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Sanctus on Saturday

St Mark's, Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent, is the home of Sanctus. Team Vicar Sally Smith tells how it has now developed the Sanctus on Saturday fresh expression of church.

Since its launch, Sanctus – a support group for refugees and asylum seekers – has provided hundreds of people with a listening ear, help with bureaucracy, a friendly face, emergency accommodation and assistance with food, clothing, translation services – and spiritual care.

There is a heavy demand for its services as Stoke-on-Trent is one of the government's 'dispersal cities' for newly arrived refugees.

Sanctus meets each Wednesday morning from 10.30am-12.30pm. Men, women and children are all welcome, though we do have a meeting room which is for women only, as for some women, a mixed environment can be a hindrance to their participation. There is also a creche for pre-school children.

The drop-in sessions are supported by a team of committed volunteers, staff from the local Children's Centre, Sexual Health Services, Mental Health Asylum Support Team and other voluntary organisations.

Transcript

Hassan Elvan, refugee from Gaza: Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. Never see peace. Thirty three years in Gaza, I saw too much blood in the streets.

Sally Smith, Team Vicar, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent: Stoke-on-Trent is a dispersal city for the Home Office which means that lots of people who are seeking asylum, once they've claimed asylum, get sent to Stoke-on-Trent because we've got a lot of cheap housing. What we were finding is that there were great needs in the community so we started to open the church door and basically welcome people in and several ministries have grown out of that; one of the most flourishing is Sanctus – which is our support group for refugees and asylum seekers.

Female voice 1: Ingushetia is a hot place. It's nice to live there, but if you have some political problems – like my husband did – it's difficult to live there and very dangerous. For that reason we left Ingushetia.

Sally: The people who have made it to Stoke-on-Trent, or to the UK, are people who had the resources actually to get here in the first place so they were people who were able to pay agents or traffickers. Probably the poorer people, the more working class people, haven't had the opportunity to do that.

Female voice 1: I worked for five years in the roads' department, like an accountant. My husband worked in a construction company.

Sally: And then when they get to Stoke-on-Trent they are finding that they are not able to have an outlet for their creativity, for their skills, for their talents, for their gifts.

Hassan: I don't like to stay at home and just sleep in and take benefits weekly. I doesn't like that system. I'd like to make new life, family. Very difficult with me, because refugee I am. Everything sometimes about my situation, difficult too much, for government not helping sometimes.

Sally: One of the things that we're trying to do is work with other agencies to provide opportunities for them to do that. And we are currently having conversations with the Chamber of Trade to see if we can provide volunteer placements in companies at the level at which people were used to working in their own country and in their own profession. We work with the local National Health Service nurses, with the Citizens' Advice Bureau, with the Children's Centres, family support teams and provide a holistic service – spiritually, practically, emotionally.

Hassan: And the church is making everybody very happy. The church is helping everybody. You're helping refugee, you're helping asylum seeker, you're helping about clothes, you’re helping children. Flashbacks make me too upset, make me nervous too much. I came in here four years ago. Different mental health, very difficult. I tried to kill myself 18 times, 18 times. I go into hospital, very dangerous time. I came in here, my life changed.

Sally: Since the new people have started to come into the church building during the week for our drop-ins, we're finding that many of those people are wanting to come and worship with us and some are coming on a Sunday morning so we're having a lot more baptisms, a lot more confirmations. And our recent confirmation services were looking very, very diverse, which was wonderful. It's been quite difficult for some people in the traditional congregation, I have to be honest, and a few people have left.

However, something new is emerging so that the fresh expression that we've started on Saturday – which is Sanctus on Saturday – we're getting lots of people from Iran and Iraq, Eritrea, all over the world, who may not necessarily turn up to church on a Sunday morning but are very keen to be involved in the life of the church. And working with Philip Swan, who's the Cross-Cultural Mission Enabler for our Deanery, we've been able to develop a fresh expression of church where many of the people who come on a Saturday afternoon to share worship, to share food, are hearing about Jesus for the first time. Our Bible reading, particularly, has to be quite interactive because many people don't speak English or English certainly isn't their first language. And the really interesting about that is that we get the people who are Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu – people from all sorts of faith traditions – who really want to be part of the Bible reading and to play out that part.

