church of england Archives - Page 6 of 11

Songs of Rage

Songs of Rage is a community, passionate about Christ, focused on serving the alternative music culture. Its founder, John Peddie, explains how it started and his hopes for its development as a fresh expression of church.

We call ourselves the 'Messiah's Misfits' and we aim to serve the alternative music community in the Aldershot, Camberley, Farnborough and Guildford area whilst providing an opportunity for people to explore and express the Christian faith. We are not a band!

The name Songs of Rage doesn't perhaps sit easily alongside other church titles and we like that, because we're a church for people without a church, with a focus for the people not reached or perhaps not interested by the 'normal' church. It was initially used as a play on Songs of Praise, but the rage in Songs of Rage is about identifying with injustice, pain, hurt and suffering on a personal and global scale that cries out to God for change.

Alternative music is often criticised for being too angry, it asks tough questions of society and individuals, but in general, it leaves the listener searching for answers. Songs of Rage identifies with the source of the anger and believes that answers can be found in Christ.

We have been called 'Punk Church', but we are not a church exclusively for 'punks' or any other individual stream in the alternative community. We have simply tried to understand the roots of the culture we are in and use language that identifies with that.

Songs of Rage, which we say is 'where music and faith meet', has a number of members from churches across Aldershot and Camberley. We are closely supported by Holy Trinity, Aldershot, to which we have accountability.

We help out at gigs at the West End Centre in Aldershot, wearing 'Messiah's Misfits' T-shirts. The phrase comes from 'The Message' translation of 1 Corinthians 4:

It seems to me that God has put us who bear his message on stage in a theatre in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We're the Messiah's Misfits. You might be well-thought of by others, but we're mostly kicked around.'

It all goes back to about 1998 when I was in a Christian punk band called Cephas and we used to tour alternative music venues across the country. It was all a bit of a shock when it came to an end in 2003 because I thought it was a ministry I'd be a part of, in some way, for life. God gave me a vision of a lot of people throwing their shoes at a stage (a compliment at American punk shows) and dancing barefoot on the sticky floor of some music venue and all I could think of was, 'take your shoes off, the place you are standing on is holy ground'.

I was advised to get some training. That advice made me feel very low because I knew that my particular character would find it difficult to stick with a three or four year rigid training course. Instead I wanted to be out there exploring my personal calling and ministry in a way that was relevant to my situation and past experience.

My vicar at the time asked me to consider becoming a youth worker, which I did. I loved my time in that role but I just felt that working at the church was a kind of 'babysitting' service for the already churched. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just I knew someone else could do the job better than I could, so when my three years were coming to an end, the vicar suggested creating a new role for me to go out into the community. I was very excited about that. The following night my mum had a dream that I had changed my job and she described the message of the dream was 'it's now or never'. I told my boss and we were both excited because it seemed obvious that God was calling me on into something new.

That meant some big changes in my life – such as going into a meeting as the church's official youth worker and coming out without a job or a house. There was certainly a moment when I thought, 'What have I done?' because I had absolutely loved my job but I knew that God was telling me 'it's now or never… remember that vision I gave you?'

The first phrase I came up with to describe what I felt was the next step was 'punk church'. Unfortunately that description confused a lot of people and I think in a lot of ways it confused me too. At that point I was still learning about fresh expressions of church and I wasn't yet clear about what that meant or how to go about it. I had to de-baggage 26 years of church teaching and the way church 'has to be'.

I spent some time at the 24-7 prayer room in Calgary, Canada and also talked to various people and permission-givers in the diocese. As a result I, and others who wanted to be part of this vision, knew that we had to go out and meet people and listen to them in order to take a step forward. There were a few false starts…

St Michael's Church in Camberley kindly offered us some meeting space; that was good because it was the closest church to one of the area's main rock venues but it wasn't so good in that the young people who came along wanted something that was up and running and had a shape to it. They weren't so keen on developing that shape and we found ourselves struggling around that. Again we found ourselves 'babysitting' and decided to close the doors until we had grasped our vision.

The breakthrough came when a group of us went to the West End Centre in Aldershot. We took them doughnuts and offered to clean up their car park. We had friends there from our days in the band and they knew our beliefs because we had never held back on our faith at gigs. The challenge however was to gain trust from the staff; they needed to know that we didn't intend to shout about Christianity from the rooftops but instead were simply there to serve and love them in whatever way that meant something to them. That process took about two years and I'm sure, even now, we have our doubters.

Now we are established as regulars at the Centre to serve the staff, the bands and the audience. The point is that it's not about flying in and flying out of a place, as it was when I was in a band. We are here for the long haul and it takes a long time to re-establish friendships and develop new ones. There are still big questions of course. We are still trying to work out what Songs of Rage is all about and how we develop the growing, very positive, relationships.

We have created a local fanzine which contains gig and music reviews and with that there's a 'message' section in which we take a lyric and write a piece on it, designed as a conversation starter. What's great about the fanzine is that we now have gig goers writing for it and wanting to work alongside us as part of the fanzine team. We also put together a self-funded 10-track CD of the best local bands and gave out 500 of them free of charge because we wanted to show that Songs of Rage was supporting the alternative music scene and being a positive influence within it. It also helped to promote traffic through our Songs of Rage website. Everything that we do has to be of benefit to the alternative music scene. We are guests at the West End Centre and they are running a business at the end of the day. The worst thing that could happen would be if people were put off from turning up to a show because some religious bloke is going to start ranting at them.

