Grace

Steve Collins tracks the 20 year history of Grace, an alternative worship community based at St Mary's Church, Ealing.

Our 10th anniversary in 2003 came as a bit of a shock, because we'd always thought of ourselves as fragile in the face of circumstances and liable to end at any moment; we had to readjust our mindset when we realised that we were in it for the long haul! Our 20th anniversary offers us opportunity for reflection and re-evaluation.

Grace was born out of dissatisfaction with standard forms of Anglican worship, while taking inspiration from various experiments that were happening at the time. The dissatisfaction was that the standard forms did not seem to relate well to the culture of the world outside of the Church, or even to the culture of many people inside the Church. The inspiration was that Christians in other churches were acting to create new forms to bridge the cultural gap. It seemed that it might be possible to do something constructive within our own church community, rather than put up unwillingly with the status quo or leave.

So a lay member of St Mary's and the then-curate obtained permission to hold an experimental service on two Sundays a month, starting in November 1993. The 8pm slot didn't interfere with existing church arrangements, and suited the intended demographic, which was people in their 20s and 30s who might have been out on Saturday night – and would prefer to give Sunday morning a miss – but would see Grace as a good way to round off a weekend. The demographic did, of course, include the team, their families and friends, rather than an abstract target market that might be 'out there'. We felt that if it didn't work for us, regardless of who else came, how would it work for anyone else?

Grace - masksAt first the services were created by a team of five people, but the twice-a-month frequency was too much work. So Grace took a break and returned with one main service a month, which continues to this day. From 1998 we again ran a second service each month, initially as a vehicle for experiments with the Eucharist and later as a place for community-focussed prayer, but the second service had to be kept simple to be sustainable. It never attracted a large congregation or had a long-term fixed form. Eventually it lost direction and numbers, and we finally abandoned it in 2013.

Over the years Grace has generally had a core of about 10-15 people who get involved in creating services and other events, and another 10-15 people as the direct community. Beyond that we have variable numbers of regular and irregular visitors. Congregational numbers have been as high as 100 and as low as 1, but the long-term average has been 20-40. However, we never know until the service starts who, exactly, will turn up! Our location in London means that we get quite a lot of overseas visitors who are studying new forms of church in Britain. We've made some good friends this way.

Grace is a strong example of what the Church Army's Research Unit recent report into fresh expressions of church and church plants calls 'lay-lay spare-time' leadership – people who are mostly not ordained and who do not have any formal training or accreditation. They generally serve in their spare time and so face all the associated limitations of resources and energy. There has never been any full-time or paid leadership, and the ordained people who were involved in Grace were doing it in their spare time, not as an official part of their ministry.

For many years there was no formal structure at all. This went with our stated commitments to openness and equality of opportunity – but those who got involved found that they were involved all the time, and those who were not involved in making the services had no other clear way to belong. There were also buried power issues common to all 'open' groups – male versus female ways of working, getting stuck in default roles, people whose word carried more weight than others. In addition, as we grew older and members came and went, we became more diverse. The diversity challenged our (sub)cultural focus – as we knew and intended that it would – but amazingly without causing conservatism or loss of creativity.

Grace - event

In 2001 we moved the main service to a Saturday night, 8pm to 9 or 9.30pm with our cafe open to 10.30pm or even past 11 if there's demand for it. The café allows us to be properly hospitable to visitors, who have often travelled a long way, as well as properly hospitable to ourselves!

The next change was to move to a 'curation' model for service planning – meaning that someone gathers and leads a group of volunteers to create a service. Since it's a different curator and group each time, nobody has to take part all of the time. The curator can also call in specific contributions from people who can't or don't want to be otherwise involved.

Grace has always been mission-minded, but our sense of what that mission might be has changed over the years. At the beginning we hoped that creative worship events would have a direct appeal to the unchurched, as well as the dechurched and the disaffected still within churches. We wanted to encourage and resource others who were on similar journeys, in gratitude at how we had been encouraged and resourced. We created worship events for youthwork conferences, festivals such as Greenbelt, and even individual churches, to inspire people to try it for themselves.

In doing all this we found ourselves, ironically, on a mission to the Church. We have a constant stream of visitors from around the globe, studying what we do and how we do it and taking it back to their own churches and denominations. It wasn't the mission we expected to have, but we've embraced it as the one we were given.

