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How can we be missionally effective in rural areas?

Pete Atkins, convenor for the Fresh Expressions training hub, identifies important principles for mission engagement in rural areas.

Every now and then it's good to summarise where we have got to in our thinking about mission – a kind of corporate reflection on practice. This year's Making and growing disciples in the countryside conference, organised by the Fresh Expressions rural round table, will be an opportunity for that gathered consideration of strategy and practice – both by those with area responsibilities and also those engaged in mission in a particular rural context.

The conference is taking place from 15 to 17th June at The Hayes, Swanwick. In preparation for that, I've been identifying what I now see as important principles – from a church leadership perspective – after many years of working to enable mission engagement in rural Lincolnshire. As a result, I have found myself looking at church culture and what seems to be needed in order to form, and deploy, effective rural missionaries.

The question in my mind is, What culture of local church makes for the release of effective, missional individuals into villages? Here are my responses so far:

1. A church which focuses on the worship of God in all aspects of its life together, not just when it gathers: where a living, immediate, immanent, committed, thankful, sacrificial and devoted love relationship with God is the heart of life as individuals and as a local body of Christ. This means a high value on prayer and the appreciation of the presence of God in all aspects of life.

2. A church where there is a high value on mission and the pursuit of a missional vision with an expectation of vision for, and call of, individuals to mission activity. This means having a corporate understanding of the ministry of all Christians to take part in the Missio Dei and an expectation that God will lead us in his mission on a local practical basis. Again, this means a high value on prayer and discernment and the development of each person's ability to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and discern where he is already at work. It means developing a theology and praxis of this – with storytelling key to spreading understanding in the church.

3. A church where there is an understanding that a prime place of growth as a disciple is as in the gospels; being part of a small group on mission with Jesus and in dependence on his leading and empowering through the Holy Spirit. Each disciple pursuing their vocation in community – with all the faith, collaboration, dependence and courage needed – makes for accelerated growth!

4. A church where there are high levels of encouragement, support, resourcing, interest, prayer, and equipping for those who follow God's call to participate in mission in their context – be that local geographical and/or network. This means creating appropriate levels of accountability with permission to explore local creative and imaginative mission avenues aimed at forming disciples and communities of them. It seems also to mean creating a church community that naturally loves and supports each other and feels to be family, and 'home', for those who are dispersed in their places of mission. For those in small numbers in rural contexts, it seems vital to be connected to a larger body or network for wellbeing and support.

5. A church where there is a high value on the establishment of the Kingdom of God, such that this transcends and transforms denominational – or other potentially partisan approaches – whilst not straining appropriate loyalties. This must be based in a love for the whole church, traditional and contemporary, established and fresh, and a desire for her to serve God and the people of our communities well and together. It means a willingness to engage, enable, include and work with Christians/church in situ but have a capacity for innovation and the creation of 'room to move'.

6. An appreciation of, and commitment to, the creativity of God as reflected in the possible shapes of new Christian community and how these relate to the present church and the mission of both. This means permission, encouragement and understanding the command of Jesus to form disciples and community as he leads. It also means a profound understanding of the fact that he is with us always.

Broadway vision day

Speakers

Rachel Matthews, Tim Lea

Cost

£10 including refreshments and a light lunch.

Programme

Sessions 1-3 feature interactive learning with presentations, interviews, stories, activities and questions.

09.45 Registration and refreshments

10.00 Welcomes and worship

10.15 Session 1:

What is happening and why it is important: How fresh expressions of church are changing the landscape.

11.35 Break

11.50 Session 2

Values and how fresh expressions of church are developing and can develop in your context.

13.00 Lunch

Served in Broadway Methodist Church

14.00 Seminars

Choose from a selection of seminars and workshops.

15.00 End

Book or contact

For more information or to book:

Mark Pickering

markp.broadwayurc@outlook.com

07949 296 738

Communicating the gospel in a changing culture

Norman Ivison explores what we can learn from teaching and preaching in fresh expressions of church.

Norman Ivison heads up the Fresh Expressions communication and resources hub, creating videos and other audio and visual resources. A former BBC television producer, he has been ordained for 30 years and is currently an associate minister of St James' Church, Clitheroe, which has formed a new church (United Network Clitheroe) with its own ordained pioneer minister.

Cost

£5.

Further details

Book your places with Lesley Steed on lesley.steed@cofesuffolk.org or 01473 298510.

msm Gloucestershire – Gloucester

You are invited to share a learning journey in a supportive community to be equipped for a lifetime of good practice and learning in growing fresh expressions of church.

Your local course

The Diocese of Gloucester, Gloucestershire Methodist Church, West of England Baptist Association, United Reformed Church and South West Midlands Area of the Congregational Federation are delighted to make msm available locally. We believe it will be a significant resource for building the Kingdom of God in this area.

Individuals are most welcome, but we particularly hope that small groups from a church or fresh expression will come as this will deepen the impact of the course.

The course leaders and teachers include Cate Williams, Liam McKenna, Andrew Roberts and Pauline Godfrey.

