methodist Archives - Page 2 of 5

Easton Methodist Church

If the doors of the imposing Grade II listed Easton Methodist Church were kept closed, passers-by on the local high street would miss all that goes on inside throughout the week.

So, says minister Chris Briggs,

We have the doors open.

That way, the residents of Easton, a semi-rural town on the Portland peninsula, can know that the church is there for them, whether it is open for a service on Sundays or a coffee morning during the week.

An event on Friday mornings has integrated the church’s offering of both community and gentle evangelism since early 2005. A café opens for one and a half hours from ten o’clock in an alcove in the large church premises. It serves speciality drinks and simple food at waited tables laid with cloths and flowers. Background music is Christian, but – Chris says – this probably helps to create ambience more than carrying a deep message.

Because we are waiting on people, they are greeted, and so are gathered up in a welcome,

Chris explains.

We try to make it obvious – there is a big banner outside reading ‘Café Church’.

The idea is to indicate that elements of both ‘church’ and ‘café’ are present at the same time.

‘We have the doors open’ – that way, people can know that the church is there for them

Those who visit Café Church come from a variety of churches on the island and from none. Up to a quarter of those attending can be from no church.

Team members sit at the café tables ready to chat and talk, and Christian literature is on each table, including perhaps a short printed liturgy for one of the ‘God slots’ which punctuate the morning.

Everyone quietens and listens,

says Chris.

The idea is to provide food for thought.

Alongside the café is a chapel area created by use of screens. Within is a candle gate, a prayer board and an open Bible.

Spontaneously people go off in twos and threes and pray for one another,

says Chris.

Sometimes the chapel area is well used, sometimes we wonder whether anyone has been in there at all, but there is usually evidence that someone has.

Lighting candles and pinning notes on a prayer board can be a non-threatening way of offering prayer. Both churchgoers and non-churchgoers use the chapel area.

Chris describes Café Church as containing

elements of church in itself. For many it is a time of fellowship,

he says.

Once in the doors, people find a warm and welcoming community, while the Christian element, though obvious, is not heavy.

By drawing its separate offerings of coffee mornings and church services together in one weekly ‘Café Church’, up to 40 local people are finding that the doors of the church are open for them.

Feltwell Chapel

When Matt Finch became co-minister of ten Norfolk Methodist chapels in 2002, he inherited a fortnightly Bible study among the largely elderly congregation of Feltwell Chapel. It was well attended by six members of the church and several others from neighbouring villages.

Matt describes the 15 members of Feltwell as having

a passion to do things differently.

The Bible studies provided helpful fellowship, but while undertaking a CPAS course on evangelism, 'Lost for Words', Matt became aware of a deep dissatisfaction among the chapel members. The course helped highlight the despondency people felt about the state of their church.

They asked, 'What can we do with this?'

he says.

'We can't do a mission course and not change.' There were lots of mumblings about church not being right.

What needs to change? 'We can't do a mission course and not change'

Matt took a big sheet of paper to a Bible study and brainstormed with the chapel members how they would like church to look in the future. He typed up the results, brought them along to the next meeting and presented the chapel members with a clear picture of their 'desire to be connected'.

They were there every Sunday but never connected,

he says.

They wanted to know who sat in church with one another.

At that time a building project was under discussion. Now it was scaled down – bar essential changes such as disabled access – in favour of instituting a new way of being together on Sunday mornings.

Such was the enthusiasm that the new model of church began the very next Sunday with each member offering to take responsibility for certain elements. They each agreed to play their part in arranging coffee before the service, to sit around tables and to have an interactive sermon and shared prayer time. To meet all needs, traditional services happen on occasion, still around the café tables.

'They were saying they had always had baptisms and communion but not community. Now they are sharing each others' lives.'

Because I wasn't there every week it was hard, but a real understanding developed,

Matt says.

They were saying they had always had baptisms and communion but not community. Now they are sharing each others' lives. Some of the members pray together regularly, and they are in pastoral circles in which they each take responsibility for one another.

This recognition of a congregation's responsibility to care for one another without reliance on the minister is especially important in a rural setting where clergy are spread over several locations. A key lay worker has also undertaken a commitment to Feltwell to assist when the ministers are unavailable.

Matt describes the chapel as still

a long way from being truly missional,

but since its changes in 2005 several non-churchgoers have become interested. A baptism family was so 'blown away' by how the chapel had changed that the parents now want to marry at Feltwell and even, if possible, have a café style wedding.

