cafe Archives - FX ARCHIVE...

Hope Whitby Missional Community

Leigh Coates reports on how a new Missional Community has developed in Whitby.

About five years ago, a group of us wanted to start something new in Whitby – where we all live – so we launched a small cell group and began to explore the idea of missional communities.

Whitby is only 18 miles from Scarborough and 30 miles from Middlesbrough but it's a very, very different sort of place; popular with Goths and alternative cultures because of its links with Dracula author Bram Stoker.

We organised a couple of Christian worship events as outreaches; they were called Restore and we did have a couple of people come to faith as a result. That's great of course, but we felt that overall it wasn't a great success. We wanted to do more and that's when we had a vision of being involved in a regular café-style 'thing'.

My wife, Rebecca, and I approached the owner of what we reckon is the best café in Whitby, Sanders Yard, and they said yes to us doing a pilot Hope Hub event involving music – both mainstream and Christian – and short testimony or talk. The café seats around 50 people but the event was packed and about 70 people came along.

That was in May 2012 and we agreed with the café owner to do the Hope Hubs for a couple of months to see how things worked out; they didn't charge us a penny to do that which was amazing. We tried different things, it petered out a bit, we tried something else; it was all trial and error but the number of people who wanted to be at this event started to build.

We then had another conversation with the owner and said that we'd like to do this long term and she said, 'as long as you make £100 behind the bar, you carry on as you are'. Since then, we have never had to pay a penny for the use of the venue.

Hope Hubs now take place there on Friday evenings twice a month and we usually get around 40-60 people, with an age range from 14 to much, much older…! It's not a service; we describe it as 'Raw, Real, Relevant' because we are working through tough questions about Christianity in a way that's accessible to people of faith or of no faith. I hate Christian things that are cheesy or naff so we do our best to avoid that!

It's our sixth year and we have learned lots of things along the way. The crowd we now have coming along are about one third Christian, one third on the fringes or who have been hurt by church in the past but still call themselves Christians, and one third non-Christians. What started off as five people meeting together has now grown to four different cell groups, huddles, Hope Hub, Hope Rocks, a new youth project called Hyp and many other things.

I am the Deacon for Mission at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Scarborough, but I don't promote particular churches to those who want to explore their faith in a more traditional setting. I'm always keen just to promote 'church' – wherever that may be or whatever it looks like.

Again that's changed because when we started, as a core team in Whitby, our aim was to put people into churches. Now we're very keen on discipleship, which is the one thing I think many churches have really missed out on.

Hope Whitby is a Missional Community that aims to show Christianity in a way that can be understood by everyone. Hope Rocks events are one way in which we are reaching out, and from that we have seen three baptisms in the sea in a year.

Ebenezer Baptist Church has been amazing because it commissioned me to go and do what we are doing and I can go there for accountability; the pastor and elders have been great. The Re-Fuel band have also been a blessing, performing at many of our events and supporting us to reach out, showing how good and Christian music can be.

As you can imagine, doing something new and different, all of the Whitby team – including me – have come up against some hard times and Ebenezer have been there to help me grow and guide me through some difficult situations. They challenge me but, because our accountability is so high, they never get involved in the day-to-day stuff. They are happy to leave that to the Whitby core team.

We have a leadership of five, including me and Rebecca, but there's no hierarchy. We work together on everything, particularly to ensure that we are not replicating something that is already being done by other churches here. We have no interest in reinventing the wheel!

Thanks to Ebenezer, I have just started to 'officially' work part-time for Hope Whitby but the church at Scarborough is not looking to put a denominational 'sticker' on the Missional Community here. They have been very gracious and open to seeing what God has in store.

Some people may have been disappointed that the community is not intended to become a Baptist Church in Whitby. Hopes were expressed in some areas that it would happen but I said no, it's not about that. It's also not about me going to college to become a minister. What's the point in a pioneer sitting behind a desk? I also work as a tanker driver and I want to continue in that, because I don't want to lose the 'edge' in what I'm doing.

Some churches may have felt threatened when we first came along but we have made it clear that we're not a Sunday church; this is all about building God's kingdom. Hope Whitby Missional Community operates from Monday to Friday with Saturday as a day of rest. Our core Missional Community is drawn from different churches so, on Sundays, we return to them. We do however have some who do not or won't go to church for different reasons; we just love them and try to meet them where they are. At the moment, it's enough that they are being disciples with the cells and seeing outreach in its natural form at the Hope Hub.

In the future, we are exploring the possibility of doing many new things but we are still in prayer about it. It would be easy to get caught up in lots of plans; that's not the way it should be. It's being sensitive to what's developing around you and listening to what God is saying.

Stoke Newington Café Church

St Benny’s

Pioneer Minister Nik Stevenson, and his wife Shelly, are based in Oakley Vale, near Corby. Nik tells how 'St Benny's' has developed.

