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Gateways

Alistair Birkett is a farmer and lay pioneer leading fresh expressions of church in the Scottish Borders.

Day by day my time is largely spent developing fresh expressions of church whilst running Norham West Mains farm near Berwick upon Tweed. The fresh expressions of church, which are collectively known as Gateways, meet in various different contexts around a monthly cycle.

I am married to Ruth and we have two sons (Sam 23, and Jonah 19). It was after a change in Ruth's family farming business that we moved to the Scottish Borders 10 years ago. I had trained at Moorlands Theological College from 1995-98 and was then involved in leading a community church Cheshire, but we then felt the call to move to this area. Ruth's family had farmed up here for many years and, at the age of 38, I started running this 550-acre arable farm. Our aim was always to make it work alongside some sort of ministry.

Norham West Mains is a reasonably large arable farm, and I use a local agricultural contractor to ease the workload and allow me to develop Gateways.

We had some difficult times when we first came to the Borders, both personally and in trying to discern what we should be doing in ministry – and where. I was working with a local evangelical church for around eight months and I began to feel that I needed to re assess my involvement there. This time then prompted us to ask a lot of questions about what it means to be church in our modern world, and how to minister effectively.

A few years before that the local Church of Scotland minister retired and a locum minister was appointed to serve the rural Parish of Hutton, Fishwick and Paxton. Bill Landale is a visionary guy who has a real understanding of the inherited church model but was exploring the question, 'What else do we do?' He put together a working group to look at future plans because they were down to about 15 people attending and realised that if they didn't engage with the under 50s, the church in this area was completely bust!

Facing up to what was a clear missional challenge, that working group carried out an extensive community survey which showed that people in the parish were interested in spiritual things but were not sure about exploring those things within a traditional church model. Those results formed the basis of the Gateways project, starting in January 2011.

Another turning point in the journey came when I attended the North East mission shaped ministry course at Berwick upon Tweed. Sessions also took place with a course based in Tyneside. We knew that Fresh Expressions had been running the mission shaped intro course for a few years, so I took four people along to msm, thinking 'it will be good for them'. I'm sure it was good for them but, in fact, it was I who fell in love with the course! The teaching really helped me in the early days of Gateways because, in our community, we were growing increasingly concerned with inherited, attractional models of church. For years it seemed that I'd been trying to do what we did better instead of asking, 'How do we completely re-form this?'

My role, as project leader, was not to get bums on seats in the local parish church, but was to form a team which would seek to reach families and young people in particular – people who had no formal contact with church at all. The cultural gulf is massive between what happens in a traditional service in the Scottish Borders and a family with kids in their teens!

The Church of Scotland graciously granted us a three year funding package via their Emerging Ministries Fund, and we were tasked to listen, get involved in the community, and begin the journey that has now been going on for over four years. As the work has developed, we have sought to create a fresh expression of church embracing a mixed economy way of working. When we first began Gateways, we were encouraged by the Church of Scotland to be experimental; some things have worked, some have failed but being given permission to fail in an environment of mission is liberating.

There are about 550 people in the parish in total. In terms of population, we live in the 'big village' of Paxton where there is a village hall and a parish church but there is no school and no shop. The smaller of Hutton has a village hall and a church but no other community facility. Fishwick is a hamlet. A new estate has recently been built in Paxton, and although the development only amounts to only around 30 homes, the impact is large in such a dispersed rural area.

We are seeing our Gateways communities develop in different ways with a number of elements, a number of expressions of church life. During 2015 we will see funding from the Church of Scotland Go For It fund tailing off, so we're looking at different grant-making bodies However, we don't want to get into the fundraising trap of trying to find the money to simply exist. Our longer term aim is to be sustainable on a local level, and progress towards this has thus far been very encouraging.

The Church of Scotland has been very, very helpful and we still have a close relationship both with the local church, the regional Presbytery, and the team at Go For It. For instance, I recently gave a presentation about Gateways to the local Presbytery which was attended by John Chalmers, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and we're hoping that Gateways will continue to have a close relationship with the Church of Scotland.

Gateways has become constituted as its own church through OSCR (Office of Scottish Charity Regulator) and the key to what we do is serving and developing and growing our different gatherings of people. Gateways started as a 'bolt-on' ministry to the local parish church but, as things moved on, we believed it important to take a step forward as a church in our own right. The Rural Ministries organisation, which also gives us some funding, helped us with the basic framework of a constitution and we then drew on The Church of Scotland statement of belief before taking it to the Scottish charity regulator.

There is no formal link to the Church of Scotland in terms of constitution but four of our five trustees are elders of the local parish church!

We like to run with ideas that we can get people to facilitate. so our young people, for example, suggested that we get involved in Comic Relief. We started by asking the question, 'Would Jesus wear a red nose?' That prompted great discussions and the young people then went on to organise and run coffee morning for Comic Relief. Looking back at the very different areas of Christian ministry I've known, Gateways is the smallest, most fledgling thing I've been involved in, but probably the most exciting!

In our small, rural parish we very much see Gateways as being the local church with two congregations. My wife and I also worship in traditional, inherited church – not only because we believe that's the right thing to do, but also because it reflects a genuine sense of mixed economy in our ministry.

Our monthly Gateways Gatherings take place at 3.30pm on a Sunday afternoon and is aimed at families with young children, food is always a really important element, we always eat together, read Scripture, pray, worship, and have some sort of craft activity linked to the theme. The Gatherings alternate between Hutton and Paxton village halls.

Gateways Fellowship is an opportunity to further the discipleship journey. It began in January 2015 at Paxton village hall and it takes place monthly, at 11.15am on Sunday. Although still focussed around the family, the Fellowship is aimed less at younger children. In terms of style, it's like café church but instead of serving lattes and flat whites, we serve steak sandwiches! The format includes more teaching, questioning and small group discussions.

I'm excited to see that the people coming along to Gateways Gatherings are predominately unchurched, I'd say around 60%. The remainder are de-churched or those fed up with the way church has been, as well as those who are genuinely embracing mixed economy and are also involved in other church contexts. So far, with the Fellowship, I'd say it's attracting more of the de-churched because it's the most 'church-like' thing that we do. Not everybody that goes to the Gathering would go to the Fellowship.

We also have a fortnightly Discipleship Group in people's homes. We have developed a core team from a discipleship group of 10-12 people; all of whom help to share the load and widen the vision. If everyone comes to the Discipleship Group, we have about 15 people in total and around 6 of them would say that for them the Tuesday Discipleship group is their church.

Developing indigenous leadership takes time but, as we continue in the fifth year of Gateways, we have got to get beyond the stage of, 'If Ali and Ruth don't do it, it won't happen'. Our core team are fantastic, but we haven't made a big thing of who they are and we haven't used a Sunday gathering to introduce them to everyone else; we've deliberately kept it all very low key. I believe that's the right policy because, as has been said to me, 'In many other churches we wouldn't be allowed to give the hymn books out, never mind be on the leadership team!'

We are regularly forced to reflect theologically, dynamically, on what's happening here. People ask us what Gateways will look like in future. I don't know but we've got to the point of knowing what we wouldn't want to look like! The aim is to be fleet footed and be flexible enough to go in different directions, according to where the Holy Spirit guides us – and all of this is to happen under our three values of hope, creativity and inclusivity.

Word is spreading about Gateways, and I am increasingly being asked to lead infant dedication services and wedding ceremonies. That, in a way, I see as a real sign that we are becoming the church in the village.

I'm not an ordained Church of Scotland minister, but I worked with Bill Landale, as the local minister to do an infant baptism recently; we both just commit to making it work. When there was a baptism in the River Tweed, we both went out and took a shoulder each – again we were committed to working together for the kingdom!

There are always challenges and ours centre on developing local leadership and our long term financial sustainability. I'm only contracted part-time to lead Gateways and on occasion it all seems too much, but God has blessed us, and brought the Core Team together; all of this is nothing to do with our own abilities or strengths, it's all to do with him. I try to keep that in the front of my mind whether sowing seeds of faith or grain.

The Well

An ex-mining village in Dunfermline lies at the heart of a developing fresh expression of church. Aileen Christie reports.

