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Working the edges (Thomas Brauer)

Thomas BrauerThomas Brauer is working the edges.

I'm involved in a mixed economy church setting in Alberta, Canada, and am working to plant a fresh expression of church called the Project. This is currently based out of Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Edmonton.

Two years ago, members of Holy Trinity and I began plotting how we might be of service to the Fringe Theatre Festival – the world's second largest such event. Holy Trinity is located within blocks of the festival grounds and for years the church has served as a venue for Fringe productions.

I made the announcement on a Sunday morning that I would be leading a project to serve the festival, and would welcome as much input and support as possible from the congregation. Together, we discerned who was involved in the festival – we used the language of 'stakeholders'. We knew there were artists (foreign and domestic), festival staff and volunteers, vendors, commercial service providers, neighbourhood residents, and patrons. In all, this was several hundreds of thousands of people (the 2010 Fringe served well over 400,000 patrons, with another 1,400 volunteers, several hundred performers and artists, and several dozen staff, not to mention the 20,000 people who live or work in the festival area).

It was clear that we couldn't serve them all, but it was necessary to now discern the needs of the various stakeholders. Through long discussion, we settled on serving first the artists and patrons that would be coming to Holy Trinity as a venue. We also thought we could manage serving festival patrons who might need a place of rest and peace.

We began plotting how we might be of service to the Fringe Theatre Festival – the world's second largest such event

In the end, we decided we had resources and opportunity enough to offer the artists volunteer support during shows, thereby relieving them of the onerous task of finding their own volunteers for box office and ushering duties. We provided clean and comfortable green-room space for the artists (a green-room is a room for actors to relax in before and after a show), as well as food and drinks for them. And we simply went out of our way to be as welcoming as possible to both artists and patrons.

Over and above show time support, we also offered the Green Room Teahouse where we served tea and fresh scones with clotted cream and jam. In setting up something called Father Tom's Lemonade Stand, we found a wonderful way to meet people in the community. Our third offering was 'solace' – a contemplative arts installation in the nave and chancel of the church which provided a place of rest and peace, and an opportunity to (re)engage with Christian spirituality.

One of the most gratifying results of these activities was seeing how many people made one or more of them a daily part of their life for the ten days of the Fringe. This year, our second year, we saw almost all of last year's visitors return, and they brought friends. We ended up serving over 400 scones in ten days. A lot of work, but well worth it.

Radicals not rebels (Beth Honey)

Beth HoneyBeth Honey explains why she's a radical, not a rebel.

I am a pioneer minister and a curate in the Church of England, serving in a parish church. I seek to be part of our church's journey towards connecting with our community beyond our fringe. If we are working in this way with the local church, I think we have the opportunity to start from, rather than work towards, a mixed economy model of church.

It is through local relationships and partnerships in mission that the mixed economy may most easily flourish. My church has a stated aim: to develop diverse congregations across our local area. As yet, this is an aim rather than a reality, but I have a dream of a family of congregations that bear a likeness, but who are mature enough to accept their mutual diversity.

In my present role, I am into my second year of curacy, having spent a year learning the basics of leading worship and preaching, and the 'how to' of hatch, match, dispatch. I have done a lot of listening and waiting and it has at times been frustrating if I am totally honest. But the fruit of that is beginning to show.

I am now proposing a new role to our church's governing body, which I hope will last beyond me, of Community Mission Leader. I see this role in two ways: leading and enabling others who the Holy Spirit is challenging to connect with unchurched people in our local area, and also following this radical call myself. 

We need to ask deep and challenging questions of church while we remain in relationship with other Christians and with church structures

I am not a rebel, wanting to throw out the discipleship, prayer life, and wisdom of the local church that has been on the ground for many, many decades. I need that life to support me, and others who move into uncharted territory will need the same. I am learning from those people who have lived and served Jesus in the area for many years. This is a humbling and privileged place to be.

