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Lady Bay Mission Community

In a first for St John's College, Nottingham, a group of students are now getting to grips with life in a 'mission laboratory' in the city's Lady Bay area.

The Community Mission Pathway has come about through the College's partnership with the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. Its leader is Mark Rodel who is Tutor in Pioneer Ministry at St John's, and Pioneer Minister in Lady Bay – or to give him his full title there, Pioneer Minister and Vicar at All Hallows, Lady Bay with St Edmund, Holme Pierrepont and Adbolton!

Six students, all of whom are Church of England ordinands, signed up for the first year of the Pathway which sees them become part of a new monastic community, sharing together a rhythm of prayer, learning and mission. Their studies continue to be based at St John's but they all live in, or near, Lady Bay in West Bridgford. They are on 'continuous placement'.

Two of the students live in a three-bedroomed Diocesan house in West Bridgford – with potential for two more people to join them later. The other four, all married, live in their rented homes nearby.

Mark Rodel: Nobody wants leaders in mission who see themselves as 'lone rangers'; this work really needs to be shared if we're going to get away from the idea of everything being dependent on just one person with a specific set of gifts and talents. We're looking to model a way of living and working and discerning that will very much be seen as putting into practice what we are learning.

For me, it's a juggling act. How do I balance my role at St John's with being a pioneer and a vicar? There are a lot of demands but what I have been working on is greater and greater integration, drawing together a community of students so that my practice here – with others – is the means by which students are trained and formed for ministry and the base from which I reflect and teach.

It's also a mixed economy setting in that the dispersed mission community will be able to engage with churches in the area and see how the inherited church and fresh expressions of church might work together. We're calling this a 'mission laboratory' in its scope and size.

Sharing their lives so closely, discerning God's call as a group and learning more about the context they find themselves in together will help prepare them to get new mission communities off the ground. This might result in new forms of church emerging or existing congregations could be renewed and re-energised in mission.

Our Community Constitution and Rule makes it clear that the Lady Bay Mission Community has been established for two complementary and integrated purposes:

the renewal of Christian mission in Lady Bay, through the renewal of the parish church of All Hallows, and through starting, developing and sustaining one or more fresh expressions of church;

the training of Church of England ordinands, ordinands of other churches, lay ministers and independent students for pioneering ministry and leadership in mission.

As we develop a vision for a fresh expression of church in the parish, we will relate to the national Fresh Expressions movement through the regional FEAST (Fresh Expressions Area Strategy Team).

When I first arrived at All Hallows, Lady Bay, it was a real learning curve because they weren't specifically asking for pioneering or fresh expressions. So, for them to hear that they were getting someone who would be a vicar and a pioneer was quite difficult.

The first year was pretty tough, there was no honeymoon period, but then we had an event at which I read out part of my job description and it was quite clear to everyone that the role I'd applied for was all about change. That was the breakthrough.

Some of it was also about adopting a different pastoral approach. The full scope of my role hadn't been as widely understood as it might have been and some people thought it was my job to mediate the situation. Thankfully, I had a lot of support from the Diocese, the Director of Ministry and Mission, Nigel Rooms, and the former Archdeacon of Nottingham, Peter Hill, who is now the Bishop of Barking.

The other thing that has helped us to open that up is our involvement with US-based organisation, Church Innovations, and its consultancy service, The Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) founded by Patrick Keifert.

Through PMC, we join together with a small group of congregations from our Diocese (Southwell and Nottingham) and the Diocese of Leicester in a three year process which explores what part we might play in God's future for our local communities. St John's College supports us in that and we meet as a cluster three times a year, to reflect on what we're learning and prepare for the tasks we do locally between each gathering.

This has already helped us to ask the question, 'What can The Partnership for Missional Church and Fresh Expressions learn from each other? There is lots of crossover. PMC is asking us to consider that if we're investing in new things, does the inherited church just roll over and die or do we invite them into newness? It's a process of what we call adaptive change rather than technical fixes. We ask what we need to be and take the steps to get there.

Along the way, we learn and practice six spiritual disciplines or 'holy habits'. So far we have learnt two – Dwelling in the Word and Corporate Spiritual Discernment.

The mission community also demands a lot of attention and care but I'm not going to be a sort of 'Daddy Pioneer'. Instead, we'll meet and mutually support each other as a part prayer, part reflective practice group.

The conviction to me is about community. I haven't tried to establish a fresh expression, the process of looking and listening needs to be a long and engaged one. It's important that we discern these things together. I have got lots of bright ideas so I can all too easily say, 'Come and join me to make things happen' but what is God calling to come into being in this place? That's the sort of thing we'll be considering as a group.

Darren (Howie) is the only member of this community who has been through pioneer panel – but the way I have launched the course to them, even if they're not pioneer, is to say that it's for anyone who would look to be pioneering in their approach. After their time here, there will be a range of destinations for them, some of which may look more like what a pioneer would look for or it may be a conventional parish.

It's about being a community where we develop the skills and convictions and aptitudes to lead the church into new engagements with a wider community and possibly into churches.

It's hugely exciting. I have been working on this for two years and we had no idea in January whether anyone would come; I thought maybe we'd get two or three but when six people said, 'yes please' – six people with their own richness in learning, passions and giftedness – I was staggered.

The rhythm of life is the heart of it; it's that coming together every day but also being part of the wider family at St John's. That has made such a difference already. Being serious about disciplines means a commitment to prayer – and commitments in both attitude and practice when living to a community rule. That involves rhythms of:

eating, including Eucharist;

praying;

sharing/generosity;

learning;

growing and working together – looking to see God's Kingdom come, see church grow in depth and numbers and new forms of church to emerge.

As part of our corporate spiritual discernment, we are working with an established monastic community to hold us spiritually accountable to our Rule. Our 'visitor' is an Anglican Benedictine Order, based at Mucknell Abbey, Worcestershire, and we will meet every year with a representative or representatives from Mucknell Abbey to review the Rule. We also each have a spiritual director with whom we meet at least once a term.

It's important that we are not just 'making this up' as we go along so it's wonderful to be linked in with the Order as a group who have done this for a very long time!