It takes a long time to build trust and relationship and we have certainly found that at Wellwood. It's a village of about 750 people and it's a place that's quite isolated in the northern part of Dunfermline.

Wellwood used to be a mining village but the industry's decline brought difficult times for what is a close-knit community.

In 2004, Wellwood was brought into the parish of Gillespie Memorial Church, part of the Church of Scotland. We were doing Purpose Driven Church and, at one point, we all held hands before being told to turn around and look outwards. Some of us felt it was no coincidence that Wellwood came into our parish at that very stage in the life of Gillespie.

The congregation embraced the idea of reaching out to the village but it didn't go too smoothly at first; we tried to deliver Easter eggs but this was met with suspicion by villagers who had been let down by churches in the past. Thankfully, that seems almost unbelievable now – and it's all down to the community relationships we have built up since then.

Jesus in the Park,or J in the Park, was our next step. That's when we took a large tent to the local park in the summer of 2006 and offered a week-long programme of activities, including drama, games, crafts and worship. We did that for five years and we did see some people coming to faith, that was all well and good but it was then a major step for them to walk into a traditional church setting.

We started off with the whole congregation involved and now there is a relatively small number of people concerned with it, I guess it's slightly unusual because it has taken the opposite track to many fresh expressions in that we began with a very large group that has now become smaller in number – but the good thing is that the smaller group is one that's more focused on its intention to be church in the community.

In those early days, ten years ago, we weren't looking to create a fresh expression of church; all we wanted to do was to engage the people of Wellwood to come to our church. In the first year, some of the kids came along and we built up some good relationships. After that, we did have people coming down to church and it was a complete disaster; that's when we realised that church as we knew it was just not going to meet the needs of people with no experience of church.

From then on our aim was not to get them to come to our church but to find out what would be 'church' at Wellwood – and that's still the journey we're on today. We are still not there in exploring discipleship but we can see that that will come in God's time.

We started to put our energies into getting to know the residents and developing friendships with them. We had a Scripture Union group at Wellwood Primary School and that meant we were seeing the people every week; it just built relationships but it really does take such a long time, we couldn't believe how many years it takes to get to that stage.

Again, we still had no idea of setting up a fresh expression of church but then I did the mission shaped ministry course in Edinburgh and things developed from there. We'd come to the natural end of Jesus in the Park at the point when I was doing msm and I felt it right that we should have a permanent presence in the village, a place for the community which might also become home to a fresh expression.

There wasn't a community facility at all at Wellwood. There was a small food store and what was an empty unit next to it which people remembered as a post office and later a beauty salon. It's a fairly small space and had lain empty all the time we had been in the village. If we were going to set up a permanent presence in the village, that was the only place to do it.

Initially we were completely funded by the church but after Jesus in the Park finished, the funding wasn't as available so we were looking for external funding. Thankfully, we have a great relationship with the Fife Council in the Dunfermline area and they were very amenable to partnering with us in Wellwood. We also applied to various trusts and the Go For It fund of the Church of Scotland. Although not significant sums of money, this helped us to tell our story in various circles of assistance. Go For It has been such a huge source of support and encouragement along the way and we are very grateful for that.

We knew that we had to make a move for the empty unit so, in the end, we just went into the neighbouring shop and asked the woman who owned both sets of premises, 'How do you feel about us taking on the next door unit, even though we can't afford to pay anything like what you are asking?' She said, 'That sounds like a great idea!' It should have been £650 a month but she gave it to us for the first year for £200 a month with an increase to £300 after that time.

The wonderful thing is that Gillespie Memorial Church did support us in that. They agreed that if we didn't manage to get funding, they would underwrite us when we took on the lease. That sort of support meant such a lot to us.

We can have small meetings in the unit, which has become a real hub for the local community and is known as The Well, but we are now hoping to move into the local primary school. That's when I think we can start developing working with adults coming in and having meetings and chats. At the moment the environment doesn't allow for that. It's really reaching the end of its lifespan for us but it was the ideal location at the time.

We're into our fourth year and the unit is used regularly by the community. We have a lively youth group on a Monday night and hope to revive a drop-in on Thursday lunchtimes for secondary school pupils.

People in the village give us far more credit than we feel is due to us for making things happen but the truth is that they have found the confidence to develop as a community; we have been happy to support them in that. A major turning point was the planning of a Gala in the village. In mining communities, the Gala was a big event on the calendar but there hadn't been a Gala at Wellwood for about 20 years.

Then it was decided that it would be great to have a Gala again and The Well became the meeting place for the Gala committee. We were able to facilitate that and we helped with applications to the council, and so on, but we weren't even officially on the committee; we simply went along to the meetings.

It was fantastic to see people gain in confidence and actually take control but even until the very last minute we didn't know how the wider community would react to the Gala. We went to the top of the village where the parade was going to start, there weren't many people around… and then, with 10 minutes to go, all the doors opened and the people came out as the band came marching down the road. It was so significant for everyone in the village. That then was the turning point because the attitude changed from complaining about the council to thinking about what they could achieve themselves.

By the second year, it strengthened our relationship with the community and the rest of the people. Now we're looking forward to the fourth Gala on the last Saturday in July.

It has been a real highlight to see how that has developed but there have also been some terrible low points. Wellwood's primary school closed in October 2014 as part of a package of school closures across the area; we walked alongside the parents to build a case for the school to remain open but, in the end, the decision went against them. It was a devastating blow.

The children now have to go out of the village to school. They have settled all right but I think it's more about the impact on the community not to have a school at the heart of it any more.

But there's now a possibility of using the redundant school premises, getting it at a token rent for use by the community. We really hope the residents get the chance to do that, particularly as they are saying to us, 'The church needs to be there, we couldn't do it without you'.

We have to get the paperwork done by April. We never know where we are going next on this journey but we would hope and pray to be established in the old school buildings in the summer.

The school closure was awful, though working closely with the parents has been such a blessing. If the school was made available, it would give us the space to do a lot more, particularly with the kids, and it would also give us so much more scope in the range of things on offer.

There are three of us on the team at the moment. I work with Shirley and Linda (our respective husbands also lend a hand!) We are all lay people. We also have those who support us in the church – mainly in prayer but they are also there if we need help at all. As I've mentioned, there was a massive buy-in from Gillespie Memorial Church at the start and there is still a lot of goodwill but, in practical terms, it's just us.

All three of us are 50 and we are in this journey for the long haul. We all do what we can do and then we wait and see what happens. We do work very closely with the people on the Gala committee, about four or five of them, and I think we are at a tipping point in terms of members of the local community stepping up to take responsibility. I think we are on the verge of seeing people say, is there a role for me?

We are all partners working in Wellwood together. The adults now know there is no 'side' to us; it would never have worked if we did. We say, 'we are here to help you', because it's all about working alongside people so that they are finding out for themselves.

How many people are coming to our church? That's not what we are about. We have seen change in the community and have built up trusting, open relationships which leave the way open for deeper conversations to arise naturally. All the children in the village had contact with J in the park and the SU group and now have a grounding in the Bible stories and, we hope, an understanding of who Jesus is.

We've encountered some ministers in the wider church who do not have much understanding about what we are trying to do and don't seem to be 'buying' it. But that's OK, we just try and remain faithful to what God wants us to do with the people in this area; we leave everything else up to him.

The Way

Matthew Firth and Andy Dykes tell how a dual ministry in Cumbria is affecting the lives of growing numbers of young adults.

Matthew Firth: I am chaplain to the University of Cumbria and minister of The Way church for young adults aged 18 to 30. I work full-time in this dual role, half with the university and half with the Diocese of Carlisle. They had worked together to form the job description identifying these two distinct parts of my ministry and – as a far as I'm aware – it is a unique appointment in the way it is framed.

My role with the University involves the pastoral care of students and staff; I also oversee chapel worship and provide opportunities for people to explore the Christian faith. The diocesan job focuses on the planting and growing of this new church in Carlisle with the aim of reaching out to people in what’s known as the missing generation, the 18-30s.