At the same time Grace has been a support for our own personal missions, in whatever places we find ourselves. Some of us do 'official' mission work, with mission agencies in the UK and abroad, or training pioneer ministers, or working with charities. Others are involved in more mainstream contexts but our community and creative activity as Grace supports our faith and witness wherever we are.

Grace - candle

Over the last few years, individuals have faced major stage-of-life issues which make it hard to find the time and energy for Grace. Ironically, our deepening personal commitments to mission have also had an impact. With core members struggling to be available, or unwilling to commit, and a decline in the congregational numbers (probably for similar reasons) the structures we set up 10 years ago are proving hard to sustain. Our 19th year found us at a low ebb, barely able to make the monthly services happen. We openly discussed the possibility of giving up.

In the circumstances it didn't seem right to make a big fuss over our 20th anniversary. We had a fairly low key celebration for the actual anniversary, and filled the rest of our 20th year by revisiting favourite services from the archives. The intention was to take them 'ready-made' to make things easy, but our creative instincts seem to have revived and most of the services so far have been significantly reinvented. It seems to be part of the DNA of Grace – even through all the changes in personnel over the years – that we have to reinvent things, we can't bear to do the same thing twice, even when it costs us or risks failure. We constantly re-use parts of previous material, or other people's material, but the sum totals don't repeat. Life, technology, circumstances, who's in the room, all move on.

We're in the fortunate position of being able to give ourselves permission to change if it suits us – so, for instance, when the second service ran out of steam we ended it and shifted our focus to community meals. All of our structures are self-imposed, so the questions as we look forward are: What do we want to do now? What are we capable of doing now? What do we need to do, to continue as a missional and worshipping community?

For Grace the secret of longevity seems to be in having a mix of new people but also people who have been there for most or all of the community's life. The former stop it growing stale, repetitive or inward-looking, the latter carry the historical memory of the community, the wisdom and fortitude that comes from having been there and done that before. Don't have the new people, and you settle into a routine that offers nothing new for others or yourselves. Don't have the long-term people and you fight your first battles over and over again and never get past the beginners' stages.

For those just starting on this path, we offer two lessons from our experience: persistence, and publicity. Persistence is essential if you are to last long enough to grow into community and to develop your own mission. It turns failures into experience and success into a foundation. Publicity brings outsiders to inspire you and stop you becoming a clique. It allows you to share your wisdom and receive wisdom from others. It lets you be part of a bigger picture.

How long will Grace last? We don't know, but we don't know what else we would do as church. This experiment became a way of life and an enduring community.

Soul Space

Soul Space is an initiative to engage with people interested in Mind, Body and Spirit fairs. URC Emerging Church Pioneer Tim Yau and Anglican Ordained Pioneer Minister Hannah Deaves tell the story so far.

Hannah begins:

I lead a small new monastic missional community called Morph Community. This was formed in 2000 by a group of people in their 20s and 30s who were on the fringes of, or who had left, the church.

The community has 'morphed' a great deal over the years, eventually becoming an alternative worship community of people of all ages who felt a sense of mission to both church leavers and spiritual seekers. However, for the most part we found the people we connected with were church leavers and that it was quite difficult to connect with spiritual seekers.

Soul Space - welcomeWe began to feel more challenged about mission to those seekers and in January 2011 we had a prayer evening to really focus on where God might be calling us in mission. We spent some time exploring our local context, looking at where spiritual seekers were, who were the people attending local Mind, Body and Spirit Fairs and who might be the people we could join with in this mission.

From this, a team of people were gathered together from churches across Ipswich and the Morph Community and we began to meet and explore together. We were aware of the rise in interest in spirituality which suggests more than three quarters of the population would admit to having a spiritual experience – so the people we are connecting with are maybe most accurately described not as 'spiritual seekers' but as 'spiritually open' and seeking wholeness, healing or connection.

Now we are in a community café as Soul Space – offering card readings [see below], meditations and generally just being there and listening to people. As to where this will lead I don't know. We hope that by always being able to tell people when we will be there again and by advertising in the town, people might begin to return and relationships be formed over time.

What opportunities for Christian discipleship might these fairs lead on to? The team at the fairs meet together after each event to discuss if any interest in further contact was expressed, and if so what type of follow-up might be most appropriate.