Community Mission Pathway students

Gail Phillip: I trained as a teacher and worked with a pioneering Singaporean missionary couple in Thailand. I was with the Anglican Church, based at Christ Church, Bangkok. I came back to the UK four years ago and worked with children in full time residential care but there was a strong sense of calling to ordained ministry so that's why I'm here.

I'm pioneer with a small 'p', working through translation! One of the things that attracted me to the Community Mission Pathway was that it was not just dismissing the people who have gone before but discerning how is God working so we can move together. There are lots of opportunities here; this is an area of 4,000 people with two pubs used for all sorts of community activities.

Jess McLaren: I started my career in Human Resources and I worked my way up a corporate business ladder for seven years. I became a Christian in 2010 and pretty quickly felt a call from God. I started to look around and see other doors opening up. Within a month I found myself working for my bishop (Bishop of Kensington, Paul Williams) with a project in the diocese of London. It all happened for me on a night when we were commissioning 2,300 young people at St Paul's in April 2012; that night I really felt that God was calling me. I tried to push it down but the thought wouldn't go away and I went into the discernment process in 2012.

In the last year, I was working as a parish assistant for St Mary Magdalene Church, Littleton, and helping with chaplaincy work in schools.

Andi Thomas: My wife, little boy and I live just outside Lady Bay because we couldn't find a house right on the doorstep but it's great to feel part of this Pathway of pioneers. I have just spent about 20 years doing inner city youth work and managed a youth church plant. We were all part of Aston Parish Church, Birmingham.

I didn't plan to do any of this and I remember when someone had a message from God that they believed was for me. The message was that I should consider full-time ministry in the church and I started the discernment process in 2011 but I swore I'd never become a vicar but, more and more, I had the feeling of wanting to be in the glasshouse rather than keep on throwing stones at it.

Darren Howie: My wife and I have been involved with St John's studies for several years now and I've been pursuing the call to ordination; got through Bishops Panel in March and decided to stay because we're really excited about the Community Mission Pathway. This is a great chance to discover about community living at first hand.

I originally knew that St John's was the place for me because, after a very difficult time involving church, I went to the chapel service and Nick Ladd simply said, 'We are just going to wait on God'. Well, the presence of God in the room was overwhelming. I was in the right place. Now, we'll look to see what happens as we learn to live in community with others.

Ivor Lewis: This process has been quite a long one. I was a youth a community regeneration worker in Aston, Birmingham (the same parish as Andi) for quite a long time so I'm really out of my comfort zone here! I'd never really thought of ordination before but I was at my youngest brother's wedding when this minister, who I didn't know, came up to me and said, 'You are going to be a vicar'. He said it in front of my family so I couldn't even pretend it didn't happen! I tried to brush it aside but I went to an urban youth work conference in 2008 and what I came away with was the conviction that God was asking me to take the call of leadership seriously.

I finally did that in 2011/2012 and I made links with DDOs and people like that but all the while I was thinking, I know how hard these guys work, I know they have no life outside that, do you really want to sign up for this? But then I did the paperwork and I felt as if a weight was taken off my shoulders. At the Bishop's Advisory Panel, I felt the Lord was with me. I still wondered what type of ministry I wanted to be involved in and what sort of training that was to be; it was the rhythm of life that attracted me here. This is not inner city Birmingham and I am out of my comfort zone in a sense.

Ed Sauven: I'm from London and have been there for the last eight years. One of the things my wife and I have been thinking of more and more is authentic Christian community. What does itlook like and what does authentic Christian community doing mission look like? I've been involved in lots of things to explore that and I've also tried to get involved in lots of things to explore that but – for one reason or another – they didn't work out.

At one point we were part of a network church looking to connect with 20s and 30s but I struggled with the network setting and not having a sense of place. In trying to discern how you might build community, I heard how these things will come from communities of prayer and I found that new monasticism really resonated with me.

I had a Bishop's Advisory Panel coming up and I was travelling the ordination route but the new monastic movement seemed to be something of a tangent. I hadn't considered prayer to be the centre but then we came to St John's and talked to Mark and found out what he had been doing here. I sensed a very clear answer to prayer. I really wanted to develop community with prayer at its heart and it's from that you go out and do mission. I feel that from a place like that you can do mission sustainably.

The Stowe

Wichelstowe is a new housing area on the outskirts of Swindon, Wiltshire. Baptist pioneer minister Ali Boulton describes how The Stowe Church has developed there.

On 17 January 2008, in a Baptist ministers' prayer meeting, I was asked to pray for a yet to be built housing estate. As I bent my head to pray, I had one of those overwhelming encounters with God which left me with a sure sense that God was calling me to move to the estate to holistically serve and bless the community and plant a church.

That was the start of the journey which has resulted in the emergence of a new church and positive engagement in a new community.

It is hard to share everything about the last six-and-a-half years in one article so I have picked out some key events and principles. The first one the importance of 'calling' I have already shared.

The next key principles are prayer, partnership and discernment/preparation. The first step in my journey was to join the ecumenical prayer group which was made up of church leaders of the churches surrounding the planned new estateand the town's chaplain. Prayer for the estate started before I joined the group and I feel that prayer has made a huge difference – prayer and listening to God has unpinned the whole process.

Partnership has also been key. My first partnership was with the ecumenical group. We worked together on some foundational elements of the project, if I can call it that, we did not however move forward with a local ecumenical partnership in mind, but rather within a framework of a lead denomination. Personally, I think this has been key in allowing a new missional churches to emerge. Not everyone agrees with me but I hope that other denominations will take the lead in other new housing areas within these light touch partnerships based on relational support and prayer.

As well as specifically Baptist organisations, I also partnered the local housing association and the council. The housing association were keen to work with me as soon as they realisedI was going to move into the area because this demonstrated a level of commitment which interested them. They approached me before I moved in and offered me a grant to be able to deliver some of things I felt God was calling us to do – which was amazing! The relationship with both the housing association and the council has deepened over the years and become a really fruitful partnership. We have partnered many other organisations too – including churches, and charities such as those working with victims of abuse, metal health, and children and families.