I'm now coming up to two years in the role. The first year was a learning curve of finding out how the University works, getting to know what had previously taken place through the chaplaincy and looking at how things might develop – and also appointing an intern. Andy took on that internship in September 2013 and a lot of the work has taken off since then, including that of our fresh expression, called The Way. That had started to take shape about a year ago and we are still in the very early stages but there are now signs of things moving forward.

Within the field of university chaplaincy, I find that some chaplains want to reach out evangelistically but a lot don't – some because they feel a bit hampered, maybe because of a strong secular atmosphere in their universities, but others because they feel that chaplaincy is, first and foremost, about pastoral care.

It's up to individual chaplains to say that, for them, it's also about personal evangelism. For me, it was a different situation because my role was set up with a clear evangelistic aspect – it's something that I not only believe in but it was also written into my contract of employment within the dual role.

There are two very distinct roles but one person was appointed for both and it was made clear right from the start that I would be looking at ways in which we can do chaplaincy in a pioneering way.

Looking ahead, we're very much hoping that Andy's role will be able to transition into a role for a Young Adults Missioner when the internship comes to an end.

We're so grateful for all that we've seen God doing here so far, especially with the Student Dinners project. Originally started by a local YWAM team, I got involved when they decided to pass on that mission work to us as a chaplaincy team. The dinners, where food is available for £1, attract about 50-60 students each week.

Very early on out of that we did a Student Alpha Course that attracted a little group of students who said, 'What are we doing next?' They started to meet at my house and now we have The Way on Wednesday, after the dinners, so that people can get together and have the chance to learn and discuss together.

There's now a whole network of friendship and relationship where we can share life with young adults and have lots of one-to-one meet ups. I can't report major conversions but we have seen signs of God moving in people’s lives and what we have experienced is a sense in which there is a lot of digging of the ground and getting people on the journey and on the road to discipleship.

From September, we're also planning to get together on Sunday evenings to learn and worship as a church.

Andy Dykes: I was previously working for a church in Montreal but I had been thinking that church planting was what I was called to. The opportunity in Carlisle to do work with something in its infancy was appealing. I really liked the thought of being involved right at the start of its formation. There are lots of opportunities to get stuck in and see how things progress and lots of opportunities too to be creative.

We have got some kind of solid base of students but now we're looking at the whole issue of sustainability and how this work expands to include non-students. So far our involvement with non-students has been almost coincidental. I have been trying to get to know these young adults and develop something but of course I’m employed by the University so there's a balance to be had there.

I'm trying to raise funding at the moment so that I can stay on in a new role where I can be be more intentional with non-students. I guess the plan would be to piggy back more and more on a base of student work because I feel like there is a bit of community there.

As we've been thinking about how to reach out more widely, we also have to not lose sight of our student base. It's a bit of a balancing act. A significant thing is to continue to build contact with first year students coming in because otherwise, if we neglect that, we would be on the back foot and trying to play catch-up all the time. It's vital to establish relationships with new people but keep on looking to develop and deepen those already there.

We've been looking at the possibility of getting some kind of city centre venue, maybe a café, to give us a bit of stability outside the university. Financially, and in terms of turnover of people, it may offer wider scope as we develop the work.

Matthew Firth: One of the real challengesis to know how to take these 18-30s from not having any relationship with Jesus or the church to being convinced by the gospel and saying, 'Yes, I'm a Christian'. The Student Dinners have worked really well, and they're still at the core of what we do, but we now need to see the next stage with increasing numbers of people translating their experience into an ongoing relationship with Jesus.

There's a real mixture of people in our community. Some come from church families and know the 'language' to it all; others have very little understanding and background, with only a basic knowledge about some of the stories in the Bible.

A big challenge is to walk the tightrope that this dual role creates in that we are doing this in collaboration with the chaplaincy of the University of Cumbria. It's a Church of England foundation university but, like most public institutions, a secular approach has to be wisely worked with and navigated. We also have to be aware that a specifically evangelistic element is a new thing within the chaplaincy, so questions about that have to be creatively navigated too.

Another challenge is how this sort of ministry is perceived by the wider church. As with all fresh expressions work, you tend to get a dynamic where other local churches and ministers may not recognise what you are doing as church. I think it's important to keep remembering that the church is not the kingdom; it's the vehicle of the kingdom.

What I also have to keep in mind is that half of my role is paid for by Carlisle Deanery through the giving of local church members. I make sure that I offer plenty of opportunity for others to explore, and see what I'm doing in trying to pastor and reach out and share the gospel with 18-30s.

Life Church

Susan Sadler, lead evangelist with Christians Against Poverty and leader of Life Church, Newton Aycliffe, tells how the community grew from 10 to 100 in just over a year.

I have to be totally honest, this is something none of us expected; but we know that God has given us something very special because nearly all of the people who come through our doors have not been church attenders before.

Amazingly, it's only about 18 months ago since a group of us from a small house church started to reach out into the community a little bit more. With very limited resources, we set up a charity called Lifeline Community Action in order to develop some work within a five mile radius of Newton Aycliffe in County Durham, where we're based.

Lifeline Community Action was the catalyst for a 'Helping Hands Project' for which people would be referred through various agencies and organisations. Some of the people we were coming into contact with wanted to know more about why we were doing these things and what this Christian faith was all about, so we started to meet together on Thursday evenings in someone's home to explore that in more depth.

We are part of the Acts 435 initiative which helps people and churches to give money directly to those most in need. I noticed that, as I was going out and about delivering goods and care parcels, people kept talking more about the Thursday night gathering than the help they'd received! At that time, hardly anyone described what was happening on Thursdays as 'church' but it had definitely become an accepted gathering place.

Just over a year ago, our Bible study gatherings got too big for a living room. We realised that we'd have to find another venue because this is an area which suffers economically so we knew that the housing stock would be too small to accommodate the people wanting to come along.

In the end we decided to step out in faith and rent somewhere. I emailed three places and the room we found, in a local centre, could take 25 people. We thought that was fine but, a few weeks later, we had outgrown it with 32 people. Then the opportunity came up to go to Greenfield School where they had a room available in the week that had space for 50. Again, that sounded perfect but when we moved in, we took 49 people with us.

Soon after that we moved into the school hall because our membership now stands at about 100 and we'll generally have an average of 70 attending most weeks. I lead what is now known as Life Church and we have a couple of elders from the West Auckland Vineyard Church who come and help us.

Most of the people who come have never been part of a community like this or had any previous experience of church. Some, but not all, of them came to us through Christians Against Poverty (CAP). We had a CAP centre here for quite a few years so I've known many people in the area; it has been good to see some of them get involved in Life Church but I'd say that the majority of our regulars were not previously involved with CAP.

When people want to know more of the Christian faith but have never previously been involved in church life, it can be difficult for CAP centres to know how to respond. Many churches do a great job of discipling people – and often in significant numbers – but not everyone feels at home in a more traditional church setting. That's when something different may come into being, something that is appropriate for people in their particular Christian journey.

Life Church attracts a wide range of people, including some who are quite challenging in their lifestyle and behaviour. It's great to reach gang leaders and children expelled from school, of course, but it brings its own problems and I have been criticised for that. I've been told, 'You encourage these people, Susan' and my critics are quite right, I do encourage these people and I will always encourage them!

I have worked for CAP for twelve years and have seen people become Christians, go to church for a few weeks and then give up on it because – for one reason or another – they struggle to thrive in that environment. The vast majority of churches are welcoming and caring but some people can still feel overwhelmed by it all; I'm so grateful to God that Life Church has become a place where many have settled down to explore their faith. Thankfully, we keep seeing the fruits of that; in summer 2013 we baptised ten people.

If you just look at the growth in numbers, you can miss the fact that this is massively challenging work to be involved in – you really do need the heart to do it. Our outreach into the wider area is because we are committed to God, to each other and to the community. That's the pecking order.

We are also very fortunate in that the local churches have been very supportive of us, including St Clare's Church of England parish church, Great Aycliffe, and West Auckland Vineyard Church.

All churches want to disciple people in a way, and with resources, they can understand – and we're no different! Our attitude at Life Church is, 'you don't opt in, you opt out', so unless people definitely say that they don't want to be involved in something we assume that they will be. I say to everyone, 'we are all "in" unless you tell me otherwise'.