As pioneers, I am not sure we need to rebel, but we do need to be radical, asking deep and challenging questions of church while we remain in relationship with other Christians and with church structures. A call to radical discipleship in past decades needs to become a call to radical mission in our own. If we build great relationships with inherited church, then this call will be heard by more and more people – and don't we, and this world, need them all?

Living with the wobbles (Anne Crosthwait)

Ann CrosthwaitAnn Crosthwait discusses living with the wobbles.

A few days ago, in my yoga class, the teacher spoke about how we wobble when trying to balance. He said to not resist the wobbles but learn to live with them, and then they'll go away. The term, 'living with the wobbles' struck a familiar spiritual note for me.  As Contemplative Fire grows into a mature expression of church there are 'wobbles'. Do I resist them or live into them?

Contemplative Fire began in the UK around 2003 as a fresh expression of church under Revd Philip Roderick. Drawing on Celtic and Orthodox traditions, it is a dispersed community that lives with a rhythm of life involving prayer, study and action. Wrestling with theological questions, creativity, playfulness and delight in creation are some of its distinguishing marks. I'm now overseeing the seeding of this eclectic community in Canada.

In June 2009 I left a staff position in a corporate church in downtown Toronto and took this step of faith. 'Mad' some say – 'not counting the cost' others might say – but for me it seemed like the next step if I was to remain true to myself and my relationship with Christ. The first year has been a rich time of learning and wobbling.

I wonder if others in the fresh expressions community experience this one. Each time I make a plan, develop a budget, set some strategies, and make projections – something else happens. I can show people the plans, but despite our good intentions and reasonably responsible planning, our growth, our community life, and my life just doesn't fit into the prescribed plan.

I want to lean into the freshness, the spontaneity and playfulness of the Spirit, following more closely the unpredictable Spirit-led adventure

Instead – now this doesn't sound radical, but when confronted by institutional demands for plans, feels radical – we are called to trust the Spirit leading one step at a time. Right now I've made plans to lead an exploration in contemplative living in four locations in Toronto during the autumn. This was neither part of the projection or 2010 plan, nor is it part of usual Contemplative Fire life or 'normal' fresh expressions-type ministry. This was a surprise that developed in May.

Have you seen the sign that says something like, 'Man plans and God laughs'? After this last year I think we must look like a stand-up comedy routine to heaven-dwellers! Slowly I've begun to realise that if something is to be a fresh expression, surely it is to be fresh – fresh from the heart of the Spirit in the tone of John 3.8.

It's a wobbly place to live. I feel the pressure to be responsible and organise and fit into the requirements asked of me by the institutional church, but oh, how I want to lean into the freshness, the spontaneity and playfulness of the Spirit, following more closely the unpredictable Spirit-led adventure. I wonder, isn't that what the world yearns for: a fresh scent of God?

Apparently the secret of a balance pose is to get past the tension, live into the wobbles. I find it challenging. Do you?

Exploring mission-shaped evangelism (Steve Hollinghurst)

Steve HollinghurstSteve Hollinghurst explores mission-shaped evangelism.

Several people when I was writing the book Mission Shaped Evangelism asked why I had chosen that title. I was well aware of a growing tendency to label everything as 'mission-shaped' and certainly didn't want to add to that trend.

However, I did want to expressly link the book to the Mission-shaped Church report. This had highlighted the need to learn from foreign mission practice in creating fresh expressions of church and I felt we needed to do the same in our evangelism. This had not been the case for over 1,000 years of Christendom in which we could take for granted that those we communicated faith amongst shared a Christian background. By the end of the 20th century this was only the case for a minority of people. In the new situation traditional evangelism was increasingly like tourists who can't speak the language and so speak louder and slower in the hope of being understood.

This is why, as John Finney showed in Finding Faith Today 1992, most people who come to faith as adults were raised in church; they are the ones who understand its language and message. With the increasing numbers of people with no such background, we are in effect foreign missionaries and need to discover a mission-shaped evangelism.

