serving others in a segment of their lives, they learn discipleship where life happens.
Discipleship through communities that are engaged with life makes sense for all sorts of reasons. Here are just three of them:
- it is what Jesus did. Jesus taught his followers not only in private, but in public – at the frontiers of life. In Luke 6.20, for example, he deliberately turned to his disciples to teach them, even though a large crowd was standing by (verse 17);
- relying solely on the withdrawal model ignores how personal identities are shaped by families, networks, neighbourhoods, workplaces and other relationships outside the church. These identities frequently come to the fore at the expense of our Christian identities. Belonging to a Christian group in the midst of life can remind us that, important though these other identities are, our supreme identity is in Christ. This will affect how we live;
- withdrawal into the church brings together Christians from a variety of backgrounds – a big plus – but often churchgoers do not fully understand one another's everyday lives. 'Their situation is so different to mine' someone might think. So it becomes difficult to help each person apply the faith to the specifics of their context. Application tends to focus on principles rather than 'how to' in a particular situation. By contrast, Christian communities in life contain people from the same setting. Individuals are better placed to support each other in applying the faith to their shared circumstances.
A challenge
One danger for fresh expressions is that they lapse back into the inherited mode of flying with one wing.
A community formed in a café might witness effectively to the café's hinterland. People discover Jesus. They turn to the community for teaching, worship and other resources that will deepen their faith.
Relying on a withdrawal model of Christian formation, the community gradually evolves into an ordinary 'church' that happens to meet in a café.
To avoid this, new believers can be encouraged where possible to join with one or two other Christians and start further communities among their friends and contacts. Through these new communities they can learn how to engage in faithful Christian practice in another part of their lives. At the same time, they might periodically withdraw into the café community to be soaked in God's story.
They would fly with two wings, which must be better than one!
Working alongside Street Pastors, we set up under one of the market stalls and operated from there. After a while, the local authority recognised that we were providing a valuable service and wanted to help us a little more so they bought us a large, pop-up gazebo. It was about a year ago that we moved to a prime spot and now we regularly see about 100 people a night.
It's owned by the London Borough of Havering and we rent it from them. It used to be an Afro-Caribbean restaurant but the building has been gutted at a cost of £50,000. It's always incredible to see what God can do, time and time again I've been in the building while work has been going on and as people walk past, one in five will stop and ask what is going on. It offers a natural opportunity to get into conversations with all sorts of people. We applied to the Mission Opportunities Fund to cover our salary costs but money is tight and we are living by faith beyond 2014.
Basically, everything that we do begins with service. When we're out under the gazebo speaking to young people late at night at Friday, we'll say, 'would you like a free tea or coffee?' Generally the third or fourth question people ask is, 'why are you doing this?' You tell them and we get varying responses: from complete disbelief to 'oh, that's cute' or similar.
It is being developed on the site of what was the Royal Ordnance Factory, Chorley, and Buckshaw is sandwiched between the M6 and M61 which means that a lot of the residents work in Preston or Manchester because the road links are so good.
Instead, it can seem a bit strange to newcomers at first because Buckshaw Village is all very manicured and neat, like living permanently in Center Parcs! That's why, when I first came, I spent the first four months just talking to people, finding out more about them and their lives, and listening to what they wanted to see happen here.
When I came to Buckshaw, I found that the key thing was to hold everything lightly. We just wanted – and still want – to find ways of church getting involved with what the community is already doing, such as what happens through Buckshaw Village Community Association. It's very important to me that the word 'we' – rather than 'I' – is used when talking about the church here and, as part of that, we now have a church leadership team in place. I'm not on my own in this. Buckshaw Village Church exists for the community and in the community.
I work quite closely with local Anglican and Methodist ministers because we see Buckshaw as a kingdom priority; and we find it's so important to meet, pray for and support one another. The Methodists are also starting to come into the local primary school where they're running a Messy Church with our support.
But some of our greatest growth is not through outreach courses like Alpha, but rather, through the relationships that form through times such as our toddler group: Semi-Quavers. Meeting on a Tuesday morning for many parents on the village has proven to be a life line and they greatly appreciate the time we spend together. Relationships, relationships, relationships! It has been great to provide events where we, as a church, can get to know the community. We've had a whiskey night, curry nights, afternoon-teas and hope to have cheese, wine, sausage, coffee and film nights too, all open to the community. As relationships are being built, we are starting to see crossover into our Sunday service as people realise they quite like us and can certainly trust us and that they too are actually quite interested in their own relationship with God!
It's my first curacy but I already feel that, in future, I'm not going to long for a parish that has a church building because there is something very special about not having one! At the community centre, if people feel comfortable coming through the door for karate or acting class then you already have a head start. But a question is, 'How can we make that space that was sweaty on a Friday night for karate become one where we go to have a really special place of worship? Is it possible?' The answer seems to be, 'yes we can' because we are not limited, we can explore and discover, we can make mistakes as we continue to think about, 'What is the best way to do church in Buckshaw?'