This all formed part of the 14-month discernment and preparation leading up to moving into the estate. We also built up a team during this time of three other Christian couples who, alongside my family, were committed to unconditionally loving, blessing and serving the new estate. This included a retired Anglican priest, his wife, and two young couples from different church traditions. We covenanted to one another agreeing to be missional together and not seek to be spiritually fed and also to move onto the estate within two years. Unfortunately this last covenant promise has not been met fully as it has been financially impossible for two couples – however we are all still serving the community alongside each other. During this time of discernment and preparation, I constituted and formed a community group – with the other church leaders as trustees as there were no residents at that point. Also, as Churches Together, we applied for a council grant and planning permission for a portacabin on site, and I worked alongside the West of England Baptist Associationfor some help to buy a house and to apply for a special ministries grant from Baptist Home Mission.

And so in April 2009, my family and I were the first to move on to the estate with a vision to unconditionally holistically bless the community and to seek to join in with the work of God's Spirit. The importance of living on the estate and being there right from the beginning was really significant, as was the call to bless in all areas of life.

It was the time of the credit crunch and so we lived alone on the estate for a month before the next residents moved in. Also because of the credit crunch, all the social houses filled up first. This was high priority social housing, so there were some quite vulnerable people in the first residents.

For the first year, I visited everyone as they moved in and gave them a welcome basket. It got crazy after a while but I would have liked to do it longer. As I met with each new resident I introduced myself as 'I'm Ali, I'm your neighbour. I'm a Baptist minister but I'm here to serve all faiths and none. Let me know if you have ideas about what we can do together.' My visits and the welcome baskets were unconditional – I told them about me but didn't ask for anything in for in return.

I felt that God had said some specific things to us:

first, I felt that God had said not to talk about him. It seemed like a strange missional strategy but more people came and talked to me about faith than ever before in my Christian life, which was amazing! Later, when we had some opposition to the Christian presence in the area, people commented that I had never imposed my faith on anyone. This was important as, by then, people had become Christians and a church for the unchurched had emerged.

secondly, I felt that God had said that he would tell us what to do through the community. This became very significant as time went on. I guess we just set about making friends with people. Some people wanted to exchange numbers, meet for coffee and set up a Facebook group. We organised a community fun day alongside the housing association and in response to our neighbours, organised community games.

After the community day, more people got in touch. Within a few days I was contacted for the first time by someone on the brink of suicide – this has become a key part of my ministry on the estate.

I also had some women come to my door saying, 'We loved the community day; will you organise a Halloween party next?' We struggled with that as none of us believed in celebrating Halloween but God had told us to unconditionally bless the community – all faiths and none – he had also told us that he would tell us what to do through the community. After much prayer, and the verse from Acts 10 telling Peter not to call things unclean which God has made clean, we did the party. One of my teenagers commented, 'Mum thinks she has claimed backed pumpkins for God; he thought he had them already.'

It was at the Halloween party that someone said, 'Do you know what I'd like? Wouldn't it be lovely if you did us a nativity play with all the children?' This ended up as a big outdoor community event. If we had said no to Halloween, I think that would have shut the door. The Halloween party is now an annual event.

We continued to serve the community in response to, and alongside, the people around us. Mostly starting in our house, we set up a toddler group, coffee morning, a toddler lunch club, a youth club, an after school club and amazingly we were asked to start a God club for the kids on a Sunday afternoon. There isn't space to share that whole story!

Our first Easter there, in 2010, was amazing. Some people were chatting about Easter and in response to some comment I made, I was asked if Easter was a 'God thing?' To cut a long story short, we put on some activities on Good Friday morning to explore the Christian story of Easter in the portacabin. We expected a few kids or families but about 50 people with no church background came along. It was a very special time. As a result I invited people to join us on Easter Sunday morning and 35 people joined us.

We thought we would do it again at Pentecost – but God reminded us that he was in control and would tell us what to do through the community. So ten days after Easter, someone said she had enjoyed church on Easter day at our house so much, could she come every week? Of course we didn't have a church but as I tried to think what to say she filled in the blanks! '10.30, your house on Sunday?' 'Sure!' And so the next Sunday, church began. The lady who asked me has never been, but that first Sunday, two families came and we saw our first person become a Christian a couple of weeks later on 24th April. We saw her life transform and she was the first to be baptised. Praise God we have seen others come to faith and be baptized too.

As we continued to work in the community the number of people exploring faith grew and we moved out of my house, first to the new school hall then into the community centre. We became a recognised church called The Stowe and part of the Baptist Union of Great Britain at the start of 2013.

We have continued to seek to unconditionally love and bless the community and we have worked alongside people of all faiths and none to establish a charitable community association and build healthy partnerships between the community and wider bodies such as the council and developers. The line between church and community is very blurred but we believe God is in it all and we have seen him bless this estate. This is very encouraging as the current houses are just the first 875 of 4,500 so we have a long way to go yet.

I'd love to share more with you about how God has worked in the local community – through giving us a word to wash the feet of the community, resulting in regular pamper nights, and another word about an empowerment course. I'd like to tell you more about the people who have come to faith, about healings, and lives that have been changed. I'd love to tell you about our community activities, community trips, church camping weekends, our schools' work and my years as chair of governors in the new school and our new work with children, youth and families. But there isn't space for it all!

One of the greatest blessings is seeing new Christians grasping the vision to love and bless this community, some even taking on leadership.

This is particularly significant now as I've now been appointed the Pioneer Mission Enabler for the Southern Counties Baptist Association (SCBA). I'm supporting communities and projects already taking place in the region,helping people to build on mature church traditions and explore what pioneer mission looks like in their context. I'm working alongside people engaging with existing communities and helping to identifying new housing areas, make connections with other community stakeholders and create partnerships. It's exciting to see opportunities already developing.

It's a half-time role so I'll still be at The Stowe and I see the new job as being very much connected to the practical work on the ground. The words 'teaching hospital' come to mind because when people come to visit to see what we're doing here and join in, God seems to inspire them to go and love and bless their own communities. Also some of the community here are keen to support other churches locally; it's part of them being connected to the wider church.