Mission-shaped Church offered a useful approach to the task: double listening. This meant entering into the culture of others, learning from it and assuming God would be found speaking within it. Then it was important to listen to the Christian tradition and finally seek the places the two connected as the place to explore what the gospel was in that context, what it affirmed or could adopt and what it needed to question and challenge. The three sections of Mission-shaped Evangelism reflect the three stages of that approach.

With the increasing numbers of people with no church background, we are in effect foreign missionaries and need to discover a mission-shaped evangelism

The first section draws on statistical and sociological analysis with theological reflection. Amongst the key points this raises are that secularism does seem to be a global phenomenon, but it behaves differently from country to country due to the context. The things that seem to prevent the process are slow economic development, limited contact with globalisation, and conflict in which religion is a factor. However, the end of this process appears to be a secular consumer religiosity, not atheism. Religion increasingly operates as a consumer process and is thus based on providers and clients, not leaders and members. Also post-modernity – or whatever that is becoming – not only brings a consumer logic to religion but to everything else. Truth becomes personal, not universal, and in response the question 'Is it true?' is increasingly irrelevant, a challenge for our traditional apologetics.

The second section explores the history of cross-cultural mission. This begins with the way early Jews adopted the language of local Paganism but realised it applied to one God, not many. It goes on to explore how Paul used this insight to make the transition from evangelising his fellow Jews to evangelising Gentile Pagans.

This approach was continued in the early church in the East and the West. In this manner Celtic and Saxon missionaries created expressions of faith that built on the Pagan religions the missionaries found.  Yet as Christendom became established, a desire to have common patterns across the western church and the increasing linkage of military conquest and foreign mission led to this cross-cultural approach dying out with a few exceptions until the 20th century.

Finally, with reference to the lessons of on-the-ground examples, an approach to evangelism for a multi-faith multi-cultural world is fleshed out. One in which we seek to show why faith is attractive rather than true and which offers a vision for our diverse and often fragmented societies against a background of ecological damage. That argues evangelism should be viewed as a processes of lifelong discipleship, not instant conversion. That views its end not primarily as church growth or getting people into heaven but transforming creation so that the kingdom of God comes on earth as it is in heaven.

Time for a change (Paul Whittle)

Paul WhittlePaul Whittle thinks it might be time for a change.

Lesslie Newbigin once said: 'The nature of the church is never to be finally defined in static terms, but only in terms of that to which it is going.' Part of church is to be changing – and fresh expressions of church are currently offering exciting examples of how that is happening.

This is nothing new. The mid seventeenth century early independents (or congregationalists) were developing relevant ways of being church. In the first half of the eighteenth century, John Wesley responded to the need to find new ways (not instead of the old ones, but to go alongside them) and so began Methodism. Just two examples.

Through most of the 1980s I was minister at a former Central Mission of Congregationalism which, in the first half of the twentieth century, had offered such services as the poor man's (sic) lawyer, public baths (preferred to the municipal version as the plug didn't pop up after a given period), and limited medical services.

But things move on. The Church Related Community Work programme is a small but important and innovative element in United Reformed Church life. Church Related Community Workers offer a parallel ministry to that of more conventional Ministers of Word and Sacrament, seeking to enable churches to engage in and with their communities and so creating change and bringing possibility.

This, for me, is one form of pioneer ministry. Not all the programme does would be identifiable as 'fresh expressions' – but much would be. In Nechells, Birmingham we developed a breakfast club, under fives work, girls' club, credit union, nearly new shop, internet café, etc, alongside alternative worship and Bible study. That particular project now takes a different form, and may close, but for twenty years made a significant difference in a vulnerable community. Fresh expressions are probably not for ever!

Much mission falters because we jump straight from encounter to discipling – we have missed out the need to build relationship

Reading Steve Hollinghurst's book Mission Shaped Evangelism, I was struck by his suggestion that effective projects tend to operate on three levels.

First: 'build relationships in the wider community on their territory'. Second: 'create or find places where Christians and non-Christians build relationships and explore issues'. Third: 'establish discipleship groups explicitly aimed at those who want to explore and deepen Christian faith'.

