Kevin Metcalf, Church Army Evangelist, describes his early attempts at pioneering in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
My job title is community outreacher worker and I work alongside a Rector of a Church of Ireland Parish Church in the town of Bangor in Northern Ireland. My role is largely to reach out to the Bloomfield Estate in the southern part of the town and to build some fresh expressions with those who do not relate to more traditional forms of church.
The Bloomfield estate still has a lot of sectarian problems, so this type of work is hard but important. It takes a long time to build trusting relationships in a community like this, so I recognise this is a vision that will take time to be realised. At the moment, we are reaching out to children and young people, and through the children, making connection with families who live in these communities.
At present there is very little for younger people to do on the Bloomfield Estate, so I have been developing relationships with community workers to identify needs. I am passionate about children's work, so I have been focusing on activities that engage with younger people and provide positive opportunities. Although local young people have a lot of religious and bible knowledge through school education, many do not have a form of the Christian faith that resources their life. For example, at the local school of three hundred and fifty young people, only fifty have a stated religious affiliation, leaving three hundred with none. So in the context of Northern Ireland this is a bit of a paradox. Even though it is a very ‘religious' country, many do not have a committed faith that they find to be spiritually resourcing. My aim then is to enable younger people to come to faith and experience Jesus in a real and living way, not just knowing about him, but knowing him personally. Through this, I want to see whole families come to faith.
So far, I have built up connections with a local school, and a community association in the Council Estate. At the school I have been engaged with children through assemblies and after school clubs. In these times I have been using crafts and other activities as well as talking about God. In the Community house we have been running a 'Kidz Klub', using similar activities with a limited number of children as the space is quite small. To build on these relationships and see the work develop and grow, we have started running another Kidz Klub in the local primary school and a team of Christian volunteers visit the homes of the children who attend. Our first night we had 48 children! Through this we are building relationships with families on the estate and discovering how we can help support the wider environment of the children and witness to God's love.
The use of this primary school, I think will give us the space to build up a fresh expression of church. We are very aware that the local middle-class forms of traditional church are an alien environment for many people coming from the Bloomfield Estate. So we hope that a 'Messy Church' approach will be flexible, accessible and more laid-back and therefore appropriate. This will enable people to explore Christian spirituality, and the big issues of life, but also an opportunity to build relationships with local people.
Who would have thought that a visit to a children's indoor fun centre could inspire church steward Caroline Holt to oversee a dramatic shift in the fortunes of a small West Yorkshire Methodist church?
Her dream has become an amazingly successful reality – thanks to the efforts of a dedicated volunteer team, key sponsors, and a church willing to take what was seen as an enormous risk. "As far as I'm aware, nothing like this has ever been done anywhere else in Britain," says Caroline. "We now have 3,000 sq ft of play area, a café that operates alongside it and a supportive local community who have taken it to their hearts and now use The Wesley Playhouse as the venues for birthday parties and celebrations. We've even had several Christenings there as a result of people feeling so much part of what has very much become their own fresh expression of church."
Caroline explains, "There was no doubt about it, we were facing closure. We had tried various attempts to get local people into church but nothing seemed to work so in 2000 we decided to leaflet the community and find out what we could do to serve them.
Finance was the first major hurdle. The church needed to find £120,000 to get the scheme off the ground, and they had £3,000 in the bank. But the money came rolling in – thanks to the Methodist Circuit, District and Connexion providing £78,000 in loans; individual supporters; and £50,000 from the Biffaward landfill community's fund.
Pioneering Baptist minister, Simon Goddard, explains how RE:NEW grew in rural Cambridgeshire.
So in September 2006, 'Sunday Club' was launched with personal invitations for each of the sixty or so children that had been to the holiday club, and adverts in the village magazines and through the schools. It was advertised as a 'holiday club on a Sunday' and this meant that there would be video, games, craft, action songs, a creative prayer activity, and a very short talky bit focussed around a memory verse. A number of families from the holiday club joined us at the first event and although a few didn't return, many continued to come each fourth Sunday.