There are now staff members who sometimes ask us for prayer and several people who have turned to Christ after coming into contact with Songs of Rage.

The church often talks about 'creating community' but a community already exists at the West End Centre and in the alternative music scene. We are not going to try and recreate it in a patronising way and we don't aim to put gigs on or have our own venue. These things already exist and are exciting, creative and authentic. Our role as SOR is to say 'isn't this great – it has God's fingerprints all over it, let us show you. To gain the influence we must first gain trust and this takes time. Some people find this frustrating as they feel we must be 'doing' something. I tell them that we just need to 'be'. My belief is that we need to be organic in our working; that by being involved in the day today leads you to the natural next step. There is no big plan as to what SOR will look like at the West End Centre in a year's time – we are simply loving people and music and praying God does something!

My wife and I have recently had our first child, a daughter and we took her to meet everyone at the Centre before we took her to our home church. Why? Because they are our family now, our people, and it felt good and right and natural to introduce her to them first. What this 'church' will look like we don't know yet but as people gather, we will work it out together with God's help.

We used to have a Songs of Rage meeting on a Tuesday night for supporters but it came to an end because of work pressure on the vicar leading it and general questioning of its purpose. Don't get me wrong, the group was great – I love everyone in it, but it was taking up too much energy and diverting us from our ministry to be part of the alternative music scene.

It was interesting that as we went to churches to tell them of Songs of Rage, we got a lot of enthusiasm from people in their 40s and 50s who wanted to pray for us and help us but couldn't connect at all with that alternative culture. We were also attracting many disaffected people from traditional church and a lot of energy was being spent on comforting them; it was a difficult time because I had to remind myself, and others, that our particular ministry is not about that at all.

Priorslee

Licensed as Pioneer Minister in Priorslee, Telford, Tim Carter outlines the launch of this Bishop's Mission Order in the Diocese of Lichfield.

There has been a lot of development around Telford in recent years. To the northeast of the town an area of around 1,800 houses have been built over the last 20 years. There is still land earmarked for development within this area with space for another approx. 500 houses. Within the area there are two primary schools, two small rows of shops, two doctor's surgeries and two pubs. The area shares a name with the original village of Priorslee, but there seems to be little feeling of it being continuous with it in any real sense.

The result is an affluent commuter area with many of the residents working in Wolverhampton and Birmingham because most of these houses are within a few minutes drive of the M54 junction.

This area has been identified as a mission priority over the last 5-10 years and various things tried along the way but then a strategic decision was taken to recruit someone to come and live on the estate and plant a church.

This BMO, the first in the diocese, is slightly unusual in that it doesn't cross any parish boundaries but the legislation is seen here as releasing the Pioneer Minister from expectations of involvement in inherited parochial ministry.

The aim of the BMO is for a church to grow in this area, with the shape of that church (gathered or network or something else to be discerned) but the achievement of that aim feels like quite a long way away. The BMO mechanism allowed the diocese to create some space in order to explore that.

I am employed by the Diocesan Board of Finance, which provides administrative support and a governance framework in these early days of the ministry. My licence allows me to operate freely within a geographical area defined by the BMO and by invitation anywhere in the Diocese. The BMO is time limited with a review period and the licence is linked to the BMO so is valid as long as the BMO is in place.

I am linked to what are known as two 'supporting' churches in the wider area – All Saints, Wellington and St Andrew's, Shifnal. We are still exploring exactly what that means though currently they are providing a place for my family to worship and be part of and be sustained by whilst, and until, the plant is able to sustain us. They are also providing some prayer support. This strategy has been implemented with the aim of guarding against the sense of isolation experienced by so many pioneers.

I was licensed on September 6 and diocesan officers worked hard to get us into the house, purchased by the diocese on the estate, in time for my children to get into the local school for the start of term. We still need to work out how we get involved in this community and the school, for instance, is very open to us.

We're at very early stages and at the moment it's all about talking to people and having neighbours around for endless cups of tea!

Church on the Bus

Church on the Bus, set up by Church Army Evangelist Alan Park, offers practical and spiritual support to more than 60 homeless and vulnerable people every week. Alan explains the development of this fresh expression of church.

It all started in 2004 and we now have two buses, one single-decker and the other a double-decker, which make various weekly 'stops' in Derbyshire to bring the Gospel to those who would never normally set foot inside a church building.

Before I became a Christian I was homeless for seven years, but my life was changed when I came to know Jesus. Since then, I've wanted to share the hope of the Gospel with others.

The buses, staffed by 45 trained volunteers from different churches, travel to Chesterfield, Matlock and Clay Cross four nights a week. Lots of people comment on the fact that it's very peaceful and calm on board and that helps to break down many barriers. We have built up a firm foundation of trust and respect so it's very easy for people to mention God and talk about faith. We also help with practical things our visitors may need, like food, warm drinks, toiletries and clothes.

It was great to show the Archbishop of Canterbury what we were doing when he came to see us as part of his trip to the Derby Diocese. I know he was glad to hear that, as a mobile church, we have seen God move dramatically in people's lives. Some people come to us specifically for prayer but we are there to minister to others no matter what and that means sometimes you can come away happy and sometimes you can come away sad. Every day is different; you never know who you are going to meet.