At CAP, our basic resources for discipleship are a Discovery Steps course and Discovery Breaks and I have been, and continue to be, involved in these resources as part of my work with Christians Against Poverty. The Lord very clearly gave me the vision for both of these and, basically, 'downloaded' the information to me some years ago!

Discovery Steps is an introduction to Christianity course which not only looks at such questions as 'What's life all about?' and 'Why should I read the Bible?' but also covers things like, 'What about my worries, my anger?'. Discovery Breaks came about when I asked CAP's UK chief executive Matt Barlow, 'Could we take some people away to help them find out more about themselves and about God?' That was ten years ago and we took 70 people away. There are now 14 Discovery Breaks up and down the country every year and probably about 1,000 people each year will benefit by being on one.

These breaks take place at different places up and down the country but a venue tends to be no more than two hours maximum from where they live. Generally they are full board. The programme is a holistic one; for at least one of the sessions they will hear a main gospel message and have a prayer time, but we also see it as a time of relaxation and fun, things like games and trips to theme parks and pampering sessions. Discovery Breaks can be life-changing but it's also important to do the regular things well at grass roots level when we're back on home territory.

What we make available at Life Church is very much like some aspects of what's on offer through the Discovery Breaks. If anyone new comes to the church for instance, we always offer to take them out for a meal. We've also had a 'getting to know you' event at the Rockliffe Hall and Wynyard Hall Country House Hotels in County Durham. Most of our people will never have had the chance to go to a luxury hotel but we want them to know how special they are and how precious they are individually.

Every single one of church members will get weekly texts or phone calls from us. If they couldn't get to church for one reason or another we'll send them a message to say we've missed them. We also have Spot Prizes where people can nominate others for a gift every week; if it's anybody's birthday we'll sing to them and if there happens to be a few birthdays we'll sing happy birthday to each one of them personally. We want to make the point that we are all, individually, important to God and to each other. This year, many of us are going to France together for a week's camping holiday. We are also taking about 70 people to the Jonas Centre in Leyburn, Wensleydale, for a retreat in August and recently we took the ladies of Life Church to a Christian conference.

It's no surprise that Life Church celebrates whenever someone turns to faith but some might question, 'Is this a real salvation because it's in a different sort of church?' The answer's 'Yes it is. To have people turn to Christ in any setting is a wonderful thing and we thank God for it.'

We don't have a church building of course so our costs, for the rooms that we hire, amount to £30 a week. Life Church doesn't have any paid staff yet; we take an offering and standing orders – and every penny that comes in goes back into the community.

Our format is flexible. We don't have a worship band so we sing along to worship songs on YouTube and always get people involved in whatever's happening; we don't want them to feel like spectators while someone else, usually me, leads everything from the front. It's much more like a sharing group. We also have a youth group and a children's group.

I am the main church leader at the moment. I'm not ordained and my job with CAP is a national one so, if I go on tour, I try to make sure it's from Saturday to Wednesday so I can be back in time for church on Thursday. Thankfully I have support at Life Church from a core team and then we also have four trustees for the Lifeline Community Action charity. I do have a few people who help me, a former teacher who has now retired and the elders from West Auckland Vineyard Church. We do leadership training at Life Church and we are praying that people will come through from the community but I also know there are a lot of people who have a pastor's heart but couldn't lead Life Church with its challenges.

I think of it as having a lot of little fish in a holding pen. Some, in time, may decide to leave that pen and go and join another church, and that's fine, but there are an awful lot of people who won't. We continue to pray that our church community will help people on their journey towards Jesus and that they will be drawn into closer relationship with Him.

The Studio

As a fresh expression of church in The Congregational Federation, The Studio is still finding its feet. Its Missioner, David Richards, explains how it came about.

Heaton Park Congregational Church in Prestwich, Manchester, was built in 1881 but it closed down five years ago because the Grade II listed building had fallen into a serious state of disrepair.

The elderly congregation found it increasingly difficult to use the site and there was a big question mark over the future of this particular church. They decided to sell it to a developer and the church was converted into 23 apartments and penthouses. A new, modern worship area was also built next to the old church as part of the scheme and this is now used as The Studio community space.

When The Studio first came into the ownership of The Congregational Federation, General Secretary Michael Heaney explored how best it could be used. At that time I had just finished a pastorate in Rhiwderin, South Wales, and Michael told me about this space in Manchester. We met and the whole thing just snowballed!

I was a photographer's assistant at a studio in Cardiff and we were very much part of what was going on in our area so this was a big move for us because we didn't know much about Manchester at all. We did quite a lot of preparation before we came, researching the area and the feel of the community. We also came up to see the building a few times and thought in detail about how it might best be used – though we could see the concept of it being an art space straight away.

We drew up a comprehensive report along those lines and presented it to the Council of the Federation. They were very supportive and the Federation paid for a nearby manse as rented accommodation for me and my family. The three years of initial funding take us to end of next year and we've now been given a further three years after that.

In our first year here, we had a general concept of it being a studio space so we did lots of things just to see what happened. It was a frustrating time because it was a very slow start.

At the start of the second year we connected with a woman who was very much a person of peace to us. She had an artist friend called Micah Purnell who had an exhibition at The Studio which attracted a bit of media attention and it kick-started a lot of other activity. Since then, there have been several exhibitions and we have got at least five in the diary for next year. It did take us a while to find that niche but once we started to get the contacts, it snowballed.

That all continues to go really well, both with Christian and secular artists, and – in other developments – we have also made some strong connections with local community groups. We are starting to break ground locally and in the wider North West area where we are making some key faith connections with various projects. For the next stage, we need a few others to partner with us in prayer and resources. We need to build a group that can take it on, strengthening each part of it because there's a lot of potential here.

Our Sunday Gathering meets every week at 3.30pm as there are quite a lot of other churches in the area and we didn't want to set up yet another 10am service! It's very informal, café-style and we generally end up with a group discussion based on a biblical theme and look at how it applies to our day-to-day lives.

At the moment it's still a relatively small group. We have had our ups and downs with it but we are holding it very lightly because we would very much like a new church community to generate itself through what happens at The Studio. The Sunday Gathering is more a place of support for us as a team coming from various church backgrounds than a place where new people would ultimately end up. We are trying to see it as a bit of an experimental ground for ourselves but it would be marvellous to eventually have two emerging faith communities running simultaneously.

The Sunday Gathering group includes people from The Congregational Federation's national youth and children's office, based in our building. They have three main employees and an intern and they were all 'transplanted' into the area when the office moved to Manchester. Their presence not only makes the building much more sustainable in its usage but they have also been a great support to us.

What we wanted to do is to have another church community that could quite easily emerge from people who express an interest in it. The Sunday Gathering is an opportunity but it isn't 'be all and end all'. As we start to put our heads above the parapet and say to people, 'We would like to explore with you,' then that would give us the beginnings of an emerging congregation. As a pastor that's what you want, that's the position you want to come to and it's very easy to become impatient but I need to keep on reminding myself that God is on the case.

One of the things we are trying to look at is how best to have spiritual interaction when the exhibitions are on. At the moment we give people a postcard to write down their own opinions and thoughts but we are currently trying to figure out how to do that in a more effective way than at present.

In terms of accountability, we have a management group in Nottingham and I go over and meet with them. I also have a direct line manager and I see her quite regularly in order to pray and talk through where to go next. Until now, lots of the strategic thinking has been coming from me. This has involved bringing forward an idea, working through it, getting a feeling for it and looking at partners who will join and the relationships that will bring. What has become clear in recent times is that we need to have more people involved in local planning because the management group are not in the city. They can take it so far and then we really need to get people on the ground to act as another group to take it forward from there.

The Studio has already attracted attention from people wanting to start similar projects elsewhere. A Manchester-based charity, called The Mustard Tree, has launched an art course for homeless people and they are going to be doing an exhibition with us as well.