I was licensed as Pioneer Minister on the Oakley Vale estate in March 2011 and that's when we moved on to the estate. We were given a house and then told to get on with it!

We had two years of getting to know the folk of Oakley Vale, organising various activities and serving the community before we launched St Benedict's (known as St Benny's) public worship in September last year.

The first thing we got into was the school summer holiday Oakley Vale Lunch Project (LUNCH). This was providing lunch for children who would normally get free meals at school. We set up a gazebo on a local playing field and made lots of sandwiches. What was interesting was they just didn't want food, they wanted to play as well – so it was sandwiches and french cricket. We've run that project several times since.

We are also involved in running a weekly Food Bank distribution centre on a neighbouring estate with Churches Together. I'm chaplain at Corby's Stewart and Lloyd's RFC and I also play tight head prop for the Veteran team – that means I'm one of the big fat guys in the front row!

More recent projects include Storytime for primary school children in our front room and a 'coffee stop' at the school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The 'coffee stop' is where parents can go after school drop-off time. We have coffee, pastries and chat – and all sorts of interesting things happen as a result. All of these projects are part of building relationships and trust in the community.

It took a while to get to the point where people wanted to meet together as a fresh expression of church. But we now have people of all ages who come fairly regularly; we are also now seeing people coming to know Jesus better. It all begins with our Community Café that runs from 10am to 4pm on Sundays at the Oakley Vale Community Centre. We offer home baked goodies and bacon sandwiches at the start of the day. Later on, the café slows down and morphs into church when we have:

a couple of active, 'kid friendly' songs at The Gathering with actions and dance routines;

a craft activity or game that links in with the story;

a dramatically told Bible story;

three- to five-minute Bible thought;

a gathering up of the ideas in an attempt to make it applicable to late primary/early secondary level;

a more contemplative song;

a time of creative prayer;

more coffee and goodies;

a chance to pray individually with the team.

We have a core group of about 20 people, but we normally see between 35 and 45 people weekly. The last Sunday of the month is based around a bring and share meal.

By the grace of St Michael's, Great Oakley, I am working in their parish but I have no formal ties with them. Their church is in a small village nearby but, by road, it's a long way and quite difficult to access.

The Rural Dean, Ian Pullinger – vicar of St Columba's, Corby – has been very supportive. Two of the families that form part of our core team have been sent to us from St Columba's and he commissioned Richard and Cathy Smith to be missionaries to Oakley Vale, here at St Benny's. Liz and Noel Harding and their family are also part of the core team and they have been a great encouragement and support to us since we moved onto the estate. There are other people on the fringes of St Benny's – some are happy with what we are doing but are not sure about God yet; they are starting to understand that we are kind of God's 'community workers'.

We are up front and honest and we talk about God a lot. I think, if we didn't do that, it would be a huge mistake. Once people see that you compartmentalise your life, you're in trouble. If Jesus isn't at the heart of it all, I wouldn't be here and the whole reason we are here would disappear. Jesus needs to be central to what we are doing. Authenticity is something that people respect. It's about being humble and honest.

St Benny's is now a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) – which is basically a halfway house between a company and a charity. Being a CIO means we find it easier to attract funding even though we are still very clearly a faith-based organisation. This has led to funding for the LUNCH project and a series of interns to help with the work on Oakley Vale.

Shelly and I have daily prayer using three fold Benedictine office. We are working to stream the offices as part of St Benny's Radio so that others can join in. Shelly is a Benedictine Oblate (Wikipedia: Oblate) and is doing her PhD in Digital New Monastic Communities so will be leading on that. We've put in a funding bid for an app so that the liturgy will be available on smartphones. St Benny's Radio will allow people to access a daily rhythm of life with us.

I think the hardest thing about being a pioneer is that you are always inspected, always scrutinised. I'm going through ordination at the moment so it can feel like you are being assessed to death! I am aware that it's hard for some people in diocesan structures to understand what we're doing because they spend so much of their time in a more traditional environment. It can be hard to get St Benny's as it looks so different to traditional church. How is it going to work? How is it going to cope?

I was quite defensive about it all when I started working here, but now I see I need to be willing to explain. This is what God is doing. I need to help them to understand that and not just expect them to 'get it'. It's important not to be a rebel on the edge of the diocese; we will always work differently because we are pioneers.

I'm studying part-time through Eastern Region Ministry Course and I learn online one evening a week. I will be ordained deacon in 2016. The hope is that my curacy will be here on Oakley Vale so that I will have ten years in this area before someone else takes it on to the next level when I go.

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?

At 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.

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.

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.

Cortonwood

Lieutenant Catherine Dodd is leader of The Salvation Army in Cortonwood, South Yorkshire. She tells how their mission to 'go, gather and grow' has developed in the past six months.