We always stop in the same place as part of our weekly round so we are in Chesterfield on Monday and Thursday, Matlock on Tuesday and Clay Cross on Wednesday. As a result people know where we are if they want to reach us.

I have been in situations on the bus where it is simply raw evangelism. I think this is what more believers should be doing because Christians have been trying to get people to go into church buildings for years and years and they simply won't do it. With Church on the Bus we are not just talking about reaching those in need, we are doing it. This is a fresh expression of church serving a marginalised group of people and building Christian community with them.

One man we saw had been homeless for 25 years and if you mentioned Jesus Christ he physically attacked you. At one point he attacked me and I turned the other cheek. That clearly spoke to him because after six months he turned up again at the bus and said, 'Who is this Jesus guy? I want him in my life.' He's still homeless but now he carries a Bible in his pocket at all times and evangelises other homeless people.

Over the coming years we are looking to expand the work of Church on the Bus and as part of this we hope to begin visiting an estate in Matlock ministering to single parents. We are also in need of more volunteers to join the team as well as people to support us in prayer and finance. Currently the project is part-funded by Church Army while the rest of the money comes from donations.

I pray that more and more people will come to know Jesus Christ through Church on the Bus. It would also be good to pray for nurture groups as we work through how to disciple those who come to faith with us. I am thankful to God for everything that has been done through the buses so far and I look forward to what He has in store for us in future.

York Community Chaplaincy

York Community Chaplaincy (YCC) operates in the York Diocese as a Bishop's Mission Order. Leader Chris Cullwick details how its work has grown.

Building on the development of chaplaincy in various sectors across the city and the success of recent projects such as Street Angels, the Community Chaplaincy seeks new opportunities for chaplaincy service and trains and supports volunteers into a variety of chaplaincy roles.

YCC officially started in June 2010 as a three year project though I have been personally involved in chaplaincy here under the title of York Workplace Chaplaincy for several years before that. A previous Bishop of Selby, Humphrey Taylor, had originally set up workplace chaplaincy as an independent and ecumenical charity, representing all the denominations in the city and its range of chaplaincy services.

Among the many organisations and businesses using these services were the Chamber of Commerce and York City Football Club. That model worked pretty well until about five years ago because the partners benefiting from the chaplaincy were contributing to the charity so there wasn't too much of a worry about fundraising. Those partners included City of York Council, Nestle (which contributed £34,000 pa), Terrys and Norwich Union which provided us with an office space. However, over the course of time and with changes in management, funding support diminished.

Two of us had been employed full-time but then my colleague was made redundant. It was time to think again because the workplace chaplaincy provision under the old arrangements ended in January last year. The Diocese was keen to address the need and opportunity and, on considering various options, saw a Bishop's Mission Order as the best way to move things on. The BMO, from June 2010 for three years, was a new initiative to not only support existing chaplaincies in the city but also to develop new opportunities with new resources, in particular by identifying suitable volunteers.

I now help to recruit, train and support a growing number of those volunteers into chaplaincy positions. Under the umbrella of York Community Chaplaincy we now have a team of about 10 volunteers doing a variety of things. I'm also employed part-time by York St John. I have worked alongside the University's Theology and Ministry Department and very much hope to develop the chaplaincy strand as training for general use.

Looking at general trends, we can see that more and more vacancies for chaplaincy welcome applications not only from ordained ministers but also from suitably qualified lay people. We are providing opportunity for those who have not come through the route of ordination.

It's easy with pioneer ministry and fresh expressions to overlook what the church has been doing for hundreds of years in the form of chaplaincy. The fact is that chaplaincy has become a very, very flexible term. As far as I'm concerned, it's all about being where people are with a focus on service and I think that's why many are getting excited about it.

I have organised a number of days to help people explore chaplaincy, one chap who came is now heading up the retail chaplaincy in York which regularly visits over 100 city centre businesses.

The BMO is very helpful because it gives YCC a sense of support and respectability from the diocese in taking this kind of initiative across parish boundaries and drawing in volunteers from different kinds of churches. We hope it will enable YCC to continue its life beyond my present appointment and direct involvement.

Others recognise the BMO as a cross city initiative which doesn't have to tiptoe around parish boundaries. We are now at a pretty critical stage and quite a lot needs to happen because chaplaincy is a huge opportunity and a tremendous way to harness a lot of volunteer engagement with our churches and community; going out to meet people where they are.

St Peter’s in the Pub

This is an exciting time for St Peter's in the Pub, Lincoln. It has been commissioned as a distinct congregation by St Peter in Eastgate Church and from October it will start to meet weekly instead of once a month. Its leader, Revd Nick Alexander, explains more.

St Peter's in the Pub started in October 2008 to serve a new, growing community in the Carlton Estate and Bunker's Hill area of Lincoln where, previously, there was no church or church building. St Peter in Eastgate Church had been looking at how best to reach that new community and St Peter's in the Pub was the result of several years of research, community engagement, and listening to local people.

Much of what we did took shape after I attended a mission shaped ministry course in the city. As a result, we organised events, carried out a community survey and started a café church service.

With the help of a consultant recommended by the msm team, our PCC matched the survey's findings with what we had to offer at St Peter in Eastgate. This led to the launch of a parent and toddler group at the estate's Lincolnshire Poacher pub which proved to be very popular. We later ran an Alpha Course on the back of our first Craft Creations evening, also at the Poacher.