This development, however, was not how the members of Lode Chapel had initially envisioned 'Sunday Club' progressing. The fellowship’s hope was that 'Sunday Club' would provide a way for the main Chapel congregation to grow, but although one family had come to a few services, they had not stayed. Families were still coming month by month to the school event, but Chapel services were so different from 'Sunday Club' that it seemed such movement was unlikely. To me, rather than being engaged in an outreach activity, it seemed that we were now involved in planting a new congregation. Although it was difficult for the Chapel members to understand, I felt that my commitment to this new initiative was critical.
There have been some challenges as we've slowly realised that the two styles of event connect with two different groups of people. Whilst the Swaffham Bulbeck event was accessible for the 'un-churched', many of those coming to the 'Kids Club' could be described as 'de-churched' – having some previous, but not current, connection with church. But as we've clarified the vision there have been some exciting times too as a growing number of people at Lode Chapel have grown in commitment and enthusiasm to this mission activity. Many members have a more active role in the 'Kids Club' which is now accompanied by a 'RE:NEW Café' where parents chat over a coffee and watch a Nooma DVD. Jonathan and Emma, whose particular calling is to work with the 'un-churched', are now taking a leading role in organising social events and 'community blessing' activities.
St Paul's is an Anglican church in Willington Quay, an area of urban deprivation on the banks of the Tyne. In 2000 the church was reordered to accommodate a community project, managed by the church. Steve Dixon, Church Army Evangelist and Lay Pioneer Ministry in the Diocese of Newcastle, continues the story.
In amongst this is St Paul's Church, which was one of nine churches in the area. As the area suffered increasingly from the trauma of post-industrialisation, all the other churches were demolished as their congregations became unsustainable. In response to the increasing social needs, St Paul's Church was reordered in 2000 to accommodate a community project, managed by the church. This was a very brave decision, as St Paul's Church itself was finding it difficult to keep going.
The project aims to make a difference to local people facing deprivation, with groups and support for single parent families, young people, people living with long-term unemployment and older people. All these activities were centred on offering loving service, working in partnership with local government and other voluntary organisations. The project has created social cohesion for those engaged with it. We can expect 150 people to turn up for community events that we run, because there is now real ownership of it. My post was created by the Diocese to develop a fresh expression of church out of the work of the project, as part of a team ministry. Given that there is now a viable community, I was charged with exploring the need for discipleship and forms of worship. The two church wardens and I are the people on the ground. One of the first things we have done is to set up a new more inclusive and empowering management approach to the project, now called 'St Paul's Community Partnership', that involves local residents and institutions.
We did a lot of thinking about how we can rebuild a form of church coming out of the project. Do we start with some form of discipleship course or worship gathering as a bit of a taster – to give people room to explore questions? We chose the latter, because contextually there is real resistance to training and education type approaches, as many people here had a poor experience of education. So on Pentecost Sunday 2009 we started worship services again in the church, using the CPAS 'Start course' and adapting it to meet the discipleship needs of our context.
The Church now faces new challenges. A lot of the ex-industrial land has been bought up for new housing, for those who have money. Clearly this is not going to be the people who already live here. It seems that more affluent people living in Tyne & Wear are moving in. This raises huge issues around social cohesion, with the 'have's and the 'have not's living in different parts of our expanding village. We are currently exploring setting up some new forms of groups such as book clubs, evening classes and explorations of spirituality to engage in these 'new build' areas. We are still dreaming!
Three years ago I moved with my family to Mawsley in my first post as a Curate. 'Christians in Mawsley' was then a group of Christians coming from different traditions that didn't really reach out to the village. There was a sense of collaboration and enthusiasm but no clear strategic purpose, and I was asked to assist in developing this into what we would call now a fresh expression of church. I was a traditional curate in a benefice to four churches in other villages, but also being a pioneer in Mawsley.
Building on growing relationships with local people in Mawsley we began twice-monthly gatherings for public worship in December 2006. We meet on Sunday mornings in a Community Centre in the heart of the village – very much in secular space – where children's ministry began last year. Small groups have also met, with varying degrees of success, in homes across Mawsley. Larger scale 'messy church' events for children up to 10 years of age and their carers have become a regular opportunity for outreach here at significant times such as Christmas & Easter (and have spread to a nearby village too). We deliberately hold these in Mawsley's local Primary School. These more participative forms of worship have successfully engaged with fringe people, again of the 'de-and-unchurched' type. This year on Easter Monday, we had a Messy Church event and ninety-five children plus their parents and helpers attended. For the first time the school parents' group asked to be involved this year. These events happen mainly because of the participation of many fringe and non-church parents.