So, at the last Sanctus on Saturday, a lady was really keen to play Mary; we were talking about journeys and Jesus getting lost in the temple, Mary was actually a Muslim lady for our reading so that was really quite interesting and it feels quite messy around the edges because a lot of the people don't really fit into what we would think of as fully paid up, signed up Christians. But it's a great privilege to work with these people and to see what God's doing among them and now some Muslim people are wanting to come and help with the worship, help with teas, coffees, refreshments; help in the crèche.

When we're sharing with people from other faith traditions, one of the mistakes that we can quite easily make is thinking that it's about academic understanding so we've started to offer people the opportunity to receive the laying on of hands, prayer, and the wonderful thing about that is we've discovered that people from all sorts of religious backgrounds are really happy for us to lay hands on them and to pray for them in the name of Jesus. And then we'll talk about experiencing Jesus' peace and knowing that Jesus was there with them and, for me, it's not really about that we put someone through a test and 'can you say this' and 'do you believe that?' It's about 'come and meet Jesus, come and feel the difference that Jesus can make in your life, come and let Jesus touch you, come and kneel at our altar and let his Spirit come and wash over you and take away that fear and that anxiety and let Jesus give you his hope'. Not about what I can tell you is true or what I expect you to believe but 'come and experience the reality of the living Jesus, the living Lord'. And that's what's making the difference.

Hassan: Like that light, every time, like angel, like Jesus, like Mary, comes to visit me, make me stronger, pray before sleeping every day, make me too happy. I'm very, very happy if I'm talking like Holy Spirit is coming with me.

Sally: You know that we feel we're really at the beginning of something really quite exciting.

PPP Messy Church

Emma Major tells how she followed a fresh expressions 'journey' to develop People, Prayers and Potatoes (PPP) Messy Church.

People, Prayers and Potatoes at St Nicolas, Earley, does what it says on the tin – we bring people together once a month at midday for a Bible story, craft, activities, worship and prayer before sharing a jacket potato meal. Since we started four years ago, we've served up over 2,200 jacket potatoes!

I will tell how it developed through the fresh expressions' journey of Listening, Loving and Serving, Building Community, Exploring Discipleship, Church taking shape, Doing it again.

Listening

After completing my training to become a Licensed Lay Minister I spent a year in formation discerning what God wanted me to do at St Nicolas, Earley. Being a mum in the playground at the local primary school it became clear to me that there were many families searching for something 'God shaped'. I was forever being asked things like, 'What do you believe in?', 'Will you pray for me?' I encouraged them to come along to St Nicolas, and for their kids to join the thriving Sunday School, but the majority of the families had never come to church so this was a step too far.

Our standard 10am service at St Nicolas is quite formal so it's just not the right place to bring people into a church environment if they've never known it before. It really wasn't attracting the people who don't have a background in church.

Loving and Serving

Over several months of prayer and conversations with the unchurched families, the concept for People, Prayers and Potatoes evolved. Over the years I've found that God tends to speak to me in images and it was at this stage that I got an image in my mind of people sitting down and eating together, I then wrote what I thought that was all about in terms of exploring faith.

It sounds incredible but, within two weeks, I knew how it was going to work in practical terms and I'd chatted it all through with my vicar, Neil Warwick, who was really supportive. A friend offered to come and cook a jacket potato lunch for whoever was going to turn up and we'd see what happened.

With the help of a few keen teenagers, and two expert cooks, PPP was born as a place where families could come and meet God, many for the first time. Interestingly I only discovered Messy Church, and its resources, after about a year of us running PPP! So I did not have that model in my head and we are not exactly like a Messy Church because there is no set format each month but it gives a verbal shorthand for the type of thing we do.

PPP takes place on Sundays at mid-day. If children are involved in football on Sunday mornings, the matches have finished by then so it seems to be a good time. We don't try to make something that suits everybody because you can't but we keep it very simple with a talk, doing something with the kids, go into the church for some worship and prayer – and, of course, eat together.

Building Community

All we did was ask people we knew from the school and the community to come and join us. We told them that we didn't really know how it was going to look but that we'd have a God story in one way or another and that it would be a type of church. The line was, 'Come and try it. What have you got to lose? We'll feed you lunch!'

I thought no-one was going to come but People, Prayers and Potatoes, as a Messy Church, was popular right from the start and six families turned up for the first one. It was all very informal and unthreatening. Within three months, those initial families had brought friends who also kept coming; and families approaching St Nicolas for baptism came to PPP to explore faith as a family. Now, four years on, we regularly have 50-60 children – and their parents and carers – who worship together. We've got babes in arms, children at every primary school level and four teenagers who are part of the leadership team.