Soul Space - meditationsFrom these discussions it might be that we hold other more regular events, such as meditation courses, therapy nights, discussion/social/card reading evenings in a pub – or perhaps something completely different will emerge as a way to enable people to explore further. It could be in the development of web-based resources that people could dip in and out of, or meditation cards and objects for people to take home from the fairs. These could well provide on-going prompts for contact points with God. Many will possibly not want further contact other than perhaps attending a future fair, but – over a long period of time – if people keep coming, relationships might be built up and an interest in more regular points of contact might be expressed.

Tim continues:

Our first Soul Space took place in January 2013 and our intention is that it will welcome people of all backgrounds and beliefs to find space, stillness, refreshment and insight at a Christ-centred holistic spirituality event.

Mind, Body and Spirit Fairs are alternative spirituality events where you would find tarot card readers, reiki healing, and crystal therapists. We want to tap into that interest in spirituality to point people towards Christ and, hopefully, develop community through that.

Soul Space - St Lawrence CentreThe Soul Space team involves people from different churches across Ipswich, including myself, Hannah – as an Anglican self-supporting Ordained Pioneer Minister, a parish evangelist, a trainee congregational church minister, several people from Morph, and the leader of Ipswich in Prayer (an ecumenical prayer network). We are a diverse bunch and have all brought different experiences and perspectives to the planning table.

On the day of our pilot event in January we ran three 'stations' in the St Lawrence Centre, a redundant church turned community café space in Ipswich town centre.

  • a rolling presentation of images and quotations on the theme of uniqueness;
  • a table with meditation cards where two of the team were inviting and guiding people on the principles of Christian meditation;
  • Ruach insight card readings. To the uninitiated, these may look like tarot but they are simply images that encourage people to open up and relate their life story to the cards they choose, leading into prayer if the participant wishes.

After a slow start, footfall picked up and 10 people came for card readings with very positive responses. Hopefully this is the beginning of a journey that will reach out to people in Ipswich who may never have looked for answers in the Church or the Christian faith. We don't know where this journey will eventually lead but my hope is that a new Christian community would form out of the relationships that we begin to build through these events.

Soul Space - kids' worksheetsOur second event on in April went very well. Many were blessed through the pamper table and the mirrors meditation on that table – as well as the free samples provided by The Body Shop and Lush. We also had Blessing Teas and Colouring Meditation sheets. There were many good contacts and conversations made. All 200 flyers were given out; we did 17 card readings and most of these people agreed to be prayed for.

At this event we also introduced The Jesus Deck of cards; this provided a useful tool for speaking to people one-to-one about Jesus in a flexible and accessible way.

Our next event is booked for July 13 from 11am to 3pm.

Blessed

Blesséd aims to impact the lives of younger people who do not relate to some traditional forms of church, but with a more 'ancient:future' perspective than some other fresh expressions. Simon Rundell, Parish Priest for the church of Saint Thomas the Apostle, in Elson of the Diocese of Portsmouth, works hard to nourish, support and facilitate Blesséd with a personal passion for gutsy mission. Simon is most definitely a visionary! In fact, a number of other sacramental initiatives have taken inspiration from Simon's work with Blesséd in and around South East England.

When you have nothing, the sacrament is everything.

Blessed - robesBlesséd is an unfunded, somewhat unloved and quite ramshackle loose collection of individuals seeking to draw deeply on the incarnational mysteries and views of the sacramental life and through that proclaim ancient truths in modern ways.

It has been a dream to realise Blesséd as a truly alternative, ecclesial community, to foster and support a non-parochial gathering which is centred upon the Eucharist. This has been a long, hard and quite frustrating process, as the necessary work which underpins this can get lost beneath the pressures of other things: of parochial commitments and responsibilities and lack of money and time. Frankly, I am not sure it is working well at present and not convinced that what we want is necessarily what God actually wants.

One of the most important things about alternative worship (and the spiritual communities associated with it which seek to 'reach out for God') is the recognition that we might, and indeed have the permission to, fail.

Blesséd makes in its own way, a significant yet small contribution to the sum total of 'creative worship' as a form of mission. It expresses a different perspective than some of the more protestant-influenced fresh expressions and irritates some in its insistence that the sacramental life touches everyone whether they know it, like it or dislike it. As with other fresh expressions, we are placed on the edge or outside of the Church BUT engaged with the local unchurched or dechurched culture.