Hollinghurst suggests that much mission falters because we jump straight from stage one to three. We move from encounter to discipling – and it doesn't work because we have missed out the need to build relationship. Perhaps another problem for some of us is getting stuck at stage two. Good fresh expressions of church don't make either mistake.

Looking at the church’s ‘pipeline’ (Paul Reily)

Paul ReilyPaul Reily looks down the church's 'pipeline'.

Outside the house where I live in Leytonstone, East London, we have been treated to several weeks of the road being dug up to renew the gas main. The existing piping, in some cases almost 100 years old, is beginning to show its age. In its place, bright new yellow plastic piping is being placed in the ground, and, because the bore is so much smaller, is being pushed through the old piping into the houses of the people down the road. As I have daily seen these pipes, I have become aware that that they can be seen as a prophetic picture of the church today.

After all, they are bright and new, they are modern, they are flexible, they are replacing something that is ageing and no longer able to do its job, and as a result, London will be safer. They are also going to be buried in the ground! Well, is that a prophetic picture or not?

Whilst it is true that many of those things can be said about fresh expressions of church / New Church / emerging church (whatever you want to call it) compared to some of our experiences of the past, is this true and fair? Are we just about being new, sparkly and shiny, flexible and creating a safer place? 

As I have been in prayer over these past weeks, I have become aware that the pipes can be a picture of the church. But for me, the significance of that picture is that these pipes, whatever they are like, are there to be carriers of gas. 

There were problems with the connection to our house, and as a consequence we were without gas for almost four days. I didn't realise the source of the problem at first, and so was trying to discover the reason why the boiler wasn't working! I felt rather a plonker when I realised that it wasn't working because it was disconnected from the supply of power!

And that is for me precisely where this prophetic picture comes into play. In all of our brightness, snazziness, flexibility … are we truly carriers of the source of power?

Despite all our initiatives, are we carriers of the power and the love of God?

The other day, one of my friends from another church who has been in the area all his life, reminded me of the Jeffreys brothers' meetings in the Royal Albert Hall 55 years ago. As George Jeffreys walked from the back of the auditorium, the power of God was so present that people all around him were healed. This isn't unique to London 60 years ago; there are places around the world where this happens today.

I guess my challenge to myself, as much as it is to you, is: 'Despite all our initiatives, are we carriers of the power and the love of God? Do we carry the truth, supernatural power, and love through service, which is at the heart of the Godhead?'

Of course we need to be relevant, we need to be connected, we need to get away from the obscure – many have been saying this for years. But as we strain for the relevant connectedness of the presentation of the Good News of Jesus today, for which many stand in the fresh expressions of church movement, let us not lose sight of the fact that we are carriers of the power and love of God, unless we become rapidly irrelevant in our own way.

We need to be generous in our spirituality (Sarah Agnew)

Sarah AgnewSarah Agnew says we need to be generous in our spirituality.

I'm enjoying the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert at the moment and I have just read of her reflections at the end of her time in India.

She's talking about the need she sees her friends have for ritual, for a sacred place. These are friends for whom the religious/spiritual tradition of their childhood or family no longer holds meaning, or who have no such tradition.

When life takes us to the depth of experiences like joy and grief, we are provoked to want to make meaning of those experiences, of life. Many seek help in this, some sort of ritual or a sacred space, something to mark the moment, to honour the connection with the sacred/divine/God they've discovered.

This – this – is why I am so passionate about fresh expressions of church. Because the Christian church is one such tradition that can (and should) offer rituals and sacred spaces in which to make meaning of the human experience, of our encounters with the Holy.

But in my context (the west) more often than not people don't know about Christian spirituality, they have no experience of the church, or have bad experiences, see unhelpful stereotyped images in media or the arts, and don't feel they can go to the Christian church in their spiritual need.