The initiative is generally reaching folk who are 'coming back to church' after a while away but we are also seeing a small number of completely unchurched people coming to faith as well.

Almost three years ago, we started St Peter's in the Pub on the first Sunday of the month and we now regularly welcome over 65 adults and about 15 children. The idea has always been to keep everything simple, starting off with coffee and croissants at 10am and having a crèche for pre-schoolers as well as activities for older children during the service.

We run lots of other regular activities as well. These include our weekly parent and toddler group Family Hour which runs on Wednesdays in term time and a similar event once a month on a Saturday morning called Family Time. We have strong links with a local sheltered housing scheme and run Songs of Praise & Tea there once a month. We also have a number of weekday fellowship groups.

In the summer we hold an outdoor community event. This year it took the form of an Inflatables Day at the Carlton Boulevard sports ground. We had Sumo suits, bungee run, inflatable boxing ring, gladiator duel and a bouncy castle alongside a free BBQ – the event attracted over 500 people. As well as providing a great community event for the Carlton area, the aim was to publicise a Christian youth event called 'The Bank' at the Lincoln City football ground. We also hosted two special Christians in Sport evenings at Yarborough Leisure Centre and hundreds of flyers were given out.

We were granted a Bishop's Mission Order in February of this year. This has expanded the geographical area that we are licensed by the Diocese to work in and provides us with even greater opportunities to share the Gospel with others.

Our continued vision at St Peter's in the Pub is to see the emergence of a Christian community welcoming and serving the people of the Carlton Estate and Bunker's Hill areas. We are looking to achieve this through a range of community-building activities, evangelistic events, Bible study, fellowship and our times together at the Lincolnshire Poacher.

From October we will begin meeting every week with a whole-church joint celebration at Eastgate at the end of every month. We will also have the opportunity to come together once a month for an evening Praise & Prayer meeting.

Earlier this year the vicar of St Peter in Eastgate, Revd Edward Bowes-Smith, set out the Church Council's 'Vision for Mission' for St Peter's. The idea centres on being one church family (St Peter's) with a variety of different congregations – including St Peter's in the Pub – each with their own worship styles and mission priorities.

The new arrangements began with the commissioning of St Peter's in the Pub on 18th September 2011 and the first whole-church celebration on 25th September 2011 was a Confirmation Service. The fact remains that wherever we are and however many times we meet, what we value remains the same, namely Worship, Word, Witness, Welcome and Work.

Breakfast @ 9

Families are flocking to the church centre in Dorset, for a breakfast with a difference but there's more than bacon butties and sizzling sausages on the menu – says Chris Tebbutt, Rector of Canford Magna Church.

I'd been at Canford for about a year when I thought, 'How can we attract young families into our excellent but rather "mature" 1030am service?'

Years ago this was a sleepy little place but in 1971, at a time of charismatic revival, John Collins became our Vicar. He was prepared to take a few risks and before long this church became a huge magnet for people. At that time many hi-tech industries were coming into Poole and two very large housing estates were built close by. As a result the parish grew from 500 to 12,000 and we planted two daughter churches, The Lantern at Merley and St Barnabas, Bearwood.

So when I came here as team rector, I knew that Canford Magna was a special place but I really did wonder how we could rebalance the age profile of the church. What could we do?

I went to a Deanery Chapter meeting where someone from the outlying villages talked about their monthly Breakfast Church. What a great idea I thought – I can nick that! So I discussed it with my wife Sandra and Children's Worker, Sharon, and we worked with a design agency on a logo. It was then that Sandra came up with the name Breakfast@9, deliberately not mentioning 'church' because we didn't want to put people off. We also decided that rather than re-instituting the 8am Book of Common Prayer service every week – which had become monthly during the interregnum – we should instead hold a new service at 9am in our Church Centre and call it Breakfast@9.

We started off by inviting mums attending the church's playgroup with their children and it's just grown from there. Unlike Messy Church, which tends to run monthly, we wanted Breakfast@9 to take place every Sunday because if you miss a Messy Church session it means you don't see the Messy Church community for eight weeks. We wanted to avoid that and instead build a community of people who regularly met together.

So far, it's going a storm with whole families coming regularly, about 40 to 50 parents and children each week. In the first week of August, traditionally such a quiet time, we peaked at 67 mums, dads and their children.

We set everything up the night before and have three cooking teams. The helpers and worship team get together after setting up to pray. Then the team on duty arrive at about 8am on the Sunday and they then start preparing those all important bacon butties and sausages. We also bought an espresso machine to make sure the coffee was as good as it could be – and we have croissants, fruit, toast and cereals available. By about 8.50am the first people begin to drift in and the great thing is that we are consistently getting Dads along as well – I'm not sure whether the bacon butties have got something to do with that!

We have tables in café style though we now put tables together because we noticed that people weren't talking to each other. By putting two tables side by side, the families began to chat a lot more. We also have members of our congregation who are simply there to sit and chat and lend a helping hand, particularly with those mums who are maybe struggling to cope with kids on their own.

Breakfast is from 9am to 9.20, then I'll welcome everybody. We generally have one or two new people there every week. I'll also mention what the theme of the service is; we're using E100 by Scripture Union, 100 essential readings from the Bible.

We cover the Old Testament in the autumn term beginning with our creator God and on to the coming of Christ when we encourage people to come along to a Christmas Eve crib service. In the New Year we move to the story of Jesus and then after Easter the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church – yes, eventually we do use the 'church' word!