Matt puts down Feltwell's growing success in building community to a new freedom on the part of chapel members to question and disagree with the preacher, and to a new involvement with one another.

They weren't happy with what happened on Sundays, but they still wanted to worship on Sunday mornings,

he says.

Feltwell's worship is culturally specific, but the underlying principle is of something that connected with them and helped them to love one another.

3six5

Methodist minister Andrew Pakes began to develop an emerging congregation, called 3six5, in October 2000 – alongside his ministry in a traditional setting. He describes how things have moved on since then.

I became a 'minister without appointment' in September 2004 in order to concentrate on emerging congregation. In 2000, I took a sabbatical to reflect on what the church may look like in the 21st Century.

As I fed back the findings to my congregation, about five people came to me and said they would like to be part of the church I had described. The five then grew to 10 and in a few months we asked our circuit's permission to begin forming the church we imagined.

The small congregation developed through friendship and community involvement. In the beginning we encouraged each other to take an active part in the local community in various ways, such as becoming a school governor, joining the local PTA or attending the local residents' association meetings. If there was a local quiz night, they would enter a team. This helped us to make friends and to get to know and love the community of which we were a part.

As 3six5 we agreed to keep meetings to a minimum and free ourselves to spend time with family, friends and colleagues. Making and building friendships is all important – as is praying that those friendships will go on to see the development of a relationship with Jesus.

There is a real sense of the Spirit of God abroad in the community and we find His Spirit wherever we go. And it isn't just locally; In nearby Kingston-upon-Thames we can see God's creativity all over the place.

Together, 12 years later, we continue to grow in faith and make friends as we meet twice a month. We will firstly get together once a month on a Saturday for food or to take part in an activity together and we frequently share bread and wine. Then the adults also meet for supper at another time during the month at someone's home to share in a discussion about life and faith and important matters of the day.

It has been a difficult journey for me to become a 'minister without appointment' to lead 3six5, but God has been faithful and kept His hand on the work that we are involved in. As a result, 3six5 has become a congregation within the community.

We will never know how many people have become Christians through 3six5, indeed it's not a question we would ask, but – in terms of the number of people with whom we have shared stories, experiences and time – the numbers must run into hundreds.

This is a movement of ordinary people and it's not easy to define or pin down as it is constantly changing. We try to view everyone as being a member of 3six5; it's a matter of opting out rather than opting in!

Church @ Community

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bridge

When Christians in Hinckley decided they needed a viable alternative to traditional church, they decided to try something completely different. Now a school and a local pub are the places where people come to worship and to learn. Tim Lea explains more.

The sort of people who come to The Bridge and are attracted by what we do and the way we do The Bridge, are folks who perhaps don't have any contact with church at all. There's a growing percentage of the population which fit that category.

The Bridge's worship time does take place on a Sunday, between the hours of 5 and 7. People will often come and they are surprised by how traditional it can be. We do make use of worship songs and we make use of what we call performance or presentation songs – it will involve the children right at the very beginning which often can be pretty wacky and pretty lively, they then leave for their own activities and we go into a time where we begin to look at a particular issue and focus on what the bible might be saying about something.

That is only the tip of the iceberg and what goes on underneath, the remaining 90% of the iceberg, is really important.

The Bridge started off by doing some research, some door to door work right at the very beginning, to actually find out what people thought, what they expected. So one of the reasons we meet on a Sunday, in a school, at 5pm, is that people in the local community thought that that would be a better time to meet.

We have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams by the Hinckley Methodist Circuit and its commitment to The Bridge, not only in terms of finances but also in terms of staffing.

We've been involved in running an Alpha course at the local pub and I've always dreamed of standing at the start of an Alpha course with a pint in my hand and saying it's good to see you here, I hope that over the next few weeks we will begin to explore some of the things that we believe about Christianity and what it has to say about the world we live in. So for me it was perfectly natural!

It's not possible for everybody to get to know what they need to know in 40-50 minutes on a Sunday, I think that's just unrealistic and an unhelpful model of what church is. I think it's far more realistic to begin to form a small group and to begin to thrash out some of the ideas, some of the teachings which Christ gave to us.

The danger is that we live with a model of church that means it runs parallel to society and the way society runs, whereas actually I would rather encourage people to be involved in society and be part of society and to live out their Christian faith in society.

People sometimes ask, where does your church meet? When people now ask me that question I will think about the social worker who perhaps will be dealing with a very difficult child on a Wednesday afternoon, the person who is a gardener… there is no divide between what we claim to practice on a Sunday and what we live out during the rest of the week.