Of course there are and will continue to be many challenges within the Stowe and SCBA as we seek to pioneer. New churches are fragile – people who explore faith come and go as the parable of the sower tells us. But God has done more than we could have asked or imagined and I look forward to joining in with what he is continuing to do both locally and regionally.

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.

Buckshaw Village Church

Pioneer curate James Gwyn-Thomas is based at St Andrew's, Leyland, and also leads Buckshaw Village Church.

Buckshaw Village, known to many as Buckshaw, only started to be built 10 years ago. It's a huge area between the towns of Chorley and Leyland in Lancashire and is one of the largest sites for urban development in the North West. There's a population of about 10,000 at the moment but that's set to rise by a few thousand more as new housing becomes available.

It is being developed on the site of what was the Royal Ordnance Factory, Chorley, and Buckshaw is sandwiched between the M6 and M61 which means that a lot of the residents work in Preston or Manchester because the road links are so good.

Interestingly, there's a huge craving for community because everyone who moves here is new; no-one's grown up together in this place and that means they want to find a community spirit. Many people choose to come to Buckshaw because it was built with that expectation of creating community.

Instead, it can seem a bit strange to newcomers at first because Buckshaw Village is all very manicured and neat, like living permanently in Center Parcs! That's why, when I first came, I spent the first four months just talking to people, finding out more about them and their lives, and listening to what they wanted to see happen here.

Buckshaw Village Church is a church plant from St Andrew's in Leyland and was established in the summer of 2010, with the support of the local Methodist and Anglican congregations in Leyland, Chorley and Euxton. Led by my predecessor, Ken Campbell, a small group of people started meeting together on Sunday mornings. The idea was to make gatherings accessible to everyone, regardless of age, background and any previous experience of 'church'.

When I came to Buckshaw, I found that the key thing was to hold everything lightly. We just wanted – and still want – to find ways of church getting involved with what the community is already doing, such as what happens through Buckshaw Village Community Association. It's very important to me that the word 'we' – rather than 'I' – is used when talking about the church here and, as part of that, we now have a church leadership team in place. I'm not on my own in this. Buckshaw Village Church exists for the community and in the community.

I work quite closely with local Anglican and Methodist ministers because we see Buckshaw as a kingdom priority; and we find it's so important to meet, pray for and support one another. The Methodists are also starting to come into the local primary school where they're running a Messy Church with our support.

Our main meeting of the week is on Sunday mornings in the Buckshaw Community Centre. We don't have a church building but we do hire the community centre room and that's our biggest financial outlay. Shops are being developed and some have already opened, including a café called Cowshed which is where we now run the Alpha Course on Thursday evenings.

But some of our greatest growth is not through outreach courses like Alpha, but rather, through the relationships that form through times such as our toddler group: Semi-Quavers. Meeting on a Tuesday morning for many parents on the village has proven to be a life line and they greatly appreciate the time we spend together. Relationships, relationships, relationships! It has been great to provide events where we, as a church, can get to know the community. We've had a whiskey night, curry nights, afternoon-teas and hope to have cheese, wine, sausage, coffee and film nights too, all open to the community. As relationships are being built, we are starting to see crossover into our Sunday service as people realise they quite like us and can certainly trust us and that they too are actually quite interested in their own relationship with God!

It is of course also so important to have our midweek youth groups (sorted) and the recently started growth groups for fellowship and discipleship.

Buckshaw became a Bishop's Mission Order (BMO) because this is quite a big village but not a big enough community to have lots of different types of church. There was a danger that the area would attract all sorts of church plants which could weaken the overall mission. By working with the other local denominations, we said, 'Let's protect this and work together and be strategic for the kingdom'.

It's my first curacy but I already feel that, in future, I'm not going to long for a parish that has a church building because there is something very special about not having one! At the community centre, if people feel comfortable coming through the door for karate or acting class then you already have a head start. But a question is, 'How can we make that space that was sweaty on a Friday night for karate become one where we go to have a really special place of worship? Is it possible?' The answer seems to be, 'yes we can' because we are not limited, we can explore and discover, we can make mistakes as we continue to think about, 'What is the best way to do church in Buckshaw?'

BELLS

Phil Smith is a lay pastor in a Queensland school and he is also helping to grow a faith community around a barbecue.

We are based on Australia's Sunshine Coast in a new real estate development where there is no church building. I work half time for the Uniting Church as one of two campus ministers at the Unity College ecumenical school in Caloundra.

In Bells Reach and Bell Vista, people are moving from the colder southern states to live the dream in Queensland but many find it's just another suburb – like the ones they left behind.

The estate surrounds the school, which is supported by Roman Catholic and Uniting Church parishes, and those involved in BELLS are people who live, work or go to school in that area. Using the College, BELLS has connected with 65 people in its first six months, meeting fortnightly on Sunday afternoons to hear one another's stories and ask where we see and hear God at work in our lives. We don't have a building or rows of pews; instead we get together either at Unity College or in the nearby park.

Our first big breakthrough came just before Christmas 2013 when the developer asked us, as the local church(!), to welcome people and provide a short chat and some worship songs at the open-air carols and movie evening. We introduced ourselves to 1,000 people, with the help of the Uniting Church, Churches of Christ, The Salvation Army and a local Christian radio station which provided cards and CDs to give away.

BELLS (Belonging, Eating, Listening, Learning and Serving) is an acronym which describes what we stand for:

belonging together and within the community, a blessing we share;

eating, always part of our gathering, whether that's barbecue or breaking bread;

listening to one another's stories;

learning where Jesus' story intersects with ours;

serving and sending us out into the community.

BELLS originally grew from an occasional discussion group for senior high school students from Unity College in 2012. It became known as The God Stuff amongst eight or 10 regulars who said they couldn't cope with a traditional church service. Why? Their comments included, 'We don't know when to sit down and stand up' and 'We only usually sing when we're a bit drunk at karaoke nights'.

It was all very different with us because of it being story based. We would have coffee by the beach in late afternoon and explore how our experiences that week had been touched and shaped by what Jesus said. Christians in their mid-20s would come and tell their stories.