After hearing the theme for the day, we then have three worship songs. All the info is on a big 50" plasma screen with a young person operating the laptop. Music is quite important to us and we tend to do a selection of lively songs that are a mixture of popular contemporary worship songs with one 'kids-friendly' song. The main thing is that all – both young and old – can clap or use our selection of percussion instruments to shake along to the music.

After a reading, the service leader will then do a five minute thought for the day – it may be me or it may be one of the people running Breakfast@9. We try to make it interactive but, whatever we do, we don't pull any punches and we don't try to apologise. So the breakdown of each session is 10 minutes of music, five minute reading, five minute talk, 10 minute craft topic, followed by a short 'show and tell' if applicable, short prayer – about thought for the day and prayer for other people – then a final worship song and a blessing. It's all over by 10am on the dot. We never overrun. That's important. We will encourage people to stay and pray or chat but there's no pressure to do so.

In what was an exciting development, we put on an Exploring Baptism event and showed a DVD about baptism to a number of interested families. We chatted individually to people to ask if that was what they wanted or whether they would prefer to have a thanksgiving service. One mum said she wanted to get baptised (and confirmed) herself so that was arranged – in Salisbury Cathedral no less – and the day afterwards her son was one of two children baptised in the parish church. She and her family were thrilled by that event and a number of Breakfast@9 families came to the service. That mum is now one of those who does readings at Breakfast@9.

There is no magic formula as to what's happening. We're just taking it one step at a time and are looking to form a Breakfast@9 housegroup led by a young Christian couple who have become very much part of the team.

I am so blessed because members of the parish church have been so supportive. The people are amazing; they are serving, helping, putting money in and not necessarily seeing a return. This sort of thing is a big investment.

Others looking to start something like this might ask themselves, 'Have you got people with a real heart to reach out to the unchurched?' I'm impressed by the way the Canford folk both serve in teams and are prepared to bankroll the costs of running Breakfast@9 in the Church Centre even though they don't see these new people in the pews in the 1,000 year old Parish Church.

Many would love to see all those families in the pews but I think they now realise that Breakfast@9 really is church to those families. However we do try and encourage our Breakfast@9 families to come together with the main church and the daughter churches for the bigger festivals because it reminds them that they are part of something much bigger.

Our primary objective is to form a completely new community as most of our attendees are unchurched or people who have had a church experience before but drifted away. On the few occasions where we've mixed the services – Breakfast@9 and 10.30 – it hasn't really worked. So we feel the Holy Spirit is saying that we should press on with something completely new.

GLO

GLO Church in Offerton, near Stockport, was awarded a Bishop's Mission Order earlier this year – the first BMO in the Diocese of Chester. Its licensed lay workers Gareth and Lizzy Robinson give an update on how it's getting on.

The consultation process to become a BMO had been going on for over a year. In March, the Bishop of Stockport, Rt Revd Robert Atwell, issued the Order on behalf of the Bishop of Chester, Rt Revd Dr Peter Forster and he commissioned a team of eight to work with us. GLO (God Loves Offerton) is a mission project from All Saints' Marple, and our team will reinforce the ministry in two large housing estates as we look to establish a Christian community there.

GLO's commissioning service took place at All Saints and it was great to see it publicly welcomed by vicar Ian Parkinson; Alan Bell, Rural Dean of Stockport; Mrs Lois Haslam, lay chair of Stockport Deanery Synod – as well as a local police inspector and a community worker.

The Bishop of Stockport said that we need to encourage mission partnerships across traditional Anglican boundaries of parishes and deaneries. It is all credit to him for really getting the whole thing off the ground because he saw that something needed to happen and made the decision to go for it.

Our focus is to the east of Offerton where the two housing estates have completely separate cultures and identities – in many ways. One estate is made up of some social and some private housing and the other comprises privately owned housing stock; there isn't even a road to link them together.

We meet for worship on a Sunday afternoon in a local primary school but GLO Church is offering lots of different sorts of opportunities to be involved in it and build community as a result. One such opportunity is The Young Mums Way – a group for Offerton mums under 21 years old. It runs every Wednesday afternoon during term time at a local Children's Centre.

We also provide New Life Packs, including nappies, wipes and babygrows, as our way of saying welcome to the world for newborns. The Garage is developing into our freecycle project, a place where unwanted but useful things can find a home until someone needs them. The idea is that if you need something and we have it, you're welcome to it. We hope to make it useful for anyone and everyone.

In August we organised a Serve Week so that we could serve the community of Offerton through things like car washing, gardening, litter picking and sorting The Garage. We feel very privileged to be working alongside the police and the council; they are extremely supportive of GLO. We were invited as 'stakeholders' in Offerton to be part of a meeting with all of the interested agencies to look at the Urban Priority Area plan. I was amazed to see that all of the Plan's aims could clearly be seen as signs of God's Kingdom. It was also amazing to know that we arrived just as the local authority started to draw in the community's 'leaders' to change the face of this area and improve it as a place to live. They know that we at GLO are an extremely motivated volunteer force and that has to be a good thing! We've had the opportunity to pray and talk with council workers; I would never have expected that.