I've been in church leadership for the past 10 years and had been serving part-time at Cortonwood since 2010 – alongside being the Officer (Minister) at an established Salvation Army church locally. In October 2013 I was appointed as the full-time leader here and Cortonwood was recognised by The Salvation Army as a new Church plant. We are situated right at the heart of our community, in a neutral venue above the Cortonwood Miners' Welfare Club.

Cortonwood was deeply affected by the miners' strike 30 years ago and the subsequent demise of the UK coal industry. Cortonwood Colliery closed and, as the biggest employer locally, this meant that life was changed forever for most of the families here. As a miner's daughter, I understand the culture and have a heart for the people of ex-mining communities.

It had been felt for some time that God wanted to do a new thing in the Dearne Valley, and so began the process of discerning the 'what' and 'where'. Since 2010, The Salvation Army had been experimenting with different ministries through the formation of a Dearne Valley Planting Team, which I was blessed to part of. Confirmation soon came that Cortonwood was the place where God wanted us to be.

There was no physical Church presence in Cortonwood – the Methodist Chapel closed a few years back, and the parish church is situated in a neighbouring village, but I always believed that God wanted to build a church here in Cortonwood. Furthermore, I discerned that it was never his intention to plant a Church by parachuting in a group of Christians. He made it clear to me that this new plant was to be formed from people within the community who, for whatever reason, were not engaging with a traditional, attractional model of church. He wanted it to emerge from us 'journeying out' and coming alongside the community, working with them and seeing what would develop – without being prescriptive as to what it would look like or what shape it would be. To have the freedom to be part of that from the very early days, and then go on to lead that, is a great blessing.

Initially, we did not have a base of our own and so we used various community venues as gathering places, which is something that we still do and are keen to maintain– we didn't want to go down the route of having one place that would be regarded as 'Church'. We have been blessed with the provision of our base at the Miners' Welfare Club, which provides us with office space, a community prayer room and multipurpose room – it's an accessible place where people can come along without it being a traditional Church building, which can sometimes be a barrier to people. We use it for some of our events, but by no means all.

One of the venues that we use is Costa Coffee. We have always had a good relationship with the manager there, and so when we were looking for a venue for worship we made an approach and we were delighted to be allowed to use this space. Since June 2012, we have used Costa as the venue for our now monthly worship event 'The Gathering', where we meet after hours on a Sunday evening. It's an event which is aimed at unchurched people, where there is good coffee, conversation, live music and opportunity to pause for thought.

We were very keen to have multiple connection points with our church. Some of the activities that we are currently delivering include weekly school's ministry, Toddlersong, food drop-in (with budgeting advice on offer too) and a Community Choir. Since January 2014, a weekly informal and conversational cell group has commenced which we call 'Time & Space', giving people an opportunity to ask the difficult questions as they explore faith. It's beautiful to see how God brings that together. The people are shaping that time of worship themselves through partnering with the Spirit; that's the way it's got to be. We have some powerful prayer times and it's very raw; it's allowing people to 'be' where they are. We have got a lot of needs in this area and some people feel downtrodden; when they start to see their value in the eyes of God, it's quite a special moment.

The key to relevance, is, for me, all about being willing to be experimental and acknowledging that this is a valid form of church. It has to be fluid. Whatever we start, we are not going to put it on tablets of stone and continue with something ad infinitum; we view things in seasons, and we just go with it. I believe this missional community, this fresh expression, is not a 'stepping stone' to traditional church – it is certainly church in its own right; yes it's firmly rooted in Salvationist doctrine but we are not frightened to be quite pioneering in the ways we go and reach out to the community.

We want this to a place where people feel safe, welcomed and loved, where we can work out together what it means to be disciples of Jesus today as we serve the community of Cortonwood.

It's wonderful to see individual's lives being changed as God’s work develops. One of the guys, who is coming to food bank, wants to start to get involved in volunteering; we are also establishing a community allotment as a means of creating community, tackling food poverty by growing fresh fruit and veg for our food drop-in and caring for creation, and we are also seeing people from our local community get involved with this.

It's still very early days but it's a wonderfully energising thing to be involved in – you know that when you get up in the morning you are going to see evidence of what God's doing in people's lives. I have always had a heart for the unchurched and a real concern that people need to hear the gospel but can't – or won't – come to established church. At Cortonwood, we are seeing people engaging with our way of being Church who would not otherwise do so. It's so important to come alongside people in relevant ways as part of their community and leave it to God to engineer the conversation. We've seen that happening in all sorts of ways, including through the local school, where I have been involved for the past four years, and have recently taken on the role as School Chaplain. We did a whole school, in-school Messy Nativity and most recently a Messy Easter for all children and their parents.

Our next priorities will be serving people in practical ways by offering 'eating on a budget' (cook 'n' eat) sessions, and setting up as an Employment Plus Centre, where people can come along and receive help in their job searching. It's all part of discerning the current needs within our community and responding accordingly.