Then, at about the same time as Caloundra Uniting Church started praying about mission in the development around the school, a handful of 'non-church' staff, parents and students at Unity College also began asking about developing The God Stuff.

A group began to explore these issues on the understanding that there would be no plans for a church building (with a big cross at the front of it) or expectation that people would drive in from all over the place to sit in pews there.

Our questions and discussions centred on the nature of church, an understanding of Luke 10, and Jesus sending 'beginner disciples' into the villages where he had not yet been – to build relationship with people of peace, engage with them and accept their hospitality.

Rather than create something and ask people to come to a specific event, we put the word around that we were simply going to buy pizza one Sunday evening in June last year and see who turned up. We hoped for 15 but instead 37 people came to tell us what a gathering might be like and what it would achieve. Their main message was, 'don't call it church'.

Caloundra Uniting Church endorsed this organic development and sponsored us. Members donated some $5,000 to support what we were doing, and a handful of them come each fortnight to make the coffee, turn the sausages and pray for the group.

That same church is now seeking three years of funding to create a half-time pastor's position for me to grow BELLS as a faith community, a fresh expression of church. This neighbourhood is set to grow dramatically over time with Caloundra South housing 50,000 people in the next 15 years.

Eating is a major part of what we do! People relax and talk when there's food and for Australians a BBQ is standard. Bringing food to a BBQ is an act of sharing; this may well be a ritual/liturgical aspect of BELLS, although one might not recognise it!

At the moment, we are focused on Luke's gospel for the messages to think about in our fortnightly meetings; considering how the Jesus story can be lived out in a culture that does not take it as 'given'. We prepare for that by putting out a trailer out on our YouTube channel a week before the meeting. The BELLS crew then begin to think of their own life experiences in relation to the message. We put up posters around the place and on the school noticeboard; it's also in the school newsletter and Community Association website.

Our meetings start with a 'sixty Seconds with…' slot when a volunteer is asked three questions in a minute. This not only acts as an ice-breaker but it provides an opportunity for an initial personal reflection on the message theme. The table groups then chat around those questions as we eat.

Two of our team sing for us and we now have some neighbourhood kids who are beginning to bring their guitars and jam along.

Someone will tell their story related to the message, perhaps on how they have experienced forgiveness – or something similar, then I talk about the scripture for five minutes. We pray simple thanks and requests in different ways, talk about our next opportunity for belonging or serving… and finish our dinner.

When we think about how we might grow the faith community, the school connection is certainly a 'foot in the door' and we have also had much encouragement from many other people of peace locally. The school principal offered the covered BBQ and canteen area for us; the real estate developer now views us as the local church; the publican and the Community Association advertise our gatherings and we actively engage with them in community events, such as park concerts and Christmas carols.

In seven months, four core households have emerged. Younger couples with kids have taken on the leadership in exploring opportunities for belonging, eating (looking at hospitality), listening – as in leading our worship times – and finding ways for us to serve.

As the pastor, my responsibility is the learning content. We also have three older, mature Christians – including two retired, ordained ministers – who pray for us and seek the big vision. They help give a framework of theological understanding to what we are exploring.

In the light of Caloundra Uniting Church being our supportive 'mothership', I attend their church council meetings. Their insurance and finance people also look after our necessary bureaucracy.

At this stage I add all preparation for BELLS to my workload at school – hence our meetings being fortnightly. We very much want to become a weekly gathering and develop some discipleship/home groups. If funding becomes available in June 2014, I will be paid a stipend to spend half the week in the neighbourhood.

Our costs as this stage only involve the provision of food because our venue is free. Donations from individuals with a vision as to what we are doing here have amounted to about $7,000.

Long-term commitment is very important. A significant part of building relationships of trust with community groups, the local council, and so on, is the assurance that we will be here in 15 years' time. God knows what the neighbourhood, or our faith community, will look like then but we are here to grow with the neighbourhood from stage one.

I first heard of fresh expressions of church when researching new forms of church online and then followed up on that with a call to a couple of Uniting Church ministers in South Australia. It's exciting to see what God is doing in Caloundra as part of that fresh expressions movement worldwide. Our accountability is formally through the local Uniting Church but we are also blessed by encouragement and regular contact with other denominations with a heart for the new neighbourhood.

How might things develop from here? Well, after six months, and – it seems – the ongoing possibility of personnel and time resources, we have a few challenges and questions to consider.

More than 100 people have connected with us but the fortnightly gathering is always around 30. Half of that is core and constant. How will we go beyond that initial contact to build good daily friendships?

How will we offer discipleship/faith exploration programs and what will they be? (Our neighbourhood isn't asking the questions Alpha is answering, yet).

We are being deliberately engaged in the Community Association, events in the park and so on but there are new opportunities too. There are hoops to jump through but the developer's former sales office may be handed to Caloundra City Council to become a small community hub. Could we become the managing agents? If so, we could engage with many other community groups, have a highly visible venue for gatherings of different kinds.

Eaton and Millbridge Project

The Eaton/Millbridge Project is part of the Uniting Church of Australia's Wellington Regional Mission (WRM). Rev Karyl Davison and a team of volunteers support people in the area and are hoping to see a fresh expression of church take shape.

When a new housing development started to be built in the Eaton area of Western Australia, it had no community facilities. The Wellington Regional Mission saw an opportunity to do ministry there and I took on the role of creating community in Eaton and Millbridge.

A few years ago the WRM consisted of a number of small, declining semi-rural congregations plus one large congregation in Bunbury, the regional centre. As a result of hearing about fresh expressions of church, and with the urging of some forward thinking people keen on mission-shaped ministry, the WRM sold unutilised property and put the funds into a new community-based ministry.

A team of people went out into the community to see what God was up to. A process of listening occurred, including community gatherings and individual conversations, which identified that people wanted opportunities to do things as a 'family'. The WRM has invested in the Project by buying a manse in Millbridge (opposite a popular park) and I've been there since January last year.

As the Eaton and Millbridge area underwent dramatic residential growth, the WRM saw a great opportunity to help create a sense of community and bring the community together. The project had been a dream for a number of years but it was ready to move to the next level.