Another very positive step forward has been the approval of our application for charitable status. We have also had planning permission granted for a coffee shop; the idea being to establish GLO Coffee as a place in the heart of Offerton for people to gather as community, train for employment, provide internet access for homework clubs and more. We're just waiting to see what's going to happen with the extremely run down precinct where the coffee shop would be. There are all sorts of discussions going on as to its future and we want to be wise as to the right thing to do next.

From the start we have been blessed with a fantastic team. A number of people, with very different gifts and skills, had previously been in touch with All Saints' to say they felt called to be part of something similar to The Message Trust's Eden network but wanted to serve the wider community rather than focusing solely on young people. As a result, we had a team on hand from the offset; people who come from the area – or moved into it – all of whom want to be part of this new thing of God.

As far as we are concerned we are doing Kingdom work. If people become Christians as a result of it, I don't mind where they go to church because if it's with us, great, if it's with another church that will disciple them, that's great too.

All I want to do is make sure that anyone who responds to the Gospel through us has the opportunity to become part of a discipling community. What I'm concerned about is that we are faithful to honour Christ in our worship and all we do but our time of worship in itself is not going to be primarily missional at all. You can't disciple somebody solely in public worship.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary is described as a 'safe place for British Asians or anyone interested in exploring eastern and western spiritualities in Christ.' Leader Pall Singh tells how it has developed since featuring on expressions: the dvd – 1: stories of church for a changing culture.

The story started 11 years ago when we set up a team to organise a place where people of all faiths or none could find unconditional love, acceptance and forgiveness. I was already involved with the work of East and West Trust as a director and a group of us started to meet for Sanctuary services in Shirley, Solihull.

We decided on it as a venue because it is outside the main Asian areas of the city and so seen as a safe and secure place for east and west to discover Christ without losing their cultural identity. It has provided the space for people to belong before they believe and realise that Christianity is more than just a 'white man's faith'. Three years ago, Sanctuary moved 'home' to St Martin's Church in Birmingham city centre and its services take place in the Arts Café there.

Since the Fresh Expressions DVD came out, I have done some fine tuning along the way but there hasn't been any radical change as such because Sanctuary has a very clear focus and we have tried to make a strong statement with that. We used to say it was 'for British Asians, their families and friends' but now we describe it as an 'Asian-style' service. That makes it more inclusive in the sense that anyone could say, 'I'd like to go to that'. We didn't want to rule people out just because they were non-Asians.

Of course there is then a slight danger that the many people who are attracted to the eastern spirituality that we present in Christ may, in turn, become the majority and we would lose our focus on who Sanctuary is really for. There are plenty of churches in Birmingham catering for people who aren't British Asians but it's clear that Sanctuary is a fusion of the east and west and a bridge between the two in terms of culture and spirituality and ethnicity. Now we have Asian and non-Asian people attend along with those drawn from the Afro-Caribbean community.

We are confident that a person from another background can come along to Sanctuary to pray and worship with us and feel it's a safe place. I think we have tried to protect that ethos from the start. Interestingly we've found that the people who couldn't cope with Sanctuary were Christians who couldn't get their Sunday morning charismatic 'fix' as our focus was too much on people outside the Church. Sadly, as a result of this situation, some Christians left – with our blessing. For many Christians there was a false assumption that Sanctuary would be a place where people would go temporarily for six months or a year but after that they would 'become like them' and move on to so-called real church. We have tried to be consistent in our calling but it has been difficult and hard at times to keep moving forward.

Some have been with us since the start of the Sanctuary journey and they remain very committed to it. Others have joined us along the way. There are those who have really grown in terms of their faith being deepened, people who previously have had little or no experience of church outside of Sanctuary at all. It may not be a large number but they would never have fitted in a traditional church because spiritually – as well as culturally – it would have put them off. Personally Sanctuary has also become a very special place because my two sisters came along, came to faith and were baptised.

We've had people come to visit us from different places, groups or denominations to see what we do but we make it clear that we are not 'selling' a package as such and it won't work in every context. Some who have come here have been baptised, felt confirmed in the faith and then moved on somewhere else. That's fine too; we are not here to build an empire.

We are in the process of developing more culturally relevant Asian resources in partnership with groups such as South Asian Concern and CMS – particularly focusing on prayer, meditation and building the bridge between east and west. We are trying to explore different avenues because discipleship for us is not just a case of, 'Let's do the Alpha course.'

The idea is that these resources could be given to any British Asian or anyone who would connect with that style. We are in the process of doing another CD and a resource for churches to use called Seasons of the Soul. To help us go deeper in our faith in Birmingham we have a monthly, midweek Sanctuary Family Meeting at which we have a meal, discuss the way forward and study Scripture. This coming weekend at Greenbelt we will also be providing Sanctuary-style worship with the Sanctuary team. We will have a sitar player there and also offer Asian sweets during prayer as a symbolic way of explaining how Jesus brings joy into times of sorrow and pain.

Sanctuary has inspired something of a similar nature in Canada through a group of musicians called Aradhna. One of their members lives in Toronto and the group were looking at what to do there. After a trip to the UK when they came to visit us, they went to see their minister who gave them a copy of the fresh expressions DVD with Sanctuary on it and suggested it might be something they could look at developing. They said, 'But those people are our friends! We've been there…' So the whole thing came together.

I work part-time as Mission Partner with CMS and the other half of my time is spent with an ecumenical, community-based ministry, The Lozells Project. Finance is always a challenge for Sanctuary but it's not just the financial support that's needed by a fresh expression of church; it's also the prayer support. We are so blessed to have CMS Link churches pray for us around the country and they give generously towards our ministry.