Exploring Discipleship

We have a jacket potatoes rota where the families volunteer to cook lunch for everyone else and we also have a craft team who come up with wonderful ideas every month. PPP is truly a community of families exploring and growing in their faith together. Two years ago I started the 'Mums and More' group to which a dozen mums from PPP belong; this is a group which explores prayer, the Bible and what it means to be a Christian. We also ran a nurture course which fed them further.

I am a person who likes to take the risks and start something new; I want to keep pioneering and you can't do that until you help what you have started to grow to be sustainable. In saying that, PPP is extremely cheap to run with the food costing about £30 and the craft materials no more than £10. It's also interesting that the families who come along now take it in turns to do the jacket potatoes; they say it's their gift to the community of PPP – others might donate some craft resources for use in our activities. That culture of giving is already there.

Church taking shape

We have never had a huge team but have grown a planning and leadership group of three from the families who call PPP their church. Over the last two years we have had three Messy Church adults' baptisms and we are thrilled that six of the PPP mums will be confirmed in a Messy Confirmation at the start of September 2015. People, Prayers and Potatoes is truly a church in its own right at St Nicolas, Earley.

Doing it again

I am now in the process of handing over the leadership of People, Prayers and Potatoes – partly in response to the fact that a decline in health means I need to step back from those particular responsibilities. That's OK with me because I never wanted to hold on to the reins too tightly. When you step out to do something, you should create space for others to flourish and I've already been fortunate to see that happen. The leadership team have run three PPP services to great acclaim alongside the clergy worship team. They are gaining confidence in planning the year ahead and it is a joy to see their faith grow as they lead others as they were led. I have no doubt that People, Prayers and Potatoes Messy Church is in extremely safe, motivated and enthusiastic hands!

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.

Mitcham Missional Community

Salvation Army officer Mark Scott tells of building community, and a Rule of Life, in the London borough of Merton.

My wife, Emma, and I were appointed to Raynes Park Community Church three-and-a-half years ago with a remit to start a missional community in Mitcham. The Salvation Army had conducted some research prior to us arriving because they were working predominantly on the west side of the borough of Merton and they wanted to work more coherently across the borough as a whole.

The borough, in the south-west of London, is very diverse from east to west and Mitcham borders Lambeth, Wandsworth and Croydon.

We live in an amazing part of Mitcham called Eastfields and have loved getting to know our neighbours and people who work in the community. Before we made the move, The Salvation Army hadn't been in this area for about 70 years but their support has been fantastic. The great blessing to us when we first arrived was being given the gift of a time of listening. It was amazing to hear stories and learn what it is like to live and work in Mitcham. We heard about the great depth of history that Mitcham holds; both the documented and that which has been passed on from generation to generation.

A fact that stayed with us was that the name Mitcham comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'Big Settlement' or 'Big Home'. A representative of the Jeremiah Project – a Churches Together in Mitcham initiative – shared this with us and it is not insignificant as they have been such an amazing support for us as a couple and now more significantly our church community.

Churches Together in Mitcham is like nothing we've ever experienced before, there is a real heart to work together and serve Mitcham. When we first moved here as a couple with two small children, their love for us was vital and the way in which they welcomed us with open arms for us was a true representation of Mitcham being a 'Big Home'! They've not only shared their love with us but their knowledge and networks too.

Around this time we also spoke to the Urban Expression mission agency, with whom Emma and I had a long-term personal relationship with, and sought to become team leaders. This provided more specialised support for us and a network of people who were able to understand and speak into the life we were living.

After being in Mitcham for 16 months we moved into a house in the Eastfields area and it was around this time that a friend of ours began asking when we were going to 'start our church'. Our friend was interested in exploring faith and who God is after being part of a faith community as a child but no longer called herself a Christian. God had this in hand and, at the same time, brought more established Christians into our field of vision and they, in turn, decided they wanted to support us as well.

We began gathering in our kitchen as a group of eight, sharing in creative forms of worship, some interactive teaching and finishing with a shared meal. This continued for about six months.