In January, Vicky Hughes joined our team as a part-time Community Development Coordinator. Her role is to develop the food bank and get our community allotment up and running. She will also ascertain community needs and put plans in place to ensure that we can, in the name of Jesus, do something to help towards meeting those needs.

Life can seem very busy at times as I seek to balance ministry and family life. As well as leading this church plant, I'm also doing a MA in Aspects of Biblical Interpretation through London School of Theology. Distance learning can be difficult and the 10 hours of study per week can be tricky to fit in but I carry on with what God has set before me; I always find that he gives me the time I need to do what he wants me to do. I never feel overwhelmed in any way, and firmly believe that Cortonwood is where God has called me to be.

Church has got to be accessible for people. We need to be available to our communities, to love them and be prepared to journey with them in an authentic way. When we move away from our perceptions of how church should look and abandon ourselves to the Spirit, then we see God do amazing things. It is a joy to behold. Lord, may your Kingdom come, your will be done in Cortonwood, as it is in heaven.

Deeper Network Church

Andy Poultney is minister-in-charge of Deeper Network Church, based in what was a restaurant on Romford High Street.

Deeper Network Church originated as 'Deeper' six years ago at St James', Collier Row, with St John's, Havering-Atte-Bower. Deeper, a fresh expression of church, came together as I began serving as curate with a bunch of young adults; my plan was simply to see what God was doing and join in with it.

Following much discussion and prayer, we decided that we wanted to focus on other young adults in the pub and club culture of central Romford. Night-time economy is important here; about 10,000 to 12,000 people descend on the local pubs and clubs every weekend.

We had great support from the community of St James' and St John's and the result was that we launched The Deeper Lounge as a safe space, in Romford's market place, on Friday nights. It started in December 2009 and it has continued to run most weeks; we have served many hundreds of cups of tea and coffee since then and – more importantly – met some great people and had some great chats.

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.

I'm part of The Order of Mission and, using missional community 'language', I was – by this stage – beginning to think about what was to happen next because the end of my curacy was on the horizon. The Friday nights were going well and there was also a youth project called DIY (Deeply Impacting Youth) which was engaging with about 60-70 young people.

There was a very strong sense that if we moved away, the work was not yet strong enough to be led by anybody else, and in 2012 we felt God was calling us to become a permanent presence in central Romford rather than just dipping in and out.

In April 2013, ten of us were released from St James' and St John's in order to establish a new worshipping community known as Deeper Network Church. Our office base, and home to lots of what we do now, is called The Deeper Lounge and it's on the high street in Romford.

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.

The Diocese of Chelmsford granted us a Bishop's Mission Order and this has been important in how we, and others, view the work. When talking about The Deeper Lounge I like to say, 'this is not a youth centre, it's not a community centre, I want to start calling it home – to us that home is a church'. It's a venue and the idea is that we will continue to do a lot of outward focused work and to engage with mission with different community groups.

We have got a reception area, a coffee shop-sized space, a small kitchen, an office and a prayer room. The plan after Easter is to do a bit of everything in this space, including activities for young people, homeless people and parents. Deeper Network Church will develop for all these different people groups.

Part of my previous role was to act as youth adviser to the bishop but I am now stopping that work as my wife and I will be moving into a community house because I'm becoming Young Vocations Champion for the diocese. This will involve mentoring interns and four guys will live with us and take on placements.

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.

Everything we do is to move on conversations and relationships from 'Oh cute' to our vision of deepening life together as disciples of Jesus Christ. That can be a real challenge but there's nothing else I'd rather do.

StreetLight

A former warehouse in Wimborne is set to open as a community centre, café and skatepark in March 2014. Project director Andy Putt tells of the story so far and StreetLight's plans to host a fresh expression of church on site.

The vision for StreetLight as a Christian charity is to reach young people and adults who have not, and will not, engage with 'church'; and present the gospel message through relevant culture which engages them with God – and starts them on a journey with him as well as teaching others to do the same.

Much has happened over the past four years but the story actually began in 2002 when I was involved in my local church in Southampton. I was walking past an empty plot of land when I heard God's call to start a skate ministry to reach those who aren't involved in anything to do with church or Jesus. This was really strange because I had never skated in my life! I started doing youth work and pioneering-type projects but time moved on and, in 2007, I moved to Wimborne to be youth pastor at St John's Church.

In February 2011, I really felt that God was preparing me to 'think outside the box' again and discover what was breaking his heart in our area. Soon after that was the birth of StreetLight and its mission to reach Wimborne for Christ. A group of us had been running street projects, and getting to know young people on the nearby Leigh Park Estate, for some while as we thought and prayed about what God wanted us to do.