This is all really good news but we have got quite a few things that are on hold because of the challenges of resourcing them. I'm 'officially' part-time and involved for about 18.75 hours a week but, of course, it tends to be longer than that though I try to be as disciplined as I can. I know I'm very fortunate in pioneering terms as a far as funding is concerned, I'm very privileged. However, I still rely a lot on my part-time wage; I'm doing additional bits and pieces but it's not sustainable particularly when know that, for many organisations, the fifth year of a project is seen as the 'make or break' crunch year.

Our programme is quite varied and all of our projects look for new ways to engage with people about our connections with God. They include:

Doodle: an art and craft group for toddlers and their carers every Wednesday from 10.30am to 1pm during term-time;

PAUSE: encourages busy people to take a few moments to stop and reflect on life. The technique used is loosely based on an Ignation meditation exercise;

varied exhibitions;

Gotosofa: A community that meets once a month at a cinema as an opportunity to discuss life and meaning through the medium of film.

Our Sundays currently look like this:

Gathering Around A Screen (1^st Sunday of the month). Short video, small group discussions and a video;

Messy Gathering (2^nd Sunday of the month) Fun family time with art and craft activities leading into a time of short reflection;

Prayers and Praise Gathering (3^rd Sunday of the month). An inspiring time of music, art and creative prayer;

Gathering at the Table (4^th Sunday of the month) Share a meal together, including Communion;

Gathering with a Guest (5^th Sunday of the month).

It would be great to hear people say, 'We see the value in what you have established and we would love to come on board and help'. That might come from other Christians in a local fresh expression of church or a totally different source. Time will tell.

Kahaila

Baptist minister Paul Unsworth established a commercial coffee shop, which is also home to a church community, in London's Brick Lane. Kahaila opened in June 2012 and there are now plans for another.

When I began the initiative to set up a coffee shop, with the intention of planting a congregation among the many young adults in the area of Brick Lane, I had no idea how things would develop.

I'd always had a heart for those in their 20s and 30s. I was youth pastor at a church in Hackney for eight years and Youth Coordinator for New Wine (London South-East), but it really came home to me that I wanted to do something more when I came down to Brick Lane one Sunday morning and saw thousands of people visiting the market. I saw tarot card reading, I saw people of other faiths trying to reach out to the crowds but the Christians were all in church. I knew we had to do to be right at the heart of these crowds.

I could never have imagined what has happened since then and I am in awe of all that God has been doing since the café got off the ground. We have had a very good response from local people and businesses and we are generating four times as much business than we originally anticipated! That is particularly good because we are a charity, so any profit that is made goes into supporting local community projects and other causes.

In order to set up a café in Brick Lane, we needed to raise a lot of money which I knew would require a great deal more of my time. As a result, I left the church I was working in and approached the Baptist Union's Home Mission for financial help in setting up Kahaila. They knew it was a high risk project requiring a lot of investment, they also knew there was a lot of uncertainty as to whether it would succeed or not.

In the build-up to all of that, we just prayed that if it was what God wanted, then He would provide for us. Within the first six weeks of me first trying to find the money for this project, we managed to raise £60,000. We also had a significant loan but were able to pay that back within 18 months. The start-up costs were very high, in the end we raised over £100,000 but this was because the property required a lot of renovation and because it is Brick Lane – incredibly close to the city and a very popular area.

Home Mission awarded us a grant in 2011 and others believed in it too, with friends in the Anglican church and many individuals giving cash backing. Kahaila opened its doors to the public in June last year and things have gone so well that the trustees of the project agreed they would not need any Home Mission Support after the end of 2012.

Our goals were:

To build a community that brings life in all its fullness through enabling people to know Jesus Christ.

To reach out to young adults in their 20s and 30s, the declining generation in church.

To reach out to the estimated 20,000 people who visit the area every Sunday.

To run a successful business where profits are reinvested for the purpose of mission.

Our biggest challenge after the fundraising was trying to get a property on Brick Lane. It took about a year and a half and we secured the lease in April last year. Again, we had to invest a lot of money into it; gutting the place, rebuilding the back section of the roof and removing over 20cms of concrete from the floor – but God provided the key people with the key skills so there was a real sense of God's provision throughout.

It took a huge amount of faith on many people's part to get this off the ground – to get the money and to get the building. Then, once it had been transformed into a café, the challenge was, 'How can we make sure it makes money? It's a business and, if the business fails, the mission fails'. So we needed to really invest in the business to begin with.

Since then, people have been blogging about us and complimenting us on how they love Kahaila for its coffee, food, customer service and general atmosphere. We have also had the additional comment, 'O, and these guys are Christians'. I like that because we're being seen as people who are looking to serve rather than control. Other businesses have taken note of what we've been doing as well; we're now seeing many more shops putting cakes in their windows! One of our aims from the beginning was to become one of the best coffee shops in London. I am not saying we have achieved that as yet but we are making good progress. It's all the more special because the very first Baptist church in the UK was planted in Spitalfields in 1612 and exactly 400 years later we planted Kahaila in exactly the same area.

Why the name? We wanted something that created a bit of curiosity and the two words we kept coming back to were 'Life' and 'Community'. In order to come up with a more unique name we looked for these words in different languages, Hebrew being one of them. The Hebrew word 'Kahila' means community and the Hebrew word 'Chaim' – sometimes spelt 'hai' – means living and is associated to the word 'life'; so we took 'hai ' and placed it in the middle of 'Kahila'. This gave us the word 'Kahaila' pronounced Ka-hi-la.This really represents what we believe we are called to do, to bring life to the very centre of the community.

At this stage in the life of Kahaila, we are constantly experimenting as to how we build community and relationship through intellectual, creative and social events. A monthly 'bring and share' supper club involves us inviting regular customers to come and have a meal together. The regular programme of activities includes things like origami, a book club and live music and poetry. Much of it develops because someone enjoys doing a particular art or craft, for example, and they ask if they could do it in the café. We just say, 'Do it and see what happens'.

We have church every Wednesday night where we try different styles of worship and allow time for discussion after the teaching. Diversity in the worship is important because we don't want to be labelled as an evangelical church, a post-evangelical church, a charismatic church – or however people see us. We now have around 40 regular attenders, some of those that come regularly have either never gone to church before or have not been to church for a long time.

We are very much learning as we go along so some things have worked well; other things haven't worked at all. At one point we put out cards with discussion starter-type questions on them but when we got to our discussion time, everyone upped and walked out! We used to close the café on Wednesday nights and then open the place up again for church a short while later but that didn't feel right at all; now we stay open but tell everyone in the coffee shop, 'You are welcome to stay but, just to let you know that church will be happening here at 7.30'.

Kahaila is a 'crossing place' between Christians and non-Christians and, as a model, it demonstrates that the faith community (church) is at the centre of the café and all its activities. As a result, I feel like I have more significant conversations with people in one week than I had in one year working in a church building. What encourages me is that these conversations just happen by being available in the café. There have been so many examples of this, including a Muslim man from a neighbouring shop who came in and asked us to pray for him. So, in the middle of the café, we prayed God's blessing on him in the name of Jesus.

I always say that what we are doing here is exploring how we model a church that engages people; those people who see church as being a bit like a red telephone box – an amazing building that's part of our heritage. They'd never want it removed and they love to see it in the high street but they don't ever use it.

They look at church in the same way. They love the architecture, they love the fact that it's part of our British culture but it's not for them.

Another fantastic thing that we see happening is the effect on those working with us at Kahaila. We have a core team of about 20 and I believe that all of us are called to leadership in one form or another. Encouragement of young leaders is particularly important to me and we have seen many of them go much deeper in their discipleship; in their early 20s they are developing ministries to prostitutes in the area, to ex-offenders, to those in desperate need. My role involves looking at how I can release people into the calling that God has placed on them. They then go on to inspire others to do the same.

If I really empower and release them, I have to get out of the way – otherwise I cause a bottleneck in what God is doing in their lives. It's not that I, as a leader, don't get to live out my calling because the fullness of my calling involves creating a way forward for others.

Availability of Christians also plays a really important part in this. There is so much activity in churches which means that Christians, in many instances, are not available to meet non-Christians at all. On one Sunday a month we say to people, just go and be with your family and friends; be intentional about it. The café stays open but we give an opportunity for many of those involved to go elsewhere and they love that.