As our gathering has developed so has the format, although we have always retained the shared meal, seeing this as a vital part of sharing our lives together. After a further six months, things began to feel a bit more established and so, as a gathering, we wanted to put some structure (although some would see none!) to what we did. I've been very interested in the concept of urban new monasticism for a number of years and it's from here that we became interested in a Rule of Life.

For nine months we carried out research to try and glean how different places were living a Rule of Life before deciding what was applicable to us. The Rule is conceptual in the way we live our lives out but it's practical too – including the scheduling of an annual retreat and committing to laugh together regularly. Our hope is that, as a gathered community of believers, we can continue to learn what it means to 'Seek God' and 'Display his Love' wherever we might find ourselves. I think it's fair to say that we have been changed by the people who have opened their lives to us in the short time we've been here and we hope we will continue to learn from them.

Mitcham is such an amazing place to live; we have felt such openness and kindness since moving here. We love that our children are growing up in an environment that is honest and accepting and while the organic nature of it can be difficult, we’re looking forward to all that lies ahead.

The Living Room and Franky’s Pizza

Tina Powsey tells of two new initiatives which may be at the start of a fresh expressions journey.

I am the Fresh Expressions Worker for the Southport Methodist Circuit, in the second year of a three-year post. I'm a lay employee of the Circuit and a lot has happened since I first took on the role!

When I started in the job, I prayed about what God wanted me to concentrate on because I was starting from scratch. One of the areas of concern that I felt he was talking to me about was people on the fringe – such as the homeless and vulnerable.

I'd been reading a lot about fresh expressions of church and the fresh expressions journey of listening, loving and serving, building community, exploring discipleship, church taking shape, and doing it again. One of the main messages that came home to me was that in order to serve a community you had to 'belong' to that community and be involved in it.

So, thinking about reaching those on the margins, I began serving at the Soup Kitchen on London Street, Southport – and finally the idea came to me to provide something more for the guests there so that they would have the chance to find out about faith in Jesus. I had in mind John 10.10, 'I have come so they can have life. I want them to have it in the fullest possible way'.

It's odd because I had been praying about the right location to do it; I knew it had to be somewhere comfortable and I was initially thinking about all the different cafes and coffee houses we have in town. At first I felt embarrassed to raise the issue with the guy who runs the Soup Kitchen because I knew he already wanted the guests to have a relationship with God and I didn't want him to feel that I'd come along as the newcomer with the 'big idea'.

It was almost a year to the day since I began serving at the Soup Kitchen. We went for a church weekend away and the Soup Kitchen organiser was there. I didn't know him very well but I went to talk to him and said, 'I'd like an opportunity for the guests of the Soup Kitchen to have a time to chat, have somebody to chat to, and ultimately find freedom in Christ. What do you think?'

He was great, quite emotional about it all, and wanted to give his complete support. What had happened was that the Soup Kitchen had been given permission by the Council to open up for another day in the week but they didn't have enough volunteers to staff an extra day or resources to provide a meal for another day. That meant there was an opportunity for something else to happen at the venue, so The Living Room was created to meet at the Soup Kitchen on tuesdays from 11am to 1pm.

The people who come are of all faiths and none, some have been involved in church life in the past but others would find it very difficult to cope with a conventional church setting. Whoever, they are, it's important to meet them 'where they're at' and not try to impose something on them with which they're uncomfortable.

As the Soup Kitchen serves on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, The Living Room is seen as offering something different. It doesn't provide meals or practical support for instance, just a safe space to 'be' and for our friends to be welcomed with loving, attentive conversations and the same grace Jesus would show to them – and tea, coffee and toast. At one point I got a little bit frustrated, thinking some were only coming for tea and toast, but then our other volunteers reminded me, 'You need to just serve them and love them and if that's through a slice of toast, then that's fine!'

When I think of it now, I was so naïve when we started. Cathy Walker, the first volunteer, and I literally put some prayer stations together and prayed that people would turn up. We didn't have any particular format to follow. Now it's on more of an organised footing because anyone who wants to volunteer must be DBS checked and go on a basic safeguarding course. They also have to serve behind the counter, simply handing out tea, coffee and toast, for three sessions before they do anything else; it's a great opportunity for them to get to know our guests. We're there every week and we are asking volunteers to commit to serving twice a month.

Our guests call The Living Room all sorts of things, including a lighthouse and a safe place; others come every single week and call it their church. Different volunteers take turns leading the reflections. There are probably about eight to nine guests there on average and usually three of us on the team.