Course timetable and venue

Saturday 5th September 2015

Tuesday 15th September 2015

Tuesday 6th October 2015

Friday 16th to Sunday 18th October 2015

Tuesday 24th November 2015

Tuesday 8th December 2015

Tuesday 5th January 2016

Tuesday 26th January 2016

Tuesday 9th February 2016

Tuesday 1st March 2016

Saturday 12th March 2016

Tuesday 12th April 2016

Tuesday 26th April 2016

Tuesday 17th May 2016

Tuesday 7th June 2016

Saturday 25th June 2016

Saturdays are 09.30-15.30, weekdays 19.30-21.30, both at St Lawrence Church, 32 Church Lane, Barnwood, GL4 3JB.

The residential weekend is at The Marist Centre, Front Street, Nympsfield, GL10 3TY.

Cost

£85 per person (£70 each for three or more from the same parish or church), which covers all materials, refreshments and the weekend away.

Book

Download the flier and booking form at the foot of the page or book online.

Contact

Natasha Kent

Course Administrator

nkent@glosdioc.org.uk

01452 835544

Recommendations

This course was extremely helpful and engaging, the quality of both the teaching and the materials was extremely high, it will prove very helpful over time for engaging with the ever-changing culture in which the church and individual Christians now find themselves inhabiting.

Rev Ian Fowler, Minister, Bourton-on-the-Water Baptist Church

The most helpful elements were exploring in depth the broad range of issues and complexities involved with a Fresh Expression and having a good learning community in which to do this and be open and honest.

Participant, Gloucester 2012 course

Mixed economy and succession: Scarborough Deanery

Michael Moynagh draws out the learning points from the story of Scarborough Deanery.

The Deanery is far from being wealthy, but

they decided to channel their resources in a different and more creative way.

When a minister retired, they redesigned the post and appointed a pioneer to catalyse fresh expressions in the area. If the inherited church wants to become more missional, it must create missional posts to enable this. Otherwise, if we keep on doing what we are doing, we shall go on declining as we are doing. As Sam Foster says, Scarborough did what any group of local churches could do.

Some ministers fear that a local fresh expression will sheep-steal from their congregation, or weaken it by siphoning off individuals with key gifts. Sam met these fears head-on by recruiting individuals who would not leave their local churches but be advocates of fresh expressions within them. In other contexts, many fresh expressions are led by lay people who 'blend' their church experience; they worship in their fresh expression but also in their parent church from time to time. Nowhere does the New Testament say that you cannot belong to two local churches!

Sam refers to missional communities whose members not only meet together, but are active in local mission as a group. This illustrates how fresh expressions are challenging the inherited model of personal mission. The church traditionally gathers for worship on Sundays and then disperses as individuals through the week but often it is very difficult to do mission on your own. You need to do it with other Christians who can pool their gifts and support each other. Jesus did not do mission alone. He gathered a group of disciples round him. Fresh expressions, like the missional communities Sam refers to, are modelling a Jesus-based community approach to mission.

Sam talks about the need for something new, alongside the existing church. This is one way that the church can be a gift to the world. Through the Spirit, the church offers the gift of community with Jesus. Like any gift, this must suit the recipients. Would a bottle of wine be much of a gift if the other person was tee-total? Offering community appropriately could mean inviting someone to an existing church. But other people will need something different. If a church meets at a time, place and in a style that is inaccessible, it won't be a gift because it cannot be reached. In these cases, the gift of the church will take the form a new community with Jesus – a new expression of church that is available. Fresh expressions offer Christian community to people who find existing congregations practically and culturally inaccessible. They echo communion: a piece of the church is broken off to become a new community, which is shared with others.

Sam is thinking ahead. She knows she will leave at some stage, so she is already thinking about equipping leaders to continue her work. She is copying Jesus: raising up others to take forward the mission. Growing into Christian leadership is a key way that individuals mature in their faith. Fresh expressions will disappoint in the long term if not enough attention is paid to home-grown leadership.

Worship and accountability: St Benny’s

Michael Moynagh draws out the learning points from the story of St Benny's.

It took two years of listening and loving and serving (see A fresh expressions journey) before the team at St Benny's started an act of worship. Compared to some fresh expressions, this was quite quick. Perhaps the speed was in part due to Nick's and others' willingness to be upfront about their faith. Nick's comment about authenticity is telling.

They seem to have been growing several communities, for example 'Storytime', the 'coffee shop' and the Community Café. There are many questions. Will it prove fruitful to start a single worship service for people from all three communities? Will the different communities have enough in common to gel together as one (worshiping) community? Is it harder to attract people to an event where they neither know a significant proportion of the others involved, nor do they all know each other? Might it have been more effective to develop small stepping stones to faith within each of the three communities?

'Storytime' for the primary school children seems a great idea. Might the leaders keep that cohort together when the youngsters go to secondary school? As the cohort gets older, might the leaders start a second group for children coming up behind? And, in time, a third group for children behind the second one? Older children could help with the younger ones and gain leadership experience. Think what this might look like after ten years – a chain of age-based groups, each growing in the faith!