In the autumn we will be looking at ways in which we can be even more effective. One of our main challenges is in developing more of a worship group. Somehow we've managed to resist the idea of someone turning up with a guitar to do Matt Redman songs but now we need to establish worship which is appropriate for us.

There is a regular team of five involved in planning Sanctuary, we meet every fortnight but there is also a second 'layer' of people involved as a core group who are very much part of the Sanctuary family. During the service we try to get everyone involved in some way in the different themes.

Another area that we're looking at is leadership and the next generation. It can often be seen that a fresh expression starts with someone who is a visionary, I was that visionary for Sanctuary and now it's a question of passing that baton on to others – not only to the team but also to others who feel they can develop in that for the future. Maybe it will be a mixture of the two; it's good to have someone home-grown from within but we've also got to have people from the outside coming in.

Support from the wider church is vital to us. We get that support from the Diocese of Birmingham, St Martin's, CMS and its link churches and Tom and Judi Walsh of The Navigators UK. On Sunday 30 October at our Diwali celebration, we're also hoping to have the Bishop of Birmingham, Rt Revd David Urquhart, speaking at Sanctuary for the first time.

Essence

Revd James Blandford-Baker, vicar of St Andrew's, Histon, describes how the church's vision to be at the heart of the village community led to the development of Essence.

St Andrew's, a charismatic evangelical church in a village just to the north of Cambridge, has an average Sunday attendance of about 250. We praise God for that but it became clear that we were missing out on relationship with many people who would never come into a Sunday service.

We have a Stepping Stones organisation that runs a playgroup, toddler group and babyclub on weekdays and a monthly Friday morning Teddy Bear Time – recently renamed Toy Story Time. That's when mothers, sometimes fathers, and very young children come to church for songs, Bible stories, craft activities and refreshments.

We began Essence three years ago in an attempt to offer mothers a space to explore their spirituality alongside the Christian narrative. We had lots of contacts through our children's work but they had remained just that, contacts without relationship. Having looked at a number of courses (such as START and Alpha) it quickly became apparent that we would need to invent something of our own that would connect with people. The driving issues as we put Essence together were the attitude of consumerism, the importance of story and the desire for spirituality.

Consumerism meant whatever we did it had to be good: quality invitations, great hospitality (decent coffee, croissants and cakes are key) and a fully staffed crèche. Story meant that we had to give space to listen to people's stories as well as finding appropriate ways of speaking about the Christian story: a café-style layout with interactive time for input, questions and discussion (we often use DVD material such as a clip from a movie or a Nooma to get things going) has worked well. Spirituality meant creating space for God to speak: from the start we've used an upper room for 10 minutes of silent prayer, often stimulated by a picture, icon or some creative display.

When Essence was launched, we prayed for five people to show up on the first Wednesday and 10 arrived. The format worked from the outset; people talked naturally and honestly, sharing their stories and engaging fully with the Christian story. By week three people were exchanging mobile phone numbers; community was forming. Not long afterwards people began to look after each other when they were in need. It is quite normal for a new mother to have meals for the family delivered each evening for a fortnight.

From the start we were quite clear that we were building a congregation for the unchurched and dechurched – as well as a few churched. This was expressed by clearly saying to the PCC that it was not the purpose of Essence to get people to come on Sunday. The vast majority of people we see there don't come on Sundays and do see Essence as their 'church'. The intent is very much missional… our focus is not on passing on a 'package' of Christian beliefs but seeking to engage with the questions that people bring. We use the language of story a lot: we want you to feel able to share your story, and we will see if there are connections between your story and the Christian story, and explore if those stories might come together.

Of course this approach raises questions about some big issues, including Baptism and Communion. We haven't resolved those issues but are happy to be continuing on this journey while we continue to consider them.

Our times of prayer and quiet at Essence have been a fascinating journey too. Some people have had to learn to stop and be quiet; others use the word 'oasis' to describe what they've found in the silence. Although we didn't anticipate it, people have been keen to share what's happened in the quiet; God has done some amazing things and touched people at their point of need in quite wonderful ways. For many busy mothers the time on their own as someone looks after their child is the only 'time out' they get during the week.

Essence runs on a Wednesday morning. We begin at 9.15 with coffee and croissant as people arrive and settle their babies in the crèche (run by a wonderful team from St Andrew’s). At 9.45 we begin our input and discussion time. With visitors every week it is essential to rehearse the ethos of Essence at the start (all questions are valid, please share your story, no Christian jargon allowed). At 10.30 we break for more tea and coffee and the essential cake and then at 11am we move upstairs for our quiet space and collect children from the crèche at 11.30 as we end.

Essential to the success of Essence has been the team made up of clergy, our lay pastor for people with young families, our children's worker and other lay people who have taken on certain roles. The crèche team give of their time generously; they have a real heart for the mothers as well as the children. They too feel involved in the spiritual journeys of those who come with many conversations about what God has been doing as the mothers pick up their children after the quiet time. The topics for the sessions each week are a mix of ideas from the team and suggestions from those who attend. Unlike on an Alpha course, there is no sense of the need to get through a defined 'spiritual programme'; we go with the flow and find that there are plenty of opportunities to explore all the most important Christian themes and ideas.