In the back of my mind there was still this idea of a Café/Indoor Skatepark/Ministry Hub so – in summer 2012 – I went to the Momentum conference and 'put out a fleece about it', praying that God would make it very clear if that was what he wanted me to do. The answer came back loud and clear from that event and I knew I couldn't ignore it. In addition, while working full-time, I completed a degree in Community Evangelism and Theology and things really started to move from there.

A team just seemed to grow out of nowhere for this vision. As I started to speak to others, people were simply offering to help out. It was clearly time for something to happen.

In January 2013 I stepped down from my church youth ministry, took three months off and did some networking. In April, I started to move StreetLight on from something that simply involved handing out hot soup to people to finding a place as a mission hub. The hub would include a café, skatepark and ministry base with admin offices. I had identified a building almost two years previously and things progressed very quickly when, at a church, I 'happened' to bump into the financial director of those same premises.

After various discussions, we had our first trustees' meeting and decided to take on the building in June. The following month, we put in a change of use application and I started full-time on the project in August. I believe it's very important to keep all the other Wimborne churches in the loop about what we're doing so I have regularly shared the vision with them and we are also a mission partner of St John's.

Work is going ahead on the building and we've now got a committed group of people who want to invest in the vision. StreetLight was granted change of use by the local council and we should be fully open to the public on 29th March 2014.

As part of what will be available there; we are looking to establish The Gathering, a fresh expression of church meeting weekly on site. We also hope to run discipleship groups, cell groups and adult groups for those who want to explore more of the Christian faith.

As ever, there has been some church 'politics' behind the scenes but the fact is that StreetLight is about reaching new people for Christ – people who wouldn't normally be reached. It's not about bums on seats, it's about building kingdom. The reason that things have happened, and are happening, is because God's in it.

StreetLight will offer a very different expression of church in The Gathering. It will be a place for us to engage with individuals and church as community, not a Sunday service. We are not an 'alternative' to church, we are church.

I am very fortunate in the people now supporting StreetLight. We have a board of seven Trustees and two Young Trustees who very much like to help in practical, as well as strategic, ways. We also employ one person to work on grant applications for us. We are also looking for a full time café manager.

By Easter, we plan to have employment in place for probably two people – including me! At the moment I am living by faith and I have certainly learned something through that. Thankfully I have good personal support; I attend a local church, meet up with the pastor regularly, have prayer backing from a lot of people, and meet weekly with a couple to pray, and I see a mentor every month. Streetlight is also getting support from local churches; some through finance, some through resources, and some through airtime in allowing us to tell their fellowships of the StreetLight vision.

It has been fascinating to visit similar ministries as part of my research and it was very helpful to go to Legacy XS in Benfleet, Essex, and The Unit at Launceston in Cornwall. This has definitely confirmed my being a pioneer minister; I seem to have been pioneering things all my life in one way or another and this is another step in that journey!

I have had a lot of great support from people right across the church spectrum but the important message to get across always is that this isn't just a skatepark for young people. At StreetLight we aim to introduce people to Jesus through something they can relate to and it's very exciting.

Down Community Church

County Down, in Northern Ireland, is the setting for a missional community reaching out to people who feel they 'don't fit' into a traditional church context.

A group of friends, including pastors Karen Sethuraman and Gordon McDade, had a vision that was launched in a hotel in the market town of Ballynahinch in October 2010 as Down Community Church or dcc. Karen and Gordon tell of the story so far.

The vision was conceived after many years of effective community outreach by active churches. The challenge came when it consistently proved difficult to integrate our new community contacts into the life of a more traditional model of church. We used to hear the same phrase again and again, 'I don't fit in there', and so we started to ask the searching question, 'What would it be like to plant a church for people who feel they don't fit?' We've been trying to answer that question for the last three years! In the process, we have discovered that there is a vast chasm between church and community when it comes to spiritual transformation and discipleship. We have not taken in any way from the other churches in the community but are seeking to be a different kind of spiritual community with the specific focus of reaching people across the whole community who have no connection with church.

It has been a very steep learning curve for us, not least because we initially failed to appreciate how inaccessible even a contemporary expression of church with songs, prayers and a talk, could be to people with no church background. So began a season of what came to be known as 'unlearning' which proved to be both unsettling and yet creative as we explored relevance and innovation together in the pursuit of meaningful belonging and believing.

Over time, and with many mistakes, a template has evolved within our journey that enables our fledgling community to engage with God and what it means to know and follow Jesus. For us, belonging is paramount and – because we see ourselves as a family and intentionally relational – a domestic motif has emerged to help us define and develop our model of community. Our vision has been galvanised by our values of grace, acceptance, equality, creativity, generosity and risk.

The Sunday morning gathering is known as the Living Room. Set up in café-style, there is endless coffee and extensive use of visual media in seeking to be culturally relevant with a recognition of the power of story and a conversational teaching component which is dialogical and interactive. There are about 50 people connected to dcc currently and attendance can be anywhere from 5 to 30, understandable in a world where commitment in general can be erratic and changeable. We have been constantly challenged by the need to reflect on our use of language and on our understanding and explanation of the gospel.