The Christian church can (and should) offer rituals and sacred spaces in which to make meaning of the human experience

So people of Christian spirituality must venture forth out of the confines of the complacent 'church' in order to be present where people are being human, where the sacred is breaking through into their lives, in order to offer the gift of our tradition in these moments.

Interesting in Liz Gilbert's reflections is the generosity and humility of eastern spirituality, which doesn't presume to offer the one and only true path to God, but acknowledges and affirms that there are many paths, and each of us must find the path most authentic for who we are. I find that so beautiful, it warms my heart. I wish Christian spirituality was this generous more often.

Oh, the other thing that struck me in these two or three chapters was about the need for reform. 'Inevitably even the most original new ideas will eventually harden into dogma or stop working for everybody' Gilbert says at one point.

I wonder if this describes the Christian church? What was once an original idea about how to live out our Christian spirituality has now hardened and stopped working for a lot of people…

Before the above comment, Gilbert says, 'Religious rituals often develop out of mystical experimentation. Some brave scout goes looking for a new path to the divine, has a transcendental experience and returns home a prophet.' Others follow this path, but inevitably, a new path must be found.

I wonder if what we're looking for isn't quite a new path; for Christians, Jesus Christ is the path we follow to the Divine. I wonder if it is the way we're living on that path that we haven't changed in a while and which no longer works.

The wheels on the bus (Louise Weller)

Louise WellerLouise Weller tells a story about the wheels on the bus.

The suburb of Rowley, in Christchurch, New Zealand, has always had its challenges, but that did not stop us taking our bus ministry there three years ago. In fact, it was because of the challenges that we went. Since then we have found that families who are struggling – whether financially or in other ways – seem to be much more open and responsive to us and our message.

During the week, the Canterbury Kids Coach moves around the suburb contacting new families, building relationships and breaking down racial barriers. The families were encouraged to come to X-Site on Fridays, but many saw it as a 'kids' thing' and I realised I needed to spend more time getting to know the parents and visiting them in their homes and encouraging them to see that they too could be part of this community of faith.

As soon as two or three parents started to come, others followed. The process of moving from providing a social benefit to becoming a faith community has been bathed in prayer and involves watching for opportunities to show God's love in whatever way we can. Both are necessary and both work hand in hand.

X-Site is an exciting outreach in the centre of this community. It just buzzes with excitement every Friday afternoon, but it has only been in the past four months that parents have started coming regularly. It is so good to see them meeting together and begin to build relationships with each other in an atmosphere that encourages faith. For the families that come, this is church. Together we are learning to serve each other, pray together and grow in faith.

The process of moving from providing a social benefit to becoming a faith community has been bathed in prayer

One of our biggest challenges is the racial disharmony that is so active in this area, even among the children. We are beginning to see some of these walls come down, but we still have a long way to go. We do have a responsibility to address social injustice and the best way to do it is at the coalface. I think that one of the reasons we have been drawn in to the community is because we accept people the way they are. We honour them and help them to see ways they can help others in their area. 

Do we still subconsciously prefer to just reach out to the people like us? I grew up in the same background of those I am working with, so I guess the answer would be yes, but some of our team leaders come from very different backgrounds. At the beginning they found it very hard, but as they have got to know the families and opened their hearts to them, the difficulties evaporated.

Once a month I attend a Community Network Group that meets to look at the social issues that challenge this suburb. School principals, health professionals, social workers, police, government department and council representatives all look at how we can make a difference. Being involved in this group has been a vital link and a way of being able to address many of the problems faced in this area.

It’s all about relationship (Debbie Forman)

Debbie FormanDebbie Forman claims it's all about relationship.

I sometimes wonder whether I am a complete fraud as an Ordained Pioneer Minister in the Church of England! It is true that when I read descriptions of the characteristics of a pioneer, I seem to fit the bill quite well. Yes, I love God and I long with every fibre of my being to take the message of God's saving love to the people whom s/he loves and in whom s/he delights, whether they already know about God or not.

