Category: Richard Higginbottom

Richard Higginbottom is wrestling on the frontline of ministry.

We are going through a 'transformation period' with Tulloch NET. The vision to develop a fresh expression of inclusive and indigenous church in Tulloch, north west Perth, had come into being in 2004, three years before its official launch. The aim has always been for that church to be based on relational networking – not traditional ingathering.

The area is a mix of social and private housing with a population of around 4,000. In partnership with several denominations and supported by Church of Scotland seed-funding and grants from various agencies, we have been working hard to build up relationships within the community before setting up any sort of worship centre.

In September, the trustees and staff had a strategy meeting to address recent challenges. Having averaged 20 weekly visits to our Room 4 U drop-in earlier this summer, suddenly we attracted the attention of local primary age children and their parents over a period of six weeks or so.

Now we're averaging over 40 visits per week and are rapidly changing into a permanent holiday club for children! It's a great challenge, but has raised issues like staffing levels, child protection, health and safety, resources, etc. Do we extend our opening hours, change our direction, re-structure? We don't have easy answers, but the Holy Spirit is shifting us, nudging us, unsettling us.

We (our trustees, staff, volunteers) come from traditional church backgrounds. We struggle with such risks and challenges – as do our 'clients' (addicts, children, Forces' veterans, lone parents, ex-offenders) within our changing society in a double-dip recession. More than ever, we need to offer a safe sanctuary to vulnerable local people – while being constantly asked by our friends in traditional church: 'Do you have a Sunday worshipping group yet? Do you know how many converts you have?' The answer is 'no' on both counts. We're still building relationships, gaining trust, having spiritual conversations.

It involves wrestling with being on the frontline in a deprived area of a council estate among totally unchurched people, in troubling times, learning as we go. Yet, Kyra, one of our eight-year-old regulars, recently filled in a Beliefs Survey form and posted it in our prayer box – without any prompting from us. She says she definitely believes in God, wants to go to heaven, believes Jesus is the Son of God and yet is not sure if she wants to know God personally…

It's all scary and yet exciting. And, as we prayed on our strategy day, someone quoted Jesus' words in Matthew 9.35-38 in which he described the crowds as being 'harassed and helpless'.  Maybe we're a bit 'harassed and helpless' too but, unlike those crowds, we know our shepherd and we hear his voice… and we already have the harvest workers. Are we just too frightened to heed the call to carry on harvesting?

Richard Higginbottom discusses grappling with the changes.

I was involved with the TullochNET project In Perth even before it 'officially' got off the ground. That’s almost eight years ago – frightening how quickly the time goes! This leads me to ponder questions like 'How long has God called me to do this?', 'Am I becoming a blockage, rather than a conduit?', 'Am I burning out/getting too old/losing my cutting edge?’

At a recent Council of Reference meeting, the issue of a successor strategy was discussed – much to my relief – as this was a point that was already exercising my mind. The Project Trustees now have this on their agenda and our development plan seeks to extend our staffing. As a former vicar whose role – and theology – in recent years has changed dramatically I guess I'm still grappling with these changes. Am I an evangelist or an administrator, a pioneer or a traditional-style minister? What is God calling me to be? Where is he leading next?

Since we opened our drop-in centre just a year ago, we've made more impact in local relationship building. There have been stops and starts. But two recent stories illustrate the need for perseverance:

• a single mum who'd previously avoided direct contact with us suddenly crossed our threshold, had coffee and a chat, and started opening up about her life story. Her son had been a regular at our afternoon kids' club for over six months… so we praise God for this miracle.
• an addict proudly brought in his partner and new baby (who, sadly, has a chronic illness). Mum and baby had just come out of hospital and he wanted to introduce them to us. What a privilege! God is full of such surprises and encouragements, just when you're wondering what it's all about. We have such little faith and so little patience.

Now I calculate that I can invite about 20 adults to some sort of spiritual session but the current questions would include:

• should that session involve a small group, worship or what?
• when should it take place – weekday evening or Sunday afternoon?
• is our home base (Hub) big enough to cope with such a session?

We also have the issue of volunteer numbers and staffing. The drop-in is very labour-intensive. We've lost a handful of volunteers through circumstance (some of it temporary, some not) and this limits our capacity for longer opening hours. However, we gained four new volunteers and those we do have are brilliant—generous with their time, talent and gifts.

Funding is another issue getting harder to sort out. But God is not to be rushed… and he is generous! Relationship-building in Tulloch's 'broken community' takes time and it causes frustration but God's Spirit is active.

So, do we play safe or take risks? Our most recent Trustees' meeting decided to plan to extend the current hours of our paid Welcomer and to appoint a student youth worker – 20 hours weekly as part of a placement with a Christian college – by September.

The wonderful thing is that we're all growing spiritually – staff, Trustees and volunteers – as the Lord leads us in this seemingly crazy venture.

Prayer remains as vital as ever even though our prayer walking has stuttered to a halt. We need to revive that. Meantime, here are some urgent prayers that we are keeping in mind as we move on with TullochNET:

• Lord, keep us humble, obedient and open to your Spirit;
• Lord, give us the funding we need and keep us patient;
• Lord, bring us the people you want: staff, volunteers, Trustees and local folk for your Kingdom. Let's all grow together in Christ.