I don't see us as being 'radical' in any way I think we're just doing what Christians have always been called to do – which is to go. When the Spirit comes in power it sends us out. So we probably just need to get out of our churches a bit more and start meeting the people where they're at – rather than expecting them to come in to where we are.

As time goes on, the challenge will be that it's easy to try lots of different things when you're relatively small in number but when you get bigger, I think that becomes harder to hold. In a year's time we could be a church of 60-80 people so we'd then need a bigger space but if it means we move out of the café for church, then the danger is that we become a 'normal' church service somewhere.

The temptation is to pull back to what you know. Mission flows out of our Wednesday night gatherings; the aim is not to bring people to a service to be transformed but that significant discipleship can take place through relationship and community.

I do want to see big things for Kahaila but I think that would involve more of what we're doing already in different ways; we're looking at setting up a bakery so we'd then look at how we might do church in a bakery and at Kahaila. We want to plant out again because we believe Kahaila is having an effect; we have baptised people in the café and helped others on the road to faith.

Originally our aim was to reach those in their 20s and 30s but now many families come. How do we do Kahaila for adults and children? At the moment we are looking at the franchise model but remind ourselves that the vision is about reaching people for Christ; it's not about business.

The Ark at Crawcrook

The Ark @ Crawcrook is a church, café and soft play centre near Gateshead. Deacon Tracey Hume and Superintendent Paul Saunders explain the concept.

The Ark opened its doors this month and we aim to help children and adults to talk about God and learn more of Bible stories by providing a safe space in which to explore matters of faith. We look to serve the local communities of Crawcrook and surrounding villages – as well as the wider Gateshead area.

Rev Liz Kent and Deacon Tracey Hume are the ministers there and they work alongside our centre manager Janette Lea. As a venue which can be used for children's parties, and lots of other events, we rely heavily on volunteers and party hosts.

The Ark, a not-for-profit organisation, has been built on what was the site of the Robert Young Memorial Church in the village of Crawcrook. It is a fresh expression of church which aims to be a place where the community can meet, have fun, be supported and welcomed.

We are inspired by the words of Jesus in Luke 18:16, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these'.

There has already been a lot of interest in using these facilities. SNAP! (Special Needs Access Play) sessions are for children and adults with physical and/or learning disabilities, and developmental disorders such as autism. The play sessions, which are also for their siblings, are run outside of public opening times so that the children and adults can have exclusive use of the playframe and sensory room. We've made sure that all areas of the playframe are accessible via a mobile hoist.

The playframe has been tailor made for The Ark because we managed to secure the rights to using drawings by popular illustrator and author Mick Inkpen. He's well-known for books like Kipper the Dog and Wibbly Pig but he has also produced many books based on the stories that Jesus told.

We had the playframe designed with these Bible stories in mind and we chose about six images from each story. The idea is that we will take the children into the three-storey playframe and literally 'travel through' a Bible story with them because there will be illustrations in each part of the frame to highlight what we're talking about. There are quite a few commercial play centres in this area but nothing at all like this!

Our play centre and conservatory is open to the public from 9am-3pm, Monday to Friday, for pre-school age children and birthday parties can be booked each evening and Saturdays.

Our church centre manager, in a full-time role, oversees the day-to-day running of the centre and takes the bookings for it but is also very much part of the vision. Janette is like a mission partner because she has to work with our partner organisations as well as supervise two part-time café supervisors. Volunteers help us to run the café and keep a watch on the play centre.

We also have party hosts who are going to co-ordinate the events that we will have as a party venue. Most of these hosts are local people and a lot of them are not involved with traditional church at all. We see it as being about the community trying to help the community. That's why we hope to welcome one or two adults with learning difficulties to help in the café as problems in getting employment has come up as an important issue.

One day each week we will close to the public from 1.30pm to 3pm so that local schools for children with special needs and disabilities can come in and use the facilities. We are also looking at doing money management courses and have been approached by groups for ex-addicts who want to use the space; there's certainly a lot of potential and we will keep on listening to what the community is saying to us.

Of course we have to cover our costs as well but we are working with the council in an effort to access money to subsidise places for the disabled-only sessions. Our business plan shows that the birthday parties are what pay for the building and the café. The idea is that we cover costs so we can be as flexible as we can.

Our aim is that The Ark will be self-funding, covering its staffing and other costs, in order that it is sustainable in the long term. We are also still seeking some funding for the equipment we will need for some of the more specialised needs of people with learning and physical disabilities.

Play and Praise is just one of the ways in which we are looking to provide opportunities for people to explore faith. We were very aware that we didn't want to predict too far in advance what these opportunities need to 'look' like. There will be free sessions once a month but we are also planning to do café church. We are holding off at the moment because we just want to establish relationships in the first instance but it's pioneering ministry. It's important to listen to the questions that people are asking rather than answer things that people aren't asking in the first place! It's an open book at the minute.

There isn't an existing congregation alongside us in this; we've got a blank canvas, only God know how it will develop! Whatever shape it takes in future, it will be useful for the Circuit as well because they will also be able to explore how to do new things.

This isn't about setting up in competition with anything or anyone else; it's working with people the Circuit have already engaged with very closely so we do not end up trying to meet the same needs. Yes, there will be some overlap and there will be times when families are drawn to us rather than other churches in the area but we can't avoid that. It's simply providing other routes for people to ask questions.

We are a place of worship so we can still do weddings, baptisms and funerals. For some families who find their way into The Ark it may be the only time they come into a church building. If they are then looking for a baptism, for instance, it seems a sensible place to do it rather than going somewhere which seems very alien.

It's important for us to get to know what people's physical needs are as well as their spiritual needs. Interestingly, the developing of partnerships and community links has already succeeded in opening up the eyes of the local council to what the church is all about. As a result, we are now getting quite a reputation for community involvement.

We have learned that it's not about telling them why we are doing something; instead we simply do something because it's the right 'something' to do. They see the difference and recognise where our motivation is coming from. It's a lovely thing to be involved in; it's where God has called us to be.

No Holds Barred

Stuart Radcliffe is minister to two Methodist/URC churches in Cheshire. He tells how Heaton Moor United Church, Stockport, is linking with the local pub to develop community links.

It all started when we were thinking about how we could make a difference in our community to remind people that we love them – and God loves them.

In some communities, the way the church can work to meet people's needs is pretty obvious. It is very different where we are in Manchester. Yes there are high levels of deprivation in areas on either side of us but we are actually in lovely, green suburbia where – on the face of things – people are not too badly off at all. Whilst there are those who have the daily struggle to make ends meet, many set off to highly paid jobs in the morning and come home much later that day to their very desirable, four-bed detached homes.

But the thought kept coming to me that appearances were deceptive and that people had lots of problems behind their front doors. On the face of it, they are going out to work and getting a nice salary but they can pay a very high price for those demanding jobs with enormous stress levels. Our question was, 'How can we as a church recognise those stresses and make it clear that we care for the people living with those anxieties?'

At that point we were two churches, Heaton Moor Methodist Church and The Heatons United Reformed Church. We wanted to do something for people during Holy Week so we went out to where they were and gave out coffee and hot cross buns, to those on their way to the railway station. We also gave them a little booklet about Easter and a leaflet explaining why we were doing it. The URC building was about 50 yards away from the station and it was an easy way to break into the busyness of people's lives.

It also made quite an impact on the church members who took part because they understood that they too could start to 'do' evangelism simply by saying, 'Would you like a free coffee?' From that initial idea, working with the community where they are, much has happened and grown. It has been marvellous to share stories and build relationships.

Two years on and we had become one church, Heaton Moor United Church, but the same question remained as to how we might best reach out into our community. The answer came when a few of us including my colleague Rev Richard Parkes were in a local pub, The Plough, and we came up with the idea of having Beer and Carols. Pub landlord Ian was really supportive and so members of the church gathered in the pub and – in between rounds of Ian's festive quiz and fancy dress – we sang praise to God in carols. The result was that I had more conversations about faith than I'd had for months and we also raised £200 for Christian Aid.