At the heart of the community are strong friendships based on accepting one another as we are – no matter what. Down Community Church is an open community where you can be yourself and – whether on a journey with God or not – be loved and supported. That support has meant trips to hospitals, courts, pubs, drying-out wards, prisons and homes of all kinds. The good news of Jesus has transcended divisions of class, politics, gender, sexuality, age, culture and ethnicity. Failure is never final in our community.

On alternate Wednesday evenings, we hold the Kitchen; a smaller group in a home with a culture of fun and family and faith. The model is conversational as we discuss and apply bite-size chunks of Bible to increasingly hungry appetites. This is where we are seeing significant spiritual growth in the community.

We are intentionally programme-light in dcc to enable us to engage in community events and so make new connections where we are. We enjoyed learning Irish recently and made some new friends there; it was wonderful to have an Irish carol at our Christmas gathering last year. And we have held our own events, which we call 'gates' – ways – into dcc. These can be curry nights, pub quizzes, sports events; all are organised simply to meet people. We have partnered with other community groups to run a food bank, do a litter lift and reach out to families bereaved by suicide. There is no them and us in dcc, in our community everyone is us.

We have set ourselves up as a limited company with charitable status and have a small board of directors who lead the community. We anticipate that future leadership in dcc will be nurtured from within the community itself. All of us within the current leadership team have other jobs, working in A&E, in coaching and consultancy, even selling beds, to sustain ourselves.

We have experienced some hostility from local churches but enjoy considerable favour from the community, who have strongly encouraged us to stay and value our friendship. We are a different kind of church. We have hundreds of followers on social media and a number of sponsors who give generously to our mission. We have had opportunity to share our story of unlearning and innovation with many organisations and conferences and received such interest and support.

We are excited to link up with the fresh expressions movement and are keen to learn from the journeys of others.

Wichenford Café Church

Carma Wetherall describes how a fresh expression of church has started in the parish of Wichenford, Worcestershire.

Wichenford has over 250 households and a number of working farms spread across a distance of more than three miles. Its shop, post office, bakery and school closed some time ago and the only pub is two miles away from the main housing area.

St Laurence's, Wichenford, is one of 14 churches in the Worcestershire West Rural Team, an outstandingly beautiful part of the English countryside with the River Teme flowing through the middle and the Malvern Hills to the south.

It is part of the Martley benefice, which consists of three parishes and five churches. The vicar of the group is David Sherwin, and he is assisted by non-stipendiary minister Jennifer Whittaker and curate Rich Tweedy.

The 12th century St Laurence's Church stands alongside a country lane, surrounded by fields, with the village's Memorial Hall opposite. The nave is fully pewed and can seat 120 at a squeeze – which is often needed for baptisms, weddings and funerals. Villagers love the building and will turn out for big family occasions and special services, especially at Christmas, but there is a definite disconnect otherwise; many just don't 'do' church.

Ten years ago, regular worshippers numbered 20 or so; today on a normal Sunday we are fortunate to see 10. Rich, as our new curate, suggested that a monthly, 90-minute, café church would offer the opportunity to demonstrate God's love by serving our community and, in particular, offer a relaxed and accessible place where we could share faith and the word.

Two generous cash donations enabled us to hire the Village (Memorial) Hall and buy provisions for two Sundays. We were given an industrial coffee machine, borrowed some café tablecloths, gave out invitations by hand and began in February this year.

Café church now takes place every 3rd Sunday of the month in the hall. We open at 10am to provide good quality coffee and tea with bacon butties and then give people an opportunity to sit around the tables to read the Sunday newspapers or just socialise.

After about 10.30am there is an opportunity to ask the vicar to give a Christian perspective on a couple of news items, sing a couple of worship songs, hear a bit of a talk and share in some prayers.

On the first morning, a small team assembled to set everything up – only to discover that we had no frying pans for cooking the bacon. Following a quick run home, that problem was solved and by 10am – with food and drink available – the hall gradually filled. The stalwarts of our regular congregation came, mainly to see what it was all about, but we welcomed some new faces too and all stayed – except one who left as soon as he had eaten his bacon buttie! Overall, it was an encouraging beginning though a regular worshipper said, 'How will this get them to come to church?'

A month later, word had spread and many more new faces appeared – with fewer of the stalwarts. A number of children came too. In April, we greeted more new people and it was obvious that some of the previous newcomers had returned. In June we welcomed 42 adults and 10 children, including some teenage volunteers to help with the worship.

Six months on and there is a real buzz in the community about café church. The numbers attending are holding up, volunteers have come forward to help with the catering and the overall community response is encouraging. Indeed, someone I met tending a grave in the churchyard recently said, 'We just love café church'. I can only say, 'Alleluia, Amen!'