I have responsibility for Collie, Waterloo and Harvey congregations as well as the Eaton/Millbridge Project – being church in the community for the new housing development which will eventually cover about 500 acres of land. By its completion it will have over 1400 new homes, two government-owned primary schools, and a Catholic school. The community is made up primarily of Anglo Australians, though there are a number of families from other cultural backgrounds.

The Eaton/Millbridge Project team is currently made up of volunteers from members of the Wellington Regional Mission congregations, a significant number of whom are residents in the area or have family living there. After 12 months we have got to the stage where other residents are becoming interested in joining the team.

However, at this early stage of the Project we are still trying to make connections with people in the community. This is done mainly through events. We have now had two Easter Egg Hunts, a 'mini festival' called Christmas on Hunter, Movies by Moonlight as well as a number of smaller activities. Most are held in local parks as there are no indoor community spaces in the suburb.

We took part in the national Clean Up Australia Day by getting involved at Cadell Park, Millbridge. This year's Easter Egg Hunt was held in the same place and we had games and activities, plus the Hunt, and the all important coffee and cupcakes. We had over 150 people there, about two thirds of whom were children.

We continue to listen to the community and for the Spirit. At each event we have a comments board and invite people to make suggestions or tell us something about their community. We have also created a Community Banner featuring the handprints of all of those who come to our events.

In terms of 'advertising' what we do, we intend to connect with people electronically as well as face to face. All of our promotional material for the Project notes that we have a Facebook page and this enables me to let lots of people know about what's going on. I also send out reminders by email and we do a door-to-door leaflet drop before every event.

For those in the Project team, God's presence is much more apparent at their community events in a way that they never feel in regular worship. There is such a great sense of community and energy and fun it's a privilege to be part of.

We seek to engage with our community without an agenda of 'getting them to come to church'. We aim to be willing to receive hospitality as well as offer it; listen; and seek to identify what God is up to in our community. Our intention is that, as we gain the people's trust, we will begin offering different kinds of contemplative spaces at our events and invite them to engage in that alongside the fun activities such as games, craft, movies etc.

We hope the result will be some form of 'congregation' for unchurched or dechurched people but if we're true to our commitment to listen to the community and the Spirit, we can't set out to form a new congregation but to see what emerges.

The Marlpit

Katie Miller serves as a Reader with St Michael's Church, Hellesdon, near Norwich, and heads up a lay leadership team serving the Marlpit estate. Now hoping to train as a pioneer minister, Katie tells how the team built relationship with the community from a position of powerlessness.

St Michael's had been involved in this estate for 40 years before its Marlpit base, built by donations from local residents, was closed down in 2007. To me it's very interesting that what could have been the end of something instead became the start of something new because it was then that we truly started to build relationship with those around us.

The Marlpit is a council estate, half of which was built in the 1930s and the other half in the 1960s. It is squeezed between a main road and the River Wensum. We are with the parish across the river so there is a very real sense of it being a unique entity.

We found that not having a permanent church home became a blessing and we made friends precisely because we had no building. There is such a sense here that the church is part of the establishment so it was very helpful to be able to say, 'We are church but we have got nowhere to meet'. Relationships grew from that and it was useful to learn that you can very much build from a position of powerlessness.

There are four of us in the core leadership team, including a couple who came to the estate 20 years ago and lived through various curacies. We recognised that it was important to break the cabal of the four of us so we have gradually built up indigenous leadership from within the community. That's why, when the time comes for me to move on, I will be ready to hand over because that joint – or new – leadership is now in place in all of the areas for which I had personal responsibility.

We have found it important to put two or three possible leaders in place because many people's lives are so chaotic on the Marlpit that it's important to have someone else to stand in the gap if an individual can't make it for whatever reason. In terms of context, this is a place where some people have lived for a very long time with generations of the same family around the corner from each other. There are also people who only stay for a while, people who are 'housed' here rather than live here.

We are fortunate in that there are public community places on the estate; it has its own primary school, play group, health centre and a couple of shops. It also has two community centres, one of which is set up as an internet café and drop-in sort of place. We have rented rooms in both of those centres and also in the school; we've been everywhere at one stage or another! The toddler group grew to such an extent that it had to move off the estate to a Methodist Church nearby.

We tend to describe ourselves as having six ministries in the Marlpit, one of which happened to be a Sunday morning time of worship. The rest involve all sorts of things, including a mid-day mini service after toddlers' group – something which has all the hallmarks of a church. The mums from that group all care for each other and want others to be part of it.

We set up the Marlpit community choir and we're now asked to do many gigs; it has become a focus of real pride for the estate – not only for the people who take part. The estate really 'owns' it; there’s nothing like making music together to make people feel as if they are part of a community. The choir also has a Facebook page where the members pray for each other. We have 25 people involved and they're not all brilliant singers by any means but when the whole choir is singing together; they really do make a great sound. There must be a message in there for the church! We basically do karaoke and use backing tracks for music from the 1940s to the present day. Bill, one of our leadership team is the choir master. He finds the backing track and we go with it; we did Born to be Wild and something from Queen when the Archdeacon came to visit us!

We also lead a monthly service in local sheltered housing as part of our ministry here but that's very different. There we do hymns and have a very calm service; we pray for all the residents and we have some little thought or reflection as part of that. It's very gentle but we are welcomed in. In all of this, the parish church is really positive about what's happening here and we have never been stopped from doing what we do in this context; we have just got on with it.

My own background has very much fed into this time. I am an academic palaeontologist (the geology of ocean beds), have been a theatre director and now I'm pioneering. The link is that it's all about storytelling – a good geologist collects data and puts together a story from that; a theatre director is there to let the actors play through creativity and chaos before telling them, 'this is the direction I want you to go in' and pioneering is all about God's story and those whose lives are changed by it.

I have loved what I do here and I'm shocked at the ways in which some people imagine life on a council estate. The fact is that residents here are the same as anyone else; they want to have stable relationships, they want their kids to do well at school etc; I find absolutely nothing different about that.

I don't feel what I'm doing is more 'worthy' or 'radical' because of my location or context. We should be helping the poor, people who require committed support in order to give them the backing they need. We shouldn't be judging them.