We have sought to develop our participation with other village events as a form of outreach to local people. So we play our part in fayres, family 'It's a Knockout' and other social events, and this has increased our ability to build relationships with people who do not go to church. Regular assemblies, a Bumps & Buggies group and starting an annual litter pick have also played their part, too.
I made a conscious decision when I went to Mawsley to invest some time in me. I wanted to discover my spiritual side, and in response to my experience at the convalescent home, I plucked up the courage to go to Mawsley Church. I took the children with me. Everyone was so welcoming and I soon came to learn that the small congregation were all on different parts of their spiritual journey. It was within Mawsley church that I found the family I had yearned for. It was right here on my doorstep.
I was not the only one to benefit from my experiences with our church. The children made new friends, and drew strength from the improvement they saw in me, a happier mummy. The question arose around baptism and I pondered over my decision for many months. I let the children decide whether they also wanted to be baptised. The answer was a resounding yes. I decided it would be a wonderful idea to have a family baptism. I wanted to share this point of Megan and Ewans spiritual journey. I saw my position as their spiritual guide, equipping them with the many tools our faith offered for their later journey in life. On the 28th September 2008, we had the marvellous experience of being baptised by submersion as a family at Mawsley Church. It was an incredibly charged moment for me personally, I could barely hold back my tears of emotion. That day I felt all three of us had turned a corner and we began a new journey strengthened by the love of God.
Fresh Expressions Associate Missioner Jane Tibbs and Bath and Wells Diocesan Children & Families Officer, explores how a focus on children can create new opportunities for experimental worship and mission.
Discussions ensue and at an evening meeting over supper I make a suggestion. There are two schools in the parish which have plenty of children, but they just don't want to come to sung Eucharist form of church on a Sunday morning. I suggest, 'How about trying something completely different?' Let us choose a few festivals – not the obvious ones – and have an activity session for the children on Saturday mornings. Let's do creative activities, 'making things', which can be included in a service, and change the pattern of Sunday morning services to include a non-eucharistic family service to last for forty five minutes.
First things first. Festivals. We decided on Pentecost, Harvest, Advent, Candlemas and Palm Sunday. Then who to ask? I looked around and knew exactly who to target, inviting them all (fifteen) to a planning meeting.
The altar frontal was a riot of reds, oranges and yellows and depicted Pentecost to a "P". The music was lively, the prayers were sincere, the reading was dramatic and the talk was to the point. The children participated, not called upon to stand at the front and hold up pictures, but as part of the worship. Virtually everyone stayed for refreshments and about forty people sat down to lunch.
Once again the day dawned brightly and everyone arrived laden with goodies. By ten o'clock we knew this was NOT going to be a quiet event. Sixty children turned up. Would we have enough for them all to do? Would there be enough space for the games? It wasn't quite chaotic but it was lively and tremendous fun. A number of parents stayed and drank coffee in the corner and chatted (rather too noisily during the story!) and they all left noisily at noon while set up for Sunday.
The opening songs, warm-up activities and story are a huge success. The children are then absorbed in the crafts and ready for refreshments (still Jaffa Cakes!) and games. We provide about eight different crafts – more than can be completed but no time to get bored. And the final story time is eagerly anticipated by parents and children alike!
And so, as Pentecost looms again, what have we learnt, gained, achieved?
We were very fortunate that the Diocese of Leicester Mission Fund gave two grants to get us going and sustain us in the first three years. Running costs are around £1 per person.
So we do see Tomatoes as a community but not yet church, full of potential we hope to become church in the future, but not yet anywhere near ready to go that way. You can’t rush or force people to go there, it has to be in the right time.
Our fresh expressions ministry has continued to flourish in the parish of Tolland. We have continued to build community with a series of alternative worship events, now often held in the village church – which has become the centre of community life.