We open at 11am and have a reflection and worship time together at 12.15pm. One of our recent themes was 'gratitude'; we made a paper chain together on which we each wrote what something for which we were thankful. It's encouraging to see everyone participate and learn new ways to have simple conversations with their Creator.

One of the guests who comes regularly now serves weekly at Christ Church, Southport ,and attends every Sunday; some have also decided to begin visiting a couple of the Methodist churches in the town – Leyland Road and Victoria Methodist. That's great too, though The Living Room isn't set up as a stepping stone to traditional church. We just have to respond to what people want to do.

It's a [Methodist] Circuit initiative that is certainly meeting a need and I really pray that it will grow ecumenically. We have got volunteers from the Methodist churches but we're having an open volunteer meeting on 16th March and I'd love to see many people involved from churches across Southport.

We don't know what God's going to do with it but it's just turning into something so special.

Another initiative which we have just started is Franky's Pizza, also known as 'Pizza Church'. Stewart McTaggart and I are the primary volunteers and administrators of the ministry and, after a few successful trials, we have now set the open days and times as the first and third Friday of every month from 11am-1pm at The Church of St Francis of Assisi, on the Kew estate, Southport. St Francis is a Local Ecumenical Partnership between the Church of England and the Methodist Church. It has very good facilities with a large hall and a beautifully equipped kitchen.

The idea behind it is that it's a bit like the Somewhere Else 'bread church' in Liverpool. We wanted to attract residents of the estate to something and we thought that making something to enjoy together was a good option. My husband even bought a pizza oven for the ministry so that we can cook the pizza as it should be cooked!

Guests are first taken through the process of making a pizza dough. While it's proving, which takes about 20-30 minutes, we have a time of reflection and fellowship. The reflection is usually centred on the reading of a parable and we encourage people to tell us their thoughts on it and what it means to them.

It's a united project from the Diocese of Liverpool and the Methodist Church and both the diocese and circuit have contributed funds towards it. As a result, we provide all the ingredients, including fresh toppings, and people make one pizza and some garlic bread for a £2 donation. Everyone can then sit down to eat their pizza together and we have proper pizza boxes if people want to have it as a takeaway.

It is very early days for Franky's Pizza and The Living Room but I pray that many people will come to know Christ at these 'safe places'.

St Benny’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a dramatically told Bible story;

three- to five-minute Bible thought;

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

a more contemplative song;

a time of creative prayer;

more coffee and goodies;

a chance to pray individually with the team.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shed Church

Phil Smith describes the growth of the Men's Shed movement in Australia.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics general social survey showed that only 20% of Aussie men are likely to affiliate with a religion. The Lifeways organisation estimates that more than 70% of the boys that are raised in church will abandon it in their teens and twenties.

In the last 10 years, the Men's Shed phenomenon has taken off in Australia in response to sky-rocketing rates of depression and suicide amongst young Australian men. Suicide is now the tenth highest cause amongst young Australian blokes; the rates are three times higher than for women.

In 'sheds' around the country, blokes have come looking for friendship, commitment, purpose and help. They can look like:

a barbecue behind a suburban truck shed where between 90 and 120 doctors, labourers, accountants, prison parolees and IT geeks get together to hear one another's stories;

a backyard workshop where older fellows share skills, mentoring younger men;

a tent at a music festival where blokes can let their guard down and talk about anything from being a dad to struggling with porn. It all looks a bit like Luke's Gospel view of missional church (Luke 10.1-9).

The evening barbecue version is called Shed Night and the liturgy is simple, blokes break bread rolls and share steak; friendships are formed as stories are shared. There is no alcohol for the sake of alcoholics who are present. A couple of volunteers are interviewed with no judgement. Most men know the topics; fatherhood, sex, failure, work stress, dreams, hopes; stuff men don't usually feel safe to discuss, a place of grace is established here and disability, mental or physical health, wealth or prestige, being cool – all count for nothing.

Australian men need friends; not colleagues, not competitors, not heroes or life coaches. The Christians behind Shed Night are trusted friends who need healing just as much as everyone else. In theological terms, it's incarnational, relational, evangelism.

Like the disciples sent by Jesus, the Shed men are prepared to do the journey together, co-dependent, mission-shaped. These men are experiencing the biblical injunction to walk alongside one another and with God.