Blessed at GreenbeltYet the outside is just where Church is called to be. This may not be a comfortable place, but it is from this vantage point that we can proclaim a transformative, newly-relational insight into society, following a God who calls us to engage with the wider community.

Being a fresh expression is inherently about struggle, about failing, as well as moments of success. In Blesséd numbers remain small, those who share in worship and support each other online are few and far between and weak and tired. And yet, that is what we are called to do – to support each other in our frailty, to gather in our brokenness to share in something tangible and yet powerfully inexpressible.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. Our very weakness, poverty and vulnerability are the source of our reliance on God.

So where does Blesséd go? If it isn't a formal, licensed, constituted or commissioned community, what then will it look like? It will, I sense, continue to be a roving resource and irritant: an inspiration to some and a folly to others; a burner of carpets and good ideas and a shot in the arm for those seeking to find a new place to encounter God in the Eucharist.

There is no agenda, just an openness to God. Pray for us, and help us to discern God's will. Until then, the altar is open and we, the people, gather to seek Christ present amongst us. Come.

Xpressions Café

Xpressions - buildingXpressions Cafe in Norfolk aims to offer church for those who don't do church. Richard Seel explains how that happens through a number of different 'zones'…

Our safe space is provided by our café, Xpresso, which we hold downstairs in the church centre attached to All Saints, Chedgrave. We have made a deliberate decision that we don't 'do religion' in Xpresso, instead we offer a warm welcome with free tea and coffee, home made cakes and Sunday papers. In this way it becomes a place where anyone can feel comfortable and at home.

Xpresso is open from 9:30am to 12noon on the first Sunday of the month and people come and go as they please. A menu on each table gives details of the events and activities going on in what we call our different 'zones' – namely Xpressions, Xplore and sometimes Xperience. People choose when, or if, they want to find out more about these areas:

  • Xpressions, upstairs in our church centre, offers activities and worship for children and families. With story, song, craft, activity prayers and much more it provides an environment which appeals to many unchurched families;
  • Xplore, in the church people building, offers different acts of worship, reflection, discussion around the theme for that day's café. Everything in Xpressions Café is lay led and devised. The clergy act as 'chaplains' to the teams which do the work.

Xpressions - overheadSome come only to Xpresso but, of those, a number are now prepared to venture upstairs with their children to sample Xpressions or to go into the medieval church building for an Xplore session. We are particularly successful in attracting young families, most of whom are unchurched, the rest being dechurched.

Although at first sight, Xpressions Café might seem to be attractional since we use church premises, its aim is missional. We do not see Xpressions Café as a stepping stone to 'proper church' but rather we are looking for ways to develop it as church for those who come and for ways in which we can help people along a road of discipleship.

One way that we are looking to do this is by challenging those who come to the café to get involved in some community action. In other words, we are looking to juggle the believing/belonging/behaving schema a little further by suggesting that some people may start behaving before they belong or believe; others will take a different route.

Xpressions - grinIt all started in December 2007 and at one of the very early meetings we had about Xpressions Café – when I was trying to explain what it was and the vision for it – one of our church members said, 'That's all very well but where is the Gospel in it?' What they meant to say was, 'Where is the preaching of the Word in this?' My answer was, and is, that all of it is the Gospel.

There has been discussion also about whether our worship sessions are more 'seeker' than 'alternative' in approach. The fact is that they are a bit of both though not attracting the 'typical' kind of alternative worship age group or set of people. We do use a lot of video and interactive stuff but, on the other hand, we do lead from the front which is sort of 'seeker' in style.

That is partly due to environment, we have to work with what we've got – which is not necessarily what we want. It's no good for us to say, 'I wish we didn't have any sort of pews in our medieval church' – even though they are actually Victorian interlopers in the space. We just have to get on with it. There is a 'front' to the church and there are pews and we have to work within that context.

Xpressions - servingHowever, people don't have to stay in the pews of course. For instance, we asked people at an Xplore session to write down their favourite section of the Bible. There is a mixture of Christians and non-Christians in this group so it's interesting. We stretched out a washing line and pegged their Bible 'bits' onto it in chronological order to give an idea of development so Creation was down by the font and Revelation ended up near the Altar! It was a great visual aid.

We now have a core congregation building up, mainly made up of young families. The café is part of a much wider strategy which sees us building connections and deepening and enriching them all the time.