What could we do next? Our thoughts turned again to Easter but we no longer had the building by the station for distributing coffees. However The Plough was in a perfect position. All we had to do was persuade Ian to open up at 6am, allow us to give away coffee and receive nothing in return!

Amazingly, Ian agreed and so from Monday to Thursday of Holy Week we met at the pub from very early morning and gave away coffee and hot cross buns and booklets about the Easter story. Social media also had a role to play and we let people know what we were doing via Twitter. I'd just started the church Twitter account and people picked up on three keywords that I used: Heaton Moor, Community, Caring.

That meant what we were doing was picked up by a lot of people doing things in our area about community or caring. At that time the messages were being tweeted to 3,500 people; they are now retweeted to about 7,000 people because we have hit the right networks – these included local radio which picked up on the momentum of church doing something good in the community.

I chatted to Ian about how we might continue to develop these growing links with community. The Plough already hosted a knitting group, Spanish lessons and the history society. I said, 'How about a monthly discussion meeting' and he said, 'what night do you want to do it on?! I want people to come in here and feel that they are sitting in their own lounge, the more we can offer them the better'.

That group is called No Holds Barred and it involves talking over a variety of issues with a Christian input but in a very informal way. We also put the discussion starter details on all the tables in the pub, not just the area we're sitting in, so that people can still consider some of the issues even if they don't join us.

It stands on its own as a specific community. In December the evening was called, 'I wish it could be Christmas every day? How do I cope with Christmas at a time of financial austerity?' Past meetings have seen us look at prayer through the story of footballer Fabrice Muamba who survived a heart attack and we have also discussed trust as a result of the Jimmy Savile investigations.

Some months there have been 10 to 12 people taking part and other times there have been four of us, we've just got to keep at it. We have also had other events, such as a curry and comedy night at the pub. I think we need to give it two years before we assess what happens next. If it's to continue to grow it will look very different than church as we know it today.

We have to think how we can be relevant in our service to people. Maybe they will then see a purpose and later a meaning as to why we do what we do. I have learned a lot from the pub landlord because we Christians need to recognise that the church doesn't have exclusivity in wanting to serve people. I know it's a matter of good business practice for Ian but he also wants to provide a place where the community can come together in different ways. I think sometimes people respect us more as churches in the area when we join in with what others are already doing, such as the local traders' association. We offered to do some carol singing for them and they were really pleased.

For the first two years of my time here, all I seemed to do was have cups of coffee with people. Now I know why. It's because you become friends with them and now, after almost six years, those relationships have started to pay off. The thing is you have to make yourself available. It does mean you can't go for a quiet drink in the local pub any more because people want to chat to you about different things but that's great! It just means you have to go outside the area if you want a quiet might out.

I'm always reluctant to put 'labels' on something like No Holds Barred because it's organic and I don't know where it's going to lead. If it leads us to a fresh expression meeting in the pub I'd be delighted and I'd love that to be the direction that it takes. What I'm starting to learn is that I get more out of it by letting it go where it wants to go but I have no intention of it being an 'outreach' to get people in to our standard church services. That's not its purpose; we have been quite clear with our church about that and they're very supportive of that.

If somebody said they wanted to get more involved in my traditional church community as a result of coming to No Holds Barred then that's fine but the group doesn't exist to be a gateway to 'proper' church. I would say, 'You are more than welcome to come but it's nothing like this.' We have to get away from any idea that we are creating things that will appeal to people in a postmodern way but what we are really asking them to do is to sign on the dotted line and be part of traditional church.

There are lots of questions around fresh expressions but I think financial support is going to become increasingly important. At the moment fresh expressions are predominantly being funded by the established church but there has to be a point where fresh expressions fund themselves in order to continue.

I'm on the FEAST (Fresh Expressions Area Strategy Team) for Greater Manchester and I went on the mission shaped ministry course locally. One of the key things I learned from that was that we have got permission to fail. That means we don't say, 'it didn't work' but instead ask, 'What's the next thing? Just keep at it.' It's also very important to keep open to stopping some things as well as starting them. I'm enjoying doing stuff our way but it's important to discover what will work for you.

Church @ Community

Nic Williams, leader of Church@Community, tells of its development in St Ann's, Nottingham. Launched in October 2010, it meets in a local primary school.

Before getting involved with Church@Community, I had been part of a local Methodist church where we were completely reviewing our practices. From that review in 2007 we realised that we were doing loads of work inside the building and lots of people were doing good work in the community as individuals but the two things didn’t really marry up at all.

We worked on a plan and a vision as how to improve that because the church building itself wasn't situated particularly well as a community venue. One of the most deprived estates in the country was on the doorstep, at one point St Ann's was branded the gun capital of Britain, and yet there wasn't a Methodist presence at all. However, I had a good knowledge of the area because of my job as Director of Business and Community at a school there.

Unfortunately, time went by and the church's vision and plan for the area was put to one side. A group of about 12 of us spent a summer considering the way forward in prayer and, from that, we went to the (Nottingham East) Circuit to say we still believed the time was right to do something new for this area. The Circuit agreed and we spent some time refining the plan.

Seeing the needs of local families at first hand, I knew there was a real calling because a very limited amount of community work was going on. There were lots of faith organisations around but they were not necessarily engaging with the community. We knew that we didn't want our project to be about 'signing people up' to come to church; instead its focus was to be part of that community. We wanted to find out how we could be involved in, and support, what was already there.

At the same time there were other churches in Nottingham where God was calling people to move out and be part of the St Ann's community. It was a different vision but the same principles – God was putting all these things in place for us.

One of our key challenges stemmed from the fact that our leadership team had been part of an established leadership of a church but we hadn't got a 'sending' church to support us in what we were doing. We looked to our Superintendent and our Circuit and received their backing – not in financial terms but their support was crucial.

There were also issues around money and membership because we were still members of the original church but we weren't attending it. We realised that this was a faith exercise because other people in the Circuit were saying of the new venture, 'When will they start paying into the Methodist Church?'

In my daily work, I deal with some of the most challenging families in the city so it is very satisfying to see how Church @ Community has gone from being a church-based initiative – with the original team – to it actually reflecting the community. That turnaround has happened as a result of the people who have turned up; I know the background of many of those who are now part of what's happening – and God is clearly in it.

This is great but it can also be very hard work. Easter Sunday morning, for instance, was very challenging. A new family came along with four children, all of whom ran riot. But this is what we are here for, so that a family like that can come and feel they can be as they really are. It may be uncomfortable for the rest of us but that's the way it is when you really begin to deal with people outside the communities we're familiar with.

We meet in the main hall of the school where I work, Blue Bell Hill Primary School, on the second, fourth and fifth Sundays of the month. It all starts from about 10am to 12noon and it's very relaxed. Tea, coffee and cake are served all the time and everyone sits around tables. We have a live worship band which includes a singer, two guitarists and a five-year-old drummer on a full-sized kit!

I lead the worship and we sometimes have a local preacher or it's just led by the team. We usually have 15 minutes of singing which lead into a time where children (and adults) act out a Bible story all based around a theme. Then we have a ten minute break – a sort of 'interval' – and we always have a craft activity to create something to take home. The following week we always ask, 'What have you done with what you made? Have you used it for prayer? If so, how?'

It's not everyone's cup of tea but we range between 50 and 70 in number and at Christmas we reached 95. Our oldest member is 90. We get a community grant so are classified as a community organisation and this can bring about a different attitude to what we do. In our first year the Lord Mayor came to our civic carol service during his Christmas round of events. The community police officers, if they are on the beat that day, will also sit in the school hall with us during our time together, be part of it all and have their surgeries there. The hall is very big so people can just mingle at the back.

We're very clearly identifiable now as Church @ Community because we all wear blue polo shirts; the community call us the Blue Shirt Brigade! At first it was just the leaders wearing the shirts or badges; now I'd say nearly 70% of our regulars have got Church @ Community hoodies or polo shirts. When we started I suggested that every time there was any sort of local event we needed to be there. We spent a long time 'investing' in things and, as a result, the local councillors got to know who we were.