Cringleford Community Project

Heather Cracknell, a pioneer curate near Norwich, is looking to establish a social enterprise café and community project on a new housing development. She hopes it will develop into a fresh expression.

Since I was ordained as a pioneer minister in 2011, the diocese of Norwich has encouraged me to explore what it means to be 'church' in an area of new housing.

Launched in June 2007, the Roundhouse Park development is on the outskirts of Norwich at Cringleford. Building work is still going and eventually there will be 1065 homes. In the next six to nine months there should be a school and eventually a community centre but, at the moment, there isn't a public place to meet at all.

I live in a house bought by the diocese at Roundhouse and my role is split between pioneering there and a traditional curacy in St Peter's Parish Church, Cringleford.

New housing areas are interesting because they have a very distinct culture and don't tend to integrate well with the villages around them. This is compounded at Roundhouse because the development is separated from Cringleford village by a dual carriageway so it's not easy to grow it as one community. Another factor is that the people moving to the new housing tend to be younger than those in the village. Cringleford is near the hospital, research park and university so the new development offers many young professionals and their families a more varied mix of housing.

I have been here for just over 20 months and, in that time, my priority has simply been to get to know as many people as possible. I started by having regular curry nights at my house and, from that, people would suggest different things we might do. This led to 'Stitch and Yarn' which involves people coming together for crochet, knitting or some sort of stitch craft; a cup of tea and a lot of chat. We've also had quizzes, running sessions, picnics and even a 'bake-off' around the kitchens of Roundhouse Park. We are trying to offer as diverse a range of activities as we can but we are still in quite an exploratory phase.

Once a fortnight I host something called Table. People come together for a meal and they're free to explore Christian faith in a safe space. We eat together, have a simple reflection (usually with bread and wine) and get to know each other.

It's so important to try and discern what people are concerned about in the area rather than make any assumptions as to what you think they are concerned about! As part of that, we launched an online community survey in the autumn to find out more about what people wanted and why. The idea was that it would encourage increasing numbers of people to get involved in building community spirit.

We also used the survey to suggest the idea of creating a community project. This involves setting up and running a cafe to provide a place for people to go, spend time with friends, meet others and join in with community activities. It's good to try and get feedback on something like that because there's no point doing something that people don't want in the first place!

The café would not only provide a physical focus for activities but, from the very start, be a spiritual hub. For us it's very important that Christian contemplative prayer and prayer stations of some sort would be 'built into' the rhythm of all activities there to give people the chance to explore Christian spirituality in a very familiar setting. It would be part and parcel of what's available and should beg the questions, 'What does it mean to live well? What would that mean to a community of people exploring faith together, meeting in a café space or school?'

The exciting thing is that we already have the embryo of that community at The Table. We are small in number but I can see the beginnings of a prayerful and supportive group of people.

St Peter's Church is fantastically supportive of what I'm doing on the Roundhouse and they have given me time for that. They also recently launched an appeal for various things associated with mission at the church, including updating of the church hall – and my community café project. If the fundraising goes well, then we will go out and find some match funding.

I have been very clear with St Peter's right from the beginning that the Roundhouse work is not about getting people to come along to the traditional church; some may well want to do that and I'd be delighted if they did but that's not the purpose of developing community in the new housing area.

As a giving, supporting, encouraging new community of faith is formed at Roundhouse; that will be 'proper church' too.

It's taking time to develop a team to help me with what's developing at Roundhouse, and a number of local people are involved in helping create the community project planning. They're not necessarily involved in the parish church but they all have a heart for doing something in, and for, community.

I'm trying my very best to create a team but young professionals are understandably very busy. Many of them have got young babies or they're working full time, are in the process of setting up their own businesses, or work irregular shifts – so I am still doing most of the work on my own but I don't think there's any way round that at the moment.

This is an unusual area in that – although we have a German Lutheran congregation which meets at St Peter's – we do not have another church, of any denomination, in our parish. We are fortunate in that we have had some great support from Methodists who are not too far away and they have helped me to link up with regional Methodist projects, but there is no other Christian community on the doorstep.

Officially I have two-and-a-half years to go here but I hope I would be able to stay on as an associate priest licensed to the newer church. I don't know yet whether it will be a BMO but my aim would be to stay on in order to see it through because it is now generally recognised that seven years is the minimum time required to make something sustainable. We'll see!

church@five

Helen Shannon is an Ordained Pioneer Minister in the Diocese of London, serving at St Barnabas, Woodside Park. She oversees church@five and has plans for other estates in the area.

Strawberry Vale, East Finchley, is in the top 10% of the most deprived areas in England and I moved here with my husband Mark and family in 2008.

I'd been a young, single mum on one of the estates locally and had gone to church throughout my childhood but no-one had introduced me to Jesus. Then one day I walked into St Barnabas Church (known as St Bs) and I realised straight away that they knew him, they knew who they were worshipping and I came to know him too.

I got involved in children's work and did a lot of children's evangelism, eventually becoming the church's first full-time children's worker. I met and married Mark and, when I gave birth to my second son, we lived off an estate for quite a while but we were in a house on a busy road which had no soul, no heart and no community – I missed that strong sense of belonging! Strawberry Vale is not the estate where I lived in my late-teens and twenties but it's not too far away and I value all that it offers to us as a family.

I realised that it wasn't the case that people didn't believe in God in this environment; it was because they hadn't been introduced to Him – as I had been at St Bs, a New Wine Network Church. At the start I would have said that the gap was geographically too wide for people to come to church at St Barnabas; now I would say that for some the cultural gap is an issue too.

In the early days it was all about seeing what God was already doing here and serving the people; we hadn't decided that a church plant or a congregation plant was what we were going to do. I remembered what a blessing it had been to me to come into a church where I wasn't 'pigeonholed' as a single mum; I wanted that same experience of 'come as you are' for the guys on the estate.

In the end we set up a community congregation called church@five rather than a church plant; this gave me a large amount of freedom as to how it developed. If those who come along end up going to the 'big church' at St Bs, that's fine. It's also fine if they put down their roots with us.