It's not clear when or where the Men's Shed movement began. In Australia there have been formalised associations and networks, such as Men's Sheds Australia and The Australian Men's Shed Association; it may not be possible to unearth the points at which Christians around the country began exploring this connective culture. The organic movement was already building around ideals of welcome, trust and respect. The physical and mental health benefits were already evident when Anglicans, Baptists, the Uniting Church and Lutherans began engaging at the local church level to introduce spiritual health.

Some denominational churches have tried to reshape the idea but the spectacular organic growth has been outside organised, denominational church.

To go where Christ is not yet known, to find people of peace and accept their hospitality has required a 180 degree shift in language and understanding. In the past three years, a new iteration of Shed has begun at music festivals; for most who take leadership in this movement, there's been a reversal of the 'build it and they will come' philosophy in the style of church in the suburbs each Sunday morning. They are prepared to go to the 'Samaritan' borderlands where they have had to learn languages other than Christianese and, in this experience, the disciples' own lives are transformed as much as anyone with whom they might share Jesus's good news about the kingdom of God.

The 'McDonaldisation' of church and society, that 'cookie-cutter' effect of forming a church, doesn't seem to be the case in Shed where the context always forms a unique ministry.

Christian Shed blokes sometimes find themselves challenged to accept the hospitality of others and learn from their experience or skill. The risk of discovering we have the same weaknesses and struggles creates a sense of vulnerability; I have seen very few clergy in any Shed Happens events – some men I know have reflected that's because pastors and priests don't have mates; they have accountability partners and only trust other priests and partners with their hearts.

On the other hand, the Stafford Baptists’ Men’s Shed is a large backyard workshop, a few doors from the church building. It’s a very big investment by the local church and the pastor is closely connected.

For many of these blokes, it's more about the journey – and leaving it to the Holy Spirit to 'worry' about the destination. I came across one Shed group that had a motto, 'Better than fine'. This was a group of blokes that were interested in belonging and being open to one another, 'fine' was an acronym – Fouled up, Insecure, Neurotic, Exhausted. If a brother asked how you were doing, you had to be 'better than fine'. This was a brother that wanted to go with you and do the journey, looking for justice, mercy, and healing.

The Shed movement flips the coin over for blokes who've been burnt by church culture that told them, 'behave yourself, then believe what we all believe, and then we might let you belong'. Shed offers the opportunity to belong amongst men who are just as screwed up as anyone else.

Is Shed church or could it be church in future? Luke's benchmark for church is followers gathered around Jesus and sent by him to express the kingdom of God. If a Shed is only men gathered round a barbecue or a workbench, it doesn't measure up as a fresh, stale, or any other expression of church. If, however, some of these blokes are parts of Christ's body, connecting with others, investing time and love to grow alongside them; if this is more about incarnation than recreation, then we'll see the transforming work of God – and that does look a lot like church.

Grace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Derwent Oak

Ordained Pioneer Minister Beth Honey tells how she, and her husband Ben, are helping to 'grow oak trees' through their ministry in Derby.

Derwent Oak is growing out of an initiative of the Diocese of Derby to re-engage the community across two parishes on a large housing estate. The Derwent Ward is to the north-east of Derby and has a different make up to the South of the city; in general it's a monochrome, sprawling, post-war estate which is home to about 22,000 people. It's sort of split into three or four areas because of the way the roads run through the place; and it can be seen to be very different to live 'up the hill' or 'down the hill'.

Before we came for interview, we looked at the statistics which highlighted Derwent as a deprived area but, when you live here, you discover it hasn't got significant issues with violent crime; it's private deprivation, such as not eating enough or not eating well, or accepting that life cannot improve. There had been two previous attempts to plant here in a very 'worship first' way, Derby City Mission were aware of the needs too but the para-church work in this area had come to a natural end.

The diocese, alongside the Mission, began to wonder, what do we do here next? So, after several years of praying and planning, the concept of pioneer ministry – being explored in other areas of the diocese – was developed for this area. I am licensed to the council ward and encouraged to consult with the parishes, and this is an ongoing process of understanding each other and developing our different roles.

I would say this area is at least 80% unchurched; yes, there may be a few Christians out there to find and there is a kind of heritage of Catholicism but that's about it. This is an exciting place to begin discipleship; without any expectations of church attendance. This role did not have to be filled by an ordained minister, but I have found it a benefit as the sacramental expression of the gospel has already found a place.