United Network

A new church community is beginning to form in Clitheroe, Lancashire. Pioneer minister Andy Gray explains more about 'a bunch of like-minded people who are exploring what it means to have a Christian faith'.

I have been here since 2011 as an Ordained Pioneer Minister. Previously I worked full-time as a youth and children's worker for 10 years in a couple of churches, setting up youth churches shaped by the young people, before moving to Scripture Union as primary schools worker in Lancashire. Whilst there we joined another church in the North West, and with keen members we formed a fresh expression of church within a church.

Being pioneering is habit-forming! I'm stipendiary and when I started here, I was told that I had the freedom to 'go and make lots of mistakes' by the bishop at that time. St James Church of England Church, Clitheroe – which supports United Network – had just lost their full-time children's worker so they didn't want to miss out on what had already been happening in terms of community contact with children and families. It was great to use those foundations as the starting point for something new.

I started by looking again at the needs of the area. Clitheroe is a small market town of about 16,000 people and, in many ways, it is self-sufficient because there are many facilities on the doorstep but there are also lots of needs and struggles. More than 10% of the population go to church in one form or another and the good thing is that the churches tend to work together in all sorts of ways – such as debt advice with Christians Against Poverty and a foodbank – to serve the people here.

In fact, so much is provided, we had to ask ourselves the hard question, 'What's the point of having a fresh expression in Clitheroe?'

We decided to look at that by setting a ball rolling and looking to God to find out what He wanted. My initial thought, following good fresh expressions practice, was 'Let's get a nice, strong team together'. We prayed and a couple of people came forward who wanted to be part of something new… but that didn't work out. So in desperation I simply asked God who he wanted. This time we didn't approach it from the standpoint of, 'let's find the best team or the strongest team or the most attractive team'; it was based on being open to God and being ready to respond to who we felt He wanted to be part of this thing. This left us a 'not-sorted-out' type of people, but ones with weaknesses that God seems to use.

The next question was, 'What should we do in this place?'

Our answer was to start meeting together and see what happened, since everything else seemed to be being done in Clitheroe. We wanted to get the DNA right. Part of that involved the decision for us not to be called a 'core team' – we felt that a core team looks inwards; and a launch team tends to blow apart or see themselves as superior (our interpretation at any rate). That left us with being called a DNA team… it seemed appropriate!

As part of embedding our 'DNA', I then had to teach the team what it means to be a fresh expression. I think I was potentially one of the first people to have a mission shaped ministry course as part of my pioneer training so I had a good grounding in it all, as well as a few years of experiencing it.

From that, we began to look at what God had done so far in our area and how we could join in with that. We also looked at what resources we had available and decided on the approach we were going to take. Instead of trying to do lots and lots of things, we decided to do one, 'tiny' thing over and over again until something happens. That turned out to be meeting together and drinking lots of coffee!

We didn't want to meet in a church building so we started to look for somewhere that was easily accessible with a car park, good coffee, and some space to move around a bit. One of the people involved in United Network has the operator's licence for the coffee shop at the site of Clitheroe Castle ruins and she said we could use the Atrium Café for our gatherings.

At that stage there were three families involved in this, including mine. In all, there were six adults and seven children and our first season as a fledgling community was from January to Easter 2012. At the same time as that was happening, me and my wife and our kids and another of the couples with their kids were still doing the children's work at St James – or the 'big church' as I call it, since it is bigger than what we are doing. That meant we still had a lot of links with many families and part of our thinking was about how we could build deeper relationships with these people and allow our DNA to influence theirs.

From that came a request from someone who wanted their son to be involved but knew that traditional kids' groups were not the right place for him; they were not involved in church life at all and it would have been too strange and alien. We then invited them to come and join us at a 'gathering'.

Right from the start we wanted to offer free coffee and food, 'big church' has been very supportive financially, so we were able to offer great hospitality.

Amazingly, we discovered that the castle is sited in a 'hole' in the parish structure and, as a result, United Network does not 'belong' to any parish. The castle used to have a chapel about 500 years ago so we are re-establishing something here from ancient of days.

It has thrown up some interesting challenges as well. The coffee shop is a licensed secular wedding venue so they are not allowed to have an act of worship there. In response I have said that we are not 'doing' worship as such because that requires the two sacraments of baptism and communion – and we are 'just' meeting together as a bunch of like-minded people who are exploring what it means to have a Christian faith.

Reflecting on who found their way into our gatherings, we realised they tended to be people we already knew through other networks in the area. God kept telling us to focus on building community so we put our efforts into that, and somehow people are growing in faith – it must be God. There is no 'big 5-year plan' or strategy; instead we have to trust that God will send the right people at the right time. Some people have come to us and then found their way to 'big church' but that's fine. As far as we're concerned, we have a very missional intent and are not set up as a conduit, we are church in ourselves.