I use the words 'community congregation' because the people here wouldn't have a clue about what 'fresh expression' means. The phrase, fresh expressions, covers a plethora of things and I don't think it would have helped the team either. I also went for community congregation because, from the start, I wanted to be able to replicate what we had done here elsewhere – that whole business of starting with the end in mind.

Encouraging indigenous leadership was also very much part of our thinking when the whole thing got off the ground. We really wanted to be a bridge between the estate and the church so that the people weren't isolated in their faith.

This is also about broadening horizons; one of the things about being in this sort of environment is that people can have very low expectations. We want to demonstrate that all of God's wonderful world and life is fully available to them whereas society would build estates with one road in and one road out to corral the people in there.

Well-meaning people can think there's a real problem communicating the gospel on an estate but I find a latent respect for the church here. The word 'church' is not an issue with people but communicating the gospel in a very real and honest way can be because they want to know, and quite rightly, how the gospel can change lives and make a very real difference day to day.

We have five or our six children at home now, ranging from 8 to 15, and my husband Mark is involved in every way in what we're doing here. He had to leave his work in the City because of chronic back problems but I haven't ever seen him so fruitful in ministry! If I'm out and about at meetings, more often than not he's the one who's around when people knock on the door with their problems or questions.

It all started by gathering people around us from St Bs who had a heart for the same kind of thing, we prayed and ate and talked and began to serve the community. We work with a partner charity called Hope House and started some youth and children's activities in the Green Man Community Centre which is run by the residents.

We joined the Centre's committee and, as we served, we heard God telling us that it wasn't to be just about children or young people; it was to be for the whole community – for us – bringing people together in community is a move of the Kingdom of God and by putting Christians back into the estate we reckoned that the whole place should undergo a shift, a change, after all it only takes a little bit of yeast to make the whole batch of dough rise.

We don't preach the Gospel at these things, instead we work together to see people achieve their goals and visions. It took about two years before the regular gathering together of a worshipping community. We had done Christmas and Easter events but it was always in our minds that the vision was not just for Strawberry Vale but also for neighbouring estates, The Grange and Market Place. But we got to the stage where we had built community, found people of peace, were talking Jesus with those people and had been praying with them. It was then very natural to bring that together in a weekly gathering.

Church@five now meets on a Sunday afternoon at the community centre. We have lots of cups of tea, an informal service around tables with sung worship, share community news, someone prays for our church and community, and then we have the offering because we wanted to build in the value of giving back to God right from the start. We read together from the Bibles, we always put Bibles in people's hands as soon as we can and we give away quite a lot of them, have a short interactive talk and prayer ministry time and drink more tea and then eat together.

We have got quite a lot of people from the estate helping with the midweek kids' work. It's hard going when developing indigenous leadership because some people live quite chaotic lives and to put them into a structure can be difficult.

One of our trainees had found it quite difficult to ask people help at in their midweek group, praying for them was fine but requesting that they might give us a hand was something else. But I told her that it was a very middle class way of thinking about things because most middle class people are working all the hours God sends and are struggling to find the time to do all the things they want to do with their families and everything else. However many of the people we're living alongside are jobless and society says to them they can't do anything.

One of the real issues they face is boredom and a lack of purpose. I encouraged the trainee to think of asking them to help as a fantastic gift, the chance for them to know they are contributing something.

Our team is made up of people who live on the estate, others very committed to the place but don't actually live here and a group who we call our 'scaffold team' – these are good, solid Christians who support the new Christians, encouraging and nurturing their growth. There are also those who come and serve on our teams or who act as Godparents, people who pray regularly for us.

We have already got some indigenous worship leaders, someone else who coordinates prayer and another who's taking a lead with hospitality. We are currently looking at how we might develop a discipleship year for some of the young people on the estate.

When we moved on the estate, we said that unless God moved us on, we would commit ourselves to being here for 10 years. We are still in very early days but we are now looking at how we gather another team to move on to the neighbouring estate at The Grange which is very different to Strawberry Vale. Every estate has got a different history and it's important to take that on board, it's so, so important. So, at the beginning, it's all about listening to people, doing research, and finding out what local people think of that estate, it all takes time.

St Bs has been absolutely brilliant about all of this. If I had done a church plant route I would have had to look to becoming self-financing and self-governing; but this way we can be missionally quick because St Bs is very generous with finances and provide governance/oversight for us. St Bs has always been missional but our experiences on the estates have sharpened that missional focus and helped form new ways of looking at things.

Hopefully this is a model that other big churches could apply, particularly in London where richer areas and poorer areas are cheek by jowl. If they can afford to finance it, they could put people in to live on these sorts of estates on their doorstep; people who will build community around them and look to see what Jesus is doing and then join in with Him.

Sidewalk

Inspired by a year working with Metro Ministries in New York, Barry and Camilla Johnston are connecting with non-churched children and youth in their area by going to where they are.

Every Saturday for eight months of the year (spring/summer/autumn), they take their yellow Sidewalk van to the same local park where local children gather to play. The team run an hour of activities that include songs, games, a memory verse, a drama based on a Bible story, three object lessons and a life lesson (cartoon story tying it all together). Though aimed at the children, parents and older siblings tend to watch from the back. Some are increasingly helping in minor roles and making suggestions of what would make it better.

For all the children they befriend, appropriate longer-term discipleship of those who want to know more about the Christian faith is one that the Sidewalk community takes responsibility for. They make regular visits to the families of the children that come and are starting to look to establishing a community house as a base for some who are involved.

The Sidewalk community who facilitate this ministry meet weekly for food and fun. They meet in the park to continue to build relationships with families there and then gather in a team member's home. In terms of the fresh expressions journey, they are now preparing for the stage of what kind of worship will sustain them. What kind of deeper spiritual disciplines or input is appropriate for the community that is made up of seasoned Christians, new Christians and not yet Christians that all play a part in making Sidewalk happen?

Being a multi-cultural area, they have found many of the kids coming to Sidewalk are from Muslim families. As cross-cultural mission engagement with Muslim children and their families is not common, there are limited resources available for this kind of ministry. Therefore, they are pioneering something very precious and learning as they go.