Blessed

Blesséd aims to impact the lives of younger people who do not relate to some traditional forms of church, but with a more 'ancient:future' perspective than some other fresh expressions. Simon Rundell, Parish Priest for the church of Saint Thomas the Apostle, in Elson of the Diocese of Portsmouth, works hard to nourish, support and facilitate Blesséd with a personal passion for gutsy mission. Simon is most definitely a visionary! In fact, a number of other sacramental initiatives have taken inspiration from Simon's work with Blesséd in and around South East England.

When you have nothing, the sacrament is everything.

Blessed - robesBlesséd is an unfunded, somewhat unloved and quite ramshackle loose collection of individuals seeking to draw deeply on the incarnational mysteries and views of the sacramental life and through that proclaim ancient truths in modern ways.

It has been a dream to realise Blesséd as a truly alternative, ecclesial community, to foster and support a non-parochial gathering which is centred upon the Eucharist. This has been a long, hard and quite frustrating process, as the necessary work which underpins this can get lost beneath the pressures of other things: of parochial commitments and responsibilities and lack of money and time. Frankly, I am not sure it is working well at present and not convinced that what we want is necessarily what God actually wants.

One of the most important things about alternative worship (and the spiritual communities associated with it which seek to 'reach out for God') is the recognition that we might, and indeed have the permission to, fail.

Blesséd makes in its own way, a significant yet small contribution to the sum total of 'creative worship' as a form of mission. It expresses a different perspective than some of the more protestant-influenced fresh expressions and irritates some in its insistence that the sacramental life touches everyone whether they know it, like it or dislike it. As with other fresh expressions, we are placed on the edge or outside of the Church BUT engaged with the local unchurched or dechurched culture.

Blessed at GreenbeltYet the outside is just where Church is called to be. This may not be a comfortable place, but it is from this vantage point that we can proclaim a transformative, newly-relational insight into society, following a God who calls us to engage with the wider community.

Being a fresh expression is inherently about struggle, about failing, as well as moments of success. In Blesséd numbers remain small, those who share in worship and support each other online are few and far between and weak and tired. And yet, that is what we are called to do – to support each other in our frailty, to gather in our brokenness to share in something tangible and yet powerfully inexpressible.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. Our very weakness, poverty and vulnerability are the source of our reliance on God.

So where does Blesséd go? If it isn't a formal, licensed, constituted or commissioned community, what then will it look like? It will, I sense, continue to be a roving resource and irritant: an inspiration to some and a folly to others; a burner of carpets and good ideas and a shot in the arm for those seeking to find a new place to encounter God in the Eucharist.

There is no agenda, just an openness to God. Pray for us, and help us to discern God's will. Until then, the altar is open and we, the people, gather to seek Christ present amongst us. Come.

The Welcome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Welcome - table

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

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

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