Essence is a mobile group as mothers come to us for a time and then return to work and as new people join. The group is very open – men have been known to attend, and those who come cover an age range from the very young to someone in their 80s. Attendance including children is around the 40 to 50 mark each week.

SOURCE

As a Christian community based in the Hythe area of Colchester, members of SOURCE spend a lot of their time in the area's pubs, bars, coffee shops and cafes – says Church Army evangelist Nikki Foster-Kruczek.

Thirteen years ago the parish of New Town and the Hythe began to pray for God to show them how to respond to a part of the parish undergoing a massive regeneration. The Hythe, the old port area of Colchester, is still being redeveloped but it already looks very different to the way it was when work first got underway.

It was decided that a worker should be appointed, dedicated to living and working in the Hythe. The money was raised, interviews were held and I took on the post in May last year. I'm funded jointly by the Church Commissioners (Mission in New Housing Developments) and the Church Army. The local parish also gives to the work. I am on a fixed-term five year contract with Church Army acting as my employer but the expectation is that eventually the post will become self sustaining.

Within a few weeks of me arriving, a small group of people from the local church had offered to help with the 'mission to the Hythe'. But the question was – how do we mission such a place?

The Hythe is now a marina and the boats moored at the quays are homes rather than commercial vessels. Hundreds of new houses and flats have been built and many people have moved into the area. The old pockets of heavy industry have almost gone to be replaced by call centres and offices. For us, a picture began to form an octopus, a central resourcing core with tentacles that reached out to the different parts of the Hythe.

There are few connections between the various small estates – thanks to a couple of main roads and the River Colne cutting across the area. A few muddy footpaths are used as short cuts but people generally live in their own small estates and rarely visit another part of the Hythe unless it is to go to a large supermarket or DIY store.

People commute to work in different parts of Colchester and Chelmsford, Ipswich and London. The Hythe has no parks, very little green space, no rubbish bins, no GP surgery and no school. Not every residential area has a play space for children and where such spaces are included they have very limited appeal to any child above the age of six. On the edge of the Hythe is the main campus for the University of Essex and many students live in the Hythe itself.

A small group began to prayer walk around the area regularly and 'notice' things. We saw the two pubs trying to attract more customers, a newly-opened wine bar, local businesses struggling to stay afloat and the coffee shops, cafes and benches where people ate their lunch. We also saw rubbish, rubbish and more rubbish. All over the Hythe, people had just dropped their litter.

So our first attempt at something 'missional' was to begin to take care of our local environment by organising a litter pick and clearing up one area of the Hythe. We also began to gather together to share food in someone's home once twice each month, to eat and pray and talk and see where God might lead us. This was a vital time in our formation as a small Christian community.

We felt that God was asking us to be visible and present in the Hythe, so we started to go to the different places and just 'hang out'. The coffee shops, cafes and pubs became places where we met to eat, drink, chat and above all listen to other people. Simply by being present in these places and willing to listen, we discovered that people had a lot to say and through those conversations God spoke loudly to us about caring for the area and being willing to walk with its people.

One day we saw a poster for a quiz night to be held at the local wine bar, a place we had heard was aimed at a gay clientele. In all honesty, we had mixed emotions about going there but when we went in, we were made welcome and have been going to the bar regularly ever since. We are known as people who like to have fun but are deeply spiritual.

Our decision to formally become the SOURCE community happened gradually. We talked about how we could function in the Hythe on a much more effective basis if we committed to being there full time. People began to pray about their calling to be part of what was emerging. Our name came from our meditations on the image of the river, our physical river and the image of water used throughout the Bible. God has become for us our 'source' of sustaining as we depend on Him to lead us in all we do.

SOURCE was launched on January 30 this year at St Stephen's Church in Colchester. We wanted to make it a clear moment when we ceased to be members of St Stephen's and formally became committed members of SOURCE with a call to the Hythe. It was in the context of the weekly communion service and we wrote a special liturgy. There was a time of listening to God and people shared pictures, bits of Scripture and thoughts, we were anointed with oil and prayed with. We had a party afterwards, sharing lunch and fun together and the next evening SOURCE met for our first worship space, known as CENTRE.

Since then we have continued to love and serve God and our area and we are learning to love and serve one another in community together. We meet weekly on Monday evenings for CENTRE and we continue to pick up the litter, run a clothes swap and do lots of other things – such as bake cakes and give them to local businesses as a gift for the staff.

CENTRE is held in the home of one of our members who lives in the Hythe. We start by offering a simple meal at 7pm as some folk come straight from work and they need some food. It also helps to break the ice a bit. CENTRE keeps us focussed on God in the midst of life. We often sing, anything from ancient hymns to Hillsong, we focus ourselves on God, there is a time of reflection and sharing where the question 'Where have we seen God at work?' is asked. We usually look at the Bible together and then talk about it. Recently we read about the Sabbath and had a conversation about how we find our rest. We often hold some period of silence for people to just be with God. We bring intercessions in different ways and usually end with the Grace or the SOURCE community prayer. People usually leave by 9.30pm.

We would see SOURCE very much as an ecclesial community in its own right and are working with the Parish Church to keep that message clear. This is not always easy. SOURCE is learning together what it means to 'track God' both outwardly in mission and inwardly in our own spiritual journey. We still have more questions than answers and have no idea where God will take us next, but we're still praying and walking and hoping… and we're still looking for ways to engage with the people in the Hythe with a particular emphasis on those with little or no connection to church.