We have a group called Noah's Ark, for pre-school children and their parents and carers, running in Loddon – the next village to Chedgrave. They are getting upwards of 50 there on Wednesday mornings and, for the last six months or so, there has been a time of worship in an adjoining room. More and more people are starting to go through to that. As a result Noah's Ark is on its way to becoming a fresh expression of church too.

Xpressions - lineOne of my visions is to take the principles of Xpressions Café outside the church. When I first started investigating the idea of a café church it seemed to me that many so-called examples were in fact 'ordinary' church with the only difference being that the congregation sat at tables with refreshments for the service but we were looking for dechurched and unchurched.

That's when the notion of different 'zones' came up with Café Xpresso as a 'neutral' place where God's presence is demonstrated by extravagant hospitality. We have now extended that idea once a month after Noah's Ark by having Xpresso 'Souper' Lunches with great soup, great bread and home-baked biscuits. A lot of the parents and carers – and their children – are staying on for that.

There are so many things I'd like to develop further, like doing Xplore on a Thursday evening in a pub or developing the contemplative side of things in Xperience. There are lots of people for whom contemplative spirituality is their thing but they don't realise that the Church has 2,000 years of it to share.

However to develop all these things, leadership is key. Some of our participants are just starting to become leaders or take leadership roles. It is a slow process but encouraging to see it happening at all.

Visions and Transcendence

Sue Wallace reports on the development of Transcendence, an Ancient-Future mass in York Minster.

Going to Transcendence has been compared to stepping into a medieval painting, bathed in light and moving images. It's a place where you can sit on a cushion and watch the incense smoke curling through the projector beams, lighting up the futuristic technology, and journey around an ancient building by night, kneeling at a creative prayer installation.

Transcendence is a collaboration between York Minster and Visions, who have been doing alternative worship in St Cuthberts in York since 1991. In 2005 Sue Wallace did some MA research into the cultural and spiritual journeys of some residents of central York and all the respondents cited York Minster as a sacred space to them, even confessed athiests. They also felt that classical and ambient music was the most spiritual for them. Later, in 2006 Visions hosted some services in York Minster crypt while roof repairs were carried out at St Cuthberts.

Visions - robesOut of these elements an idea was born. What if Visions teamed up with the Minster once a month and created a new fresh expression? One that combined the best of what Visions and the Minster had to offer: beautiful singing; creative prayer; colourful visuals; liturgy with depth and passion combined with futuristic technology and a transcendent atmosphere of powerful approachable-otherness. An Ancient-Future Mass.

So after some time of talking, waiting and prayer a plan was hatched to try two of these services in November and December 2007. It was hard in a sense to imagine what this new service might be like, unless we actually tried it. Sometimes you just need to learn how to do something by doing it! The response has been completely wonderful!

A continuing element of Transcendence has been mixing up the old and the new. Using some quite ancient chants (some of which are older than most of the minster) and new elements such as live video mixing, beats and DJs. We named the service Transcendence is because we wanted that awesome atmosphere. We wanted to be able to go into a space where someone would want to fall on their knees and say 'Wow! God is amazing.'

Visions - screenYou could compare our video stuff to stained glass its just that it moves,  and its the same with the music. You could compare the DJs to the organ. They're doing basically the same job but in a different way. Yet the music and the images are the ones we listen to every day. There is a link there between our everyday lives and God, and  yet when we offer it in worship it is transformed. Every time we plan a service it feels like a completely new thing, a blank sheet of paper, and yet there's always a sense of familiarity. The journey is recognisable to those who want that sense of continuity.

We have had visitors from far and near and a huge age spread too. Old friends making a tentative return through the church doors and tourists from far-flung places who saw the publicity. God has been deeply touching people during the worship, especially during the creative prayer.

Each Transcendence we have tried has been different, and we are very much learning as we go along. It is exciting and scary and new territory for us all. The first time we had four wonderful minster choristers come and sing a stunningly-beautiful mass setting for us in the candlelit atmosphere. The second service included a world class cellist and a group of singers with Taize chants.

Visions - kneelingAt others we have had specially written new settings of ancient hymns and a chance to explore the space and interact with prayer installations. With gold, incense and myrrh for example, praying for world leaders, those far from God, and the broken-hearted.