We have been greatly helped by Rob Cotton of the Bible Society who has worked alongside us to ask difficult questions along the way, such as, 'Where are the people at Church @ Community getting their spirituality?' I believe people are getting that spirituality from being part of a community, by being part of a group, because there is a lot of spirituality there. At some stage the time will be right for us to do the small group thing; it will come if people ask for it but we will not set up a group just for the sake of it. That is not going to happen.

There are 11 of us in the leadership team, all non-ministerial. Our support comes from the Superintendent, I meet with him every month for accountability and once a quarter we hold a team leadership meeting; we also have mini meetings.

We recently got to the point of asking, 'How is this going to go forward?' I told the whole church that the vision needs to be everybody's, I am happy to play my part but I can't do it all, I can only do so much. They needed to know that it now needs to be them taking it forward. We are encouraging everyone to contribute to it in some way and we have already seen a men's breakfast being started in a local pub and cake and coffee mornings.

Great things have happened at Church @ Community. We have had a baptism and one of the governors of the school has also asked for her child to be baptised – and will be bringing 80 people along to the occasion. Twice a quarter we have a communion service when the elements are blessed by a minister. Then people come up to collect the bread and wine and share it with their own table.

A key challenge at the moment is the financial implications of all of this. From day one the church has been totally funded by the leadership team but we don't have the finance to keep on bankrolling the church. Not having premises to uphold means we have got the freedom to do things differently; that's great but there are lots of other things to consider.

We have just had quite wide-ranging discussions with our Superintendent about this and agreed that we will explore the possibility of becoming a bona-fide, 'official', church in September. The fear is, 'Are we going to become the same as a traditional church?'

That's why we will go back to the Circuit to discuss things like, 'What will our financial commitment be as we have one of the biggest congregations in the Circuit? This is a fresh expression, how is the Circuit going to support this?' So far it is all looking positive and if God wants it to be this way, all will be well. It is a leap of faith. If people choose to become a member of the Methodist Church with us they can – but they don't have to.

If local preachers start to become involved, they need to be briefed really well. They won't be 'leading' full services as such; they will have a five minute slot to give a short sermon, working alongside the worship team to deliver the rest of the service. For a lot of people that's hard. We have to explain that it's important to be prepared to change everything at the last minute because flexibility is key here.

I think there is an understanding of fresh expressions within Church @ Community but I presently don't put the Methodist stamp on it. I know I'm Methodist but does it really matter? Me putting up a big sign is not going to make people in our community come to us. Methodism was originally all about going out and starting new things and that's what I see with Church@Community. It's also important to remain flexible in approach. We keep on asking what people in the community want, and we have changed as a result.

Does it really matter? We know as an organisation that we are Methodist, that's our background, but we don't need to shout about it. It is important for me to work alongside other denominations in the area.

If we stick to our values of being part of the community and not just keep focusing on Sunday services and work with other organisations, things will happen. Two things stand out for me:

Street Pastors in Nottingham City Centre were looking at where to expand their programme and we were one of the first organisations they came to;

Citizens UK have just come to Nottingham; they approached us to ask if I could go on their community team. That wouldn’t have happened for St Ann's if I wasn't there.

The danger is that people may think of us as just another branch of the social services rather than a church but we couldn’t be clearer about the roots of all we do. Even our Family Funday had a service as part of what was a Pentecost event, I was amazed so many people came to it but it's all part of God's plan.

The Welcome

After 15 years in the making, The Welcome has become the 'newest' church in Methodism. Its minister, Rev Ben Clowes tells how the project developed in the Alderley Edge and Knutsford Methodist Circuit.

Cheshire is known to be one of the richest and most exclusive areas of the country but it’s a place of extreme contrasts. Around Knutsford we have the Bentley Garage for Manchester, Premier League footballers in £2m homes, charity shops selling Prada and Gucci – and one of the most deprived wards in the Cheshire East.

In the past, the community at Over Ward, Longridge and Shaw Heath missed out on a lot of support and possible grant aid because many charities only look at postcodes when considering applications. As soon as they saw Knutsford, that was the end of it for them.

It is interesting because The Welcome very much started as one thing and became another. Reaching out to the community has always been important at Knutsford Methodist Church and across the Circuit generally but the story of The Welcome really got going when Sue Jackson arrived as the project's first deacon.

Initially she walked around the estate, talking to people, getting to know them, finding out what was needed. The call was for second hand clothing so Sue started to provide facilities – usually the boot of her car – for people to bring and buy clothes. Moving on from that, we then got a lease on what was originally a doctor’s surgery and that became a Christian place to sell clothing and serve coffee. At that time it was called the Over Ward Project (Longridge and Shaw Heath).

By the time our second deacon, Margaret Fleming, came along, the church began to develop. There had always been a Christian ethos of meeting people where they were but increasingly the people themselves began to ask why the church was doing this.

As the church grew, the community named the place. They were very clear they wanted it to be called The Welcome.

Cris Acher was appointed Presbyter and he was here for three years before he moved on to Nexus in Manchester. The church still continued to develop and took on a lay manager who started to make further inroads. In time, less clothing was being sold and more coffee was being served and we started to see the growth of an educational project.

The next stage began with the next Presbyter, Richard Byass, who saw the acquisition of the next door lease so we had a cafe space and sessional space for the community. Last year we had a big funding hole but realised that we were giving out such mixed messages when applying for funding, we were café, business, education – and church. We did get a couple of grants to keep us going but then we got to work with Manchester CiC (Community in Communities) and they set us off on a new way of doing things.

By that stage the church had been meeting for 8 to 10 yrs and the questions were starting to be asked by the community as to why we were not being officially recognised as a church. What was the problem? We should be recognised formally, etc.

It was suggested that the best thing to do was to separate the two elements of the centre – the business side of it and the church. A new not-for-profit company called The Welcome CIC (Community Interest Company) will run the now refurbished community centre and the café (probably as the trading arm of a charity) while The Welcome Church itself was formally recognised as the newest church in Methodism at a special dedication service in September.

It was a great month because we had already celebrated confirmation of two members. We have now got 16 members and the two most recent additions are dual members – one from Knutsford Methodist Church and the other is our new business manager who is an Anglican.

Rev Dr Keith Davis, chair of the Manchester and Stockport Methodist District, conducted the dedication service held jointly at The Welcome and a local community centre. It was interesting when we were putting the service together. The Welcome style is very hands-on and experiential and the worship is quite distinct but in the end it was actually a very traditional service because people said, 'just because we normally do it differently doesn't mean we can't do it the standard way. We are not fixed to one style like some churches are.'

So we started to look at liturgies and it seemed to be a contradiction in terms that we were about to celebrate this non-traditional church in a very traditional way but the community message was clear, 'How dare you assume we can't do it another way?!' As a result, Faith and Order now want copies of the liturgy. What we have done changes further develops Methodist ecclesiology!

The important thing is that this has come up from the community, this is the way they want to do church but they also want to be recognised. They are very much for the moment. At one stage they weren’t ready in any shape or form to become a church but things change – and we have to be ready to react to those changes. Other developments include a youth café and a Travellers' Bible Study (that’s a Bible study for those on a journey with God not a Bible study for travelling people…)

Another recent visitor was our local MP for Tatton, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. He said he was thrilled to see what we were doing, describing The Welcome as 'The Big Society in action.'

Last year was a difficult one in that we had to make our cook and community manager redundant but this is a new stage and we are looking to God for what happens next. The first time we met as a church there were about 25 of us and at the special service we had more than 100. We don't open the doors and expect the people to come in, we go where people are – I don't think anywhere on Longridge or Shaw Heath is as busy or well loved as The Welcome.

Our former kitchen supervisor now works alongside me in pastoral work and hers reflects the story of The Welcome. Five years ago at interview she said, 'I'm very happy to do the job so long as you know I don't do God.' She is now a preacher in training and our Senior Steward! The Welcome has been and continues to be a place where God is at work and where people meet with him daily. Our prayer is that, even now we are a 'fully fledged' church, and have even held our first 'Welcome-style' Church Council, we will continue to listen to God and to follow his lead as we have done for the last fifteen years.