Nick refers to the burden of always being inspected. Accountability should not be like that. It should be a process of shared discernment, seeing what the Spirit has been up to and what the initiative is being called to next.

A fresh expressions journey can provide a simple framework. Those exercising oversight and the fresh expression's leaders might ask: 'what stage of the journey have we reached? Is it time to think about moving to the next stage? What should we do to make that happen?' The appendix in Being Church, Doing Life (Michael Moynagh, Monarch Books, 2014) describes this more fully.

Pioneers rightly complain: why don't inherited churches receive the same degree of outside scrutiny?

Illustrating a fresh expressions journey: The Ark at Crawcrook

Michael Moynagh draws out learning points from the story of The Ark at Crawcrook.

The Ark at Crawcrook is an especially interesting story because it is a fresh expression within a business – Christian business-owners please note!

We are told that The Ark is '…taking us in surprising directions'. That is typical of many fresh expressions which are a form of 'ecclesial entrepreneurship'. Research shows that improvisation is a vital part of the entrepreneurial method.

The Ark follows A fresh expressions journey.

Journey

It loves and serves people through its business activities (as well as in other ways).

It builds community as the Christian core develops one-to-one relationships with customers and volunteers and through its Facebook community;

There is also a community-building dimension in its CCCC course (exploring discipleship), where conversations are encouraged and participants can take the discussion in the direction they want. There's no doubt that relationships deepen as people talk.

The leaders sense that a published course won't work, so they create their own. Then they allow the participants, in effect, to re-write the sessions. This is contextualisation at its best – and simplest.

The leaders keep following the Spirit and the Spirit tears up the rule book – about baptising new believers into a congregation, for instance. This is nothing new; The Apostle Peter's rule book was torn up when he met Cornelius, for instance! However, the leaders are not just being pragmatic. They reflect theologically on what they are doing by drawing on the resources of the outside church, not only on local theological expertise but also on the history of the church as they think about community. Rather than pulling away from the inherited church, the leaders are being resourced by it.

Illustrating a fresh expressions journey: Xpressions Café

Michael Moynagh draws out learning points from the story of Xpressions Café.

This story is a good illustration of A fresh expressions journey.

A fresh expressions journey

Loving and serving involves creating a 'third place' – in Expresso – for people to meet.

Community begins to form among those who meet each other in the café.

A path to exploring discipleship exists for those who want to do so, either by going to Expressions or Explore – both of which are followed by the 'end service', while anyone can join the planning team. Both halves of the journey are connected.

Leadership is being handed over as individuals come to faith, as we can hear from 'Male interviewee 2' who has become a regular churchgoer and is starting to lead the 'end service' as part of his discipleship.

How people are taken on further in their discipleship is not described. How are they enabled, as individuals and a group, to serve people outside the fresh expression? Is thought being given to loving and serving people who are unreached by Xpressions Café and starting a further fresh expression – among people in a residential home, for example? If the inherited church is called to reproduce, presumably the same applies to fresh expressions when they are ready.

Archbishop’s focus on fresh expressions

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu – speaking at a recent fresh expressions learning day for parishes in the North of England – said,

Fresh expressions of church ministry put Jesus Christ at the centre of our planning and it's all about new life. The good news is God's grace and generosity is infectious. We must be open to the Holy Spirit who allows transformations to happen!

The event took place at Bishopthorpe Palace and you can watch a video summary of the day.

Malcolm Macnaughton, chief of staff at Bishopthorpe, commented,

It was wonderful to hear from church leaders who brought with them such a variety of experiences of fresh expressions in church and how this is building up followers of Jesus Christ.

Phil Potter, Archbishops' Missioner and the leader of the national Fresh Expressions team, said,

Evangelism has become a much more natural and organic process, as people are grafted in these areas. We talked about different ways of serving and showing love in communities and also about setting responsible boundaries; the testimonies and transformations shared were amazing!

These included:

  • Gareth Robinson from Glo Church, Stockport spoke about how they began by providing play equipment and baby clothes as part of a 'recycling' initiative in his garage. This, in turn, led to growing a community in Christian faith;

  • Diane Kershaw and Toby Bassford – both Mission Priests in Sheffield – outlined the need to be intentional about the allocation of resources and time;

  • Andy Milne from Sorted in Bradford talked about the long, patient journey of growing young people's faith, and mentoring and developing youth workers;

  • Tim Sanderson from Holy Trinity Jesmond revealed just how messy Messy Church can be – but also, using the 'Gray Scale' to plot spiritual growth, how it helps to encourage a spirit of openness and faith development;

  • Sam Foster, from the Scarborough Deanery, shared her heart and soul for the community of Eastfield and spoke about the process of setting up the Westway Open Arms drop-ins.

  • The University of Cumbria's Chaplaincy team, including Matthew Firth, shared insights of growing faith in higher education and the importance of a one-to-one encounter to encourage individuals to find faith.