We started to gather on a Sunday afternoon and the mum and her son joined us. We would have been happy to go for any day of the week but that was the best day for the people we wanted to serve. We now meet there on the first and third Sunday of the month when the coffee shop has closed to the public; when there is a fifth Sunday we plan to go out for the day together.

You might also find me in Costa Coffee during the week, buying someone a coffee and having a chat. On the Wednesday following a Sunday gathering, we also have a Going Deeper night. Originally that looked at the DNA and theology of fresh expressions but then we moved on to working out what it means to be a disciple. That ran from Easter to Christmas of 2012. In the meantime, we had another couple join us, then two more teenagers, for the Wednesday night sessions, and it continued to grow. We are now starting another discipleship time on Wednesday mornings which will be run along the lines of a book club rather than a Bible study group which means people study at home, then bring their thoughts with them to a less frequent over coffee chat. Coffee plays a big part in what we do, you might notice!

It's all about allowing time for things to unfold. It took three months for one of the families we know to actually make it to a gathering; now they're regulars. I regularly text the people we're linked with to let them know what's happening when, and they therefore feel very much part of the community before they start connecting with our gatherings. Those who miss the odd get together don't feel as though they have been forgotten or that they have dropped off our radar. We even get apologies when they can' t make it. That list also involves those who want to know more but haven't taken that step yet.

We didn't have a name at all for some while, but that can cause problems when you have to describe what you do to the other churches in the area, or to people who might be interested in getting involved. It was at one of our gatherings in September last year that an 11-year-old said, 'Can we be called United Network?' as we sat and described what we had done so far. I wasn't keen at first… there were still only 17 of us, and that hardly described a network! However I was wrong. Everyone liked the name and it has stuck and, to my mind, there's no doubt that we have grown into a network of people talking about God.

At this stage there are 30 of us who regularly come together (if everyone turned up at once it would be 35) but if we include those who form satellite/ad hoc groups and regular conversations, the figure would be nearer 53, and I don't know them. These are people who our community know. They are encouraged to talk about their faith, and to form new communities themselves where they are, rather than feel under pressure to bring their friends to any of the gatherings. They are supported, and prayed for, and empowered. Though the weakness remains a key part.

Our aim is to reach people who don't yet know Christ so if Christians want to come along, I always ask them to speak to me first. The last thing we'd want is for it to become an 'alternative' church for people already going to other churches or who are disenchanted with church.

Looking at the dynamics of team working, I discovered quite quickly that we are not people who have got everything 'sorted'. I'd read about 'having a team that works' but we don't 'work' in that way. My feeling is that when you begin as a strong team, you have an inbuilt sense of having something to offer others, doing it for them rather than with them. When you come in weakness, you need everyone around you to help. I have seen that so much in the team for United Network; when coming from that point of weakness, we rely on each other so much more and our attitude to others changes too. Perhaps it comes from my own problems with dyslexia of needing people around me? People seem to just want to jump in and help when they see me floundering, and then when it all comes together they say 'we did this' rather than see me as the person who did it – with God of course!

I'm aware that much still focuses on me as a leader. We get together because I have said, 'let's get together'. At the moment my stipend comes out of the curacy budget, so what happens next when the curacy comes to an end in two years' time? At a national level, no-one has really solved the problem of what happens once the Ordained Pioneer Minister is not being paid by the curacy budget?

At the end of summer this year, I said to the whole gathering, 'You shape this; you take ownership and responsibility for this'. In our previous fresh expression of church I brought together all the people who had a connection with what we were doing, three times a year to reflect on what God had done so far with us, and where he might be leading us next. Since it worked well, it seemed reasonable to do it for United Network. We gathered as a community, children and all (the youngest were seven for this meeting) for our first 'What next?' meeting, we looked at how we could theologically reflect on what had already happened and re-establish God's vision for us.

During the meeting I encouraged them to think not about what they liked or didn't like, but rather what had meaning for them. Someone once said, for it to be true, it has to first have meaning. Key to who we are is that we are not a community of worshippers, which emphasises the individual, but rather we are a worshipping community, which emphasises our togetherness in God.

This became very clear recently when one couple asked us if they could renew their baptism vows and marriage vows on the same day. There are no set liturgies for this so we put together two forms of liturgy and set about organising it on the site where the original chapel would have been in the ruined castle. They wanted to be immersed so we bought a 6ft long by 20in deep paddling pool, people brought buckets with them to the ceremony and were running backwards and forwards to fill the pool with freezing cold water. The couple knelt down in it and we poured the water over their heads.

It didn't cause problems with the café and its secular wedding venue licence because we didn't do it in the café; we did it on ground that had never been deconsecrated (to our knowledge at least). It was very special and I would say that was the point where United Network really started to mean something.