When I visited Innsworth in Gloucestershire for the first time to see whether it might be the right place for me, my incumbent drove me around the estate describing it as needing to be loved, at which point everything in me said, 'please send me'.

I have lots of new ideas and get very excited at seeing what happens to them when they are batted around by others. It's certainly not something you do on your own.

But are not these the qualities of all ordained ministers? Am I not simply doing what any self-respecting curate does? Does not every ordained minister wake up in the morning with that sense of excitement wondering how the Gospel can be re-imagined for a new day and share their vision with others?

I actually spend a great deal of my time doing the most old-fashioned thing in the book, namely good pastoral care and a fair proportion of knocking on doors to ensure that people of any religious affiliation or none know that the church is there for them.

When I first arrived here, I was deeply moved by the number of times people would tell me their life stories on the doorstep. It seemed that nobody had ever listened to them before. I am well known in the community now. As a cyclist, every time I go out on my bike I am greeted by all and sundry and occasionally screech to a halt as I see someone who I know could do with more than a wave.

It is those relationships that have been established which have made a difference

People know to contact me if they want to get married, if they want their children baptised, if they want their new house blessed. Much of these first two years has been about community cohesion. Yes, worship does happen in the Community Hall twice a month, always with a creative twist, I do run lunch club for the elderly – with volunteer helpers I hasten to add – and yes, my pioneer title has given me licence to occasionally do something wacky to take the Gospel story into the community.

But it is those relationships that have been established which have made a difference, and yes, people do talk to me about prayer and forgiveness and God. As I read other stories about fresh expressions it is easy to think, 'Oh that's exciting, why haven't I done that or why does it not work that way here?' And then I reflect that every fresh expression or pioneering enterprise is the result of a conversation between context and theology and that there has to be integrity in that conversation. And alongside the conversation there is the listening and the discernment.

God is always there before us and it's great to come panting on behind and join in. I am confident that the rumour of God is now heard and felt in this place and I wonder what tomorrow might bring!

Beachside stroll to a sacred space (Shena Woolridge)

Shena WoolridgeShena Woolridge takes a beachside stroll to a sacred space.

Would you like to walk along a stunning coastline with the sun warming your every sense and clean blue water to enjoy? Imagine this scene and then picture yourself coming across a fresh expression of church in this most relaxed and beautiful of settings.

Summer nights' sacred space is an initiative to get out and meet people where they are – and in our locality of Scarborough and Filey, that means the beach. Revd Sam Foster, fresh expressions pioneer minister for the CofE's Scarborough Deanery, piloted this initiative last year and we're now in full swing for the 2010 summer season.

People have been invited to come and light a candle to celebrate something or remember someone, some have prayed, many have cried and everyone has had a story to share. We've been so privileged to be the body of Christ together for people who need to be listened to, affirmed, blessed and unburdened. This expression of Christ's love has attracted all ages from the tiniest tot to the most seasoned earth travellers, from the immaculately dressed taking a stroll after a family meal to the bare-footed beach dwellers.

Some have designed images to portray their love and signified their beloved with names and prayers. Most evenings we have welcomed more than 200 people, both individuals and those who come in groups of all sizes and types.

Summer nights' sacred space is an initiative to get out and meet people where they are – and in our locality of Scarborough and Filey, that means the beach

Relationships are slowly developing with regulars and others who are drawn to the shore, like the young man who sand sculpts. We're looking forward to his artistic talent being included in our work soon. Others came in 2009 and remembered us; some came back to thank God for answering their prayer.

We often hear comments about how people who are 'not religious' (their words) have experienced a spiritual encounter of peace and harmony after their time at sacred space.

I have been struck as to how the area seems to have an invisible 'dome' surrounding it. On returning from a paddle most evenings, I've often been moved by the awareness that as I approach the area all other sound and distractions seem to disappear and I walk respectfully past people on their knees or holding hands together around their chosen lantern.

We hope to be able to invite the beach community to explore faith through film or some sort of course. It will be good to see what kind of community may grow, a community drawn together through the long days of summer.