The pioneer ministry started in a relational way, with me and my husband Ben working to get to know our neighbours and listen to anyone who wanted to talk to us about the area – whether those people were from churches, the public sector or individuals stopping us in the street.

There's not a lot of overt community life, it's almost like a tribal network; people look after their own people but it doesn't tend to go much wider than that. Once you get to know a few individuals it really helps, but I reckon it takes an average of 10 encounters with someone here before you get to anything like a conversation and then 25 conversations before they'll come into your house.

Being out and about is vital as lots of life in Derwent is conducted out on the street so we got a dog, and it was brilliant to see the kind of 'God things' that happened as a result. Billy looks like a greyhound on steroids but he's actually a lurcher/Staffordshire bull terrier cross so he has got quite a lot of street cred because of his quite 'tough' appearance. When we first took him out for walks, people would say things like, 'Would you look at the muscle tone on that?!' The irony is that he wouldn't hurt a fly, but Billy's unconventional looks have certainly sparked many a chat we wouldn't otherwise have had. There are a number of neighbours we now count as friends through these haphazard conversations. We really believe that discipleship starts from these first meetings.

Our house is next door to a church but the useful thing for me is that I'm not the vicar; we are here as residents and I think that's enabled us to go to new people in a slightly different way. Mind you, I still get asked, 'Are you a vicar or something then?'

I explain it as, 'You know how some nurses work in hospitals and some are in the community? Well, I'm like a vicar who works in the community.'

Fresh expressions language wouldn't fly with the local people here, and so we speak about getting together, throwing parties, having dinner. There are other more formal things we could do – in schools and such like, and we have done a few things but generally we've thought we don't want to spread ourselves too thinly and only organise events or pop in for an assembly here and there.

We have learned that people really do want to gather and celebrate, and most of all want to serve as well as be served. Our community began to emerge after about six months of being here and we have grown into a small group, a team who hold the vision and those who support it; some of us are used to church, some of us are not.

We have discovered that the community is real and welcoming. In our ongoing listening, we have also begun to hear some themes. There is a significant distance from institutions in this area, and what we suspected to be true has become evident on the ground; namely that this cannot be about another project for Derwent, but needs to grow out of Derwent. We also need to avoid being in a hurry. Relationships, rather than structures, will be the heart of anything that grows here, and they simply take time to develop.

As a result of this prayer, we decided to call what we are doing Derwent Oak, after Isaiah 61.4 – 'God will plant oaks of righteousness to display his splendour out of places of mourning and poverty'. We believe that God will not use us to transform Derwent, but that he will, in his grace, use us to help plant the oaks that will. Oak trees are proud, solid, grand, and last a long time… and take a long time to establish!

Twelve months into the first beginnings of this shared life and experiment, we are growing as a community, and have a monthly rhythm of prayer, eating together and planning, as well as seasonal routines emerging. We see possibilities for the future in our partnerships with other charitable and public sector organisations in the area, and we are always looking out for those who start with relationships.

We are based in two Anglican parishes that are fully supportive of community engagement, St Philip's, Chaddesden, and St Mark's Derby. I work under a Bishop's Mission Order, with a five year licence which I am a year into, but I would say, looking ahead, it's a 10-year thing.

For accountability and support, I see the Fresh Expressions Officer for the Diocese, Michael Mitton, once a month and I also see the Archdeacon every term too. Mike is the visitor to three further full-time Pioneer Ministers who are licensed to BMOs in the Diocese. They are Mark Broomhead at The Order of the Black Sheep in Chesterfield; Dave Battison at The Bridge, Matlock, and Captain Tim Rourke of the Church Army who is working to grow a pioneering community for local people living on estates in the southern part of Chesterfield. A lot of people have heard of The Order of the Black Sheep and it's because of Mark Broomhead's hard work in both parish settings, and through fresh expressions, that the Diocese has trusted him – to the extent that this expansion in pioneering work has been possible.

We have experimented with some wider gatherings as we've got to know more people and we are learning that sharing food, working together, asking for help (this is vital in an area where so much help is offered), and relaxing and enjoying ourselves – as much as planning – are the best ways to invite others into making things happen in Derwent. We are also discovering that we don't have to try to bring Jesus into the conversation; he just seems to appear there.

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.