Yet each time the climax, as ever, has been in bread and wine, connecting us to Christ and each other, but also across history to the hoards of Christians who have worshipped in that place across the centuries up to one and a half millenia and more. It makes me realise what an amazing  privilege we have, and yet what a huge responsibility, singing the next verse of the Great Story and Song to those who have not yet heard the tune, with a certain freedom to improvise, but in such a way that the Word is still heard. Exciting stuff!

The Order of the Black Sheep (The Gates)

Mark Broomhead, an Ordained Pioneer Minister in Chesterfield, is starting a new fresh expression of church for those who feel like the 'black sheep' of society. He outlines his hopes for the new community and its church, The Gates.

I am in the last year of my training at St John's on the mixed mode course. The first part of my curacy was spent at Clay Cross and Danesmoor where I was involved in planting Sanctum, a community based rock-oriented congregation.

I have been involved in the heavy metal music scene since my teens and have played in several bands so it has been very much part of who I am for many years. That interest has developed in all sorts of ways, one of which has seen me helping to lead the welfare provision at the annual Bloodstock festival.

It's one of the main heavy metal music festivals, probably the more specialist end of the market with Viking metal, satanic metal, pirate metal and all kinds of things. We offer a Christian presence in that sort of arena.

Chesterfield SpireSanctum offered an alternative way of being church and it continues to develop in its own way. The Bishop of Derby, Alastair Redfern, was very supportive as I moved on to Chesterfield in order to set up a new community called The Order of the Black Sheep. I chose the name, or the name chose me, because a black sheep was for many years seen as the worthless sheep of the flock, the one that couldn't produce any wool that was worth anything.

In medieval times it was even seen by some as a sign of the satanic. I really pray that The Order of the Black Sheep will be a home for the marginalised, for members of the alternative community who feel a little bit like the black sheep in society – and the church. Our motto will be along the lines of 'better a black sheep than a goat'.

The church will be known as The Gates. Gates are mentioned over 100 times in the Bible, including '…I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not overcome it' (Matthew 16.18) and 'Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in' (Psalm 24.9). We want to build church in what is traditionally seen as the devil's territory and to allow the King of Glory to come in to that community and do what he wants to do.

The 'alternative' subculture is a difficult one to describe but it has grown from the 1950s and 60s Teddy Boys through Mods, Rockers, Hippies and people who generally feel themselves to be on the edge of society and don't fit in with the 'in' crowd. These days there are all kinds of different expressions of it, whether it's Goths, bikers, skaters – all sorts of things.

Our challenge is taking the Gospel to these groups; sharing Jesus with those who have a sometimes well founded mistrust of the Church and Christian culture. We're not planning to 'dress up' the Gospel for this culture because it is perfect and relevant to all as it is. I want it to be a place where the community can meet, a centre where it can be safe and talk through things, where the Church can be reached, where we can be accessible, where we can allow a space for worship and a space to meet with God in various other ways and for us to be of service to that community.

As a fresh expression we maintain that this project will be Church rather than a gateway to 'real' Church but we are keen for members to explore and take their place at the table of the wider church family as part of their discipleship.

B1

B1 church in Birmingham featured in the first Fresh Expressions DVD four years ago. Now Ed Mackenzie of the B1 council brings their story up to date.

Breathe - candleB1 continues to be a community that seeks to reach out to the unchurched and dechurched within the city centre of Birmingham. Significant developments over the last few years have included the Breathe project and a 'recasting' of our vision and values.

The Breathe project began in early 2007 and aimed to 'help stimulate people's spiritual imaginations'. Based in a city-centre office space, the Breathe venue offered meeting spaces, spirituality discussion groups and a 'sanctuary space' for relaxation and reflection. The challenge has been to engage people within the busyness of a city centre environment, but significant relationships have developed throughout the project. Breathe has now moved into a new 'post-venue' phase where it will work closer with other churches and charities in the city centre.    

B1 church also underwent a 'vision casting' process in 2007-2008. We articulated our vision as 'Living God, Living Differently, Living Community', and identified five values central to our life together: Attentiveness, Nurturing, Community, Acceptance and Equipping. We also developed a 'rhythm of life' with spiritual practices to help B1ers embody the five values within their lives – practices include intentional 'blessing', a daily or weekly prayer of review and regular Bible reading.

At the moment B1 church is in the process of recruiting a new leader to take us forward into the next stage of our church life.

Breathe - chairs