For anyone who wanted to set up something like The Bridge in their town, I would say just keep it simple and laid back and eat together, talk together, pray together… I would encourage people to dream because I think that God is a God of adventure and he loves to see people who are Christians, who are followers of him, taking a risk and daring to do something different – because I'm sure that in many ways he's got a smile on his face when he sees us. OK we've made mistakes, we've got dirty, muddy, disillusioned and fed up, but I know that I'd rather stand before God when the final day comes and say 'I tried', than to have sat and been comfortable and to have never tried in the first place.

Berkswich Luncheon Club

Barbara Rigg reports on a fresh expression for older people in Stafford.

We should never assume that only in deprived inner city areas is there a need for the church to have neighbourly concern and involvement. In our experience at Berkswich Methodist Church we have found that in a relatively affluent leafy suburb of Stafford there are many people who feel isolated and lonely.

Forty years ago many young families moved into new housing in this area. The children are now grown and have flown the nest, leaving residents who, though elderly, still are eager for life and have much to offer.

We at Berkswich hope that in some small way we are helping to address the situation. Let me introduce: Berkswich Luncheon Club

It was about five years ago when two or three of us, quite independently, thought that a church luncheon club would be a good idea. Our minister, Jeff Reynolds, was enthusiastic. Some of us youngsters (we're all over sixty) who were to become the cooks attended the local college to gain qualifications in food safety; and we were ready to start.

We now have about sixty members and have had to start a waiting list, as we cannot physically cater for more. We serve a three course meal of good home cooked food at a cost of four pounds. (Our generation does not need Jamie Oliver to tell us what's good for us).

We have after lunch entertainment; very often provided by our own members. In school holidays grandchildren entertain with dance, juggling or magic tricks. Highlights of our year include the birthday celebration, a summer outing and a traditional Christmas dinner. Each year any excess income we give to a worthy charity.

Our guests are by no means all members of our worshipping community. Referrals and requests come from many quarters. However, we view the Luncheon Club as more than just a social gathering for the community. It was set up to be church in a totally different setting. Our aims are to be a church congregation that meets monthly on a Wednesday lunchtime and to offer the challenge of the gospel through our hospitality, conversation and service. For many of our regulars, the Luncheon Club is their church and we hope that it will continue to grow into an established church community within the existing church structures.

For the future, first of all we'd love a new kitchen. We would like to start to have a lunch fortnightly with two groups of guests; there are many people who could benefit and we don't like to have a waiting list. We have also thought of tea dances (after all we are the Victor Sylvester generation).

Our neighbours, the local comprehensive school are interested in sending some of their older pupils to help, as part of their social awareness programme.

Some of our members say:

Christian care and compassion; fellowship, conversation, entertainment; good food at a reasonable price; fresh flowers, real tablecloths and much more.

A monthly 'High Day' with delicious home cooked food served by lovely helpers in an atmosphere of warm friendship and good fellowship.

A welcome opportunity for us oldies to meet old and new friends. We are greeted by smiling workers in caps and aprons. We are grateful to all involved, including the men who give lifts when needed.

X-treme

Lyn Edwards, project leader of the Shackles Off youth project in Cumbria, explains the development of its fresh expression of church, X-treme.

Shackles Off provides support, training, a safe space, advocacy and mentoring for 11 to 25-year-olds, as well as youth clubs and activities. We have always had a prayer box on our counter in the former shop we use as a base but we wanted to provide something much more intentional. Some of us decided to sit and pray in the premises on a Sunday morning – whether anyone else came or not. X-treme, as our fresh expression, came out of that.

The project as a whole had started as a result of three vivid dreams that God had given me during a holiday in the Lake District. I returned to my home in Pembroke and announced the move to Seascale. We did that in 2006 and then I became involved in the HOPE 08 initiative. Some friends and I drove a 'HOPE Mobile' – a Citroen Picasso with a HOPE sticker in the window – around the area but it enabled us to get to know the young people. With support from the village's three churches, we gave out snacks and built relationships.

I had walked past the shop I had seen in one of my dreams every day and noticed that the landlord was doing it up. One morning, I plucked up the courage to share my story. He didn't believe in God, but said if someone had moved house because of his premises, he would take my interest seriously. When I said we would fund rent through 100 people giving £1 a week, he laughed, but he trusted me.

After getting permission from the local council to secure the building, Shackles Off was launched. In 2007, we started X-treme as a place where we would talk explicitly about God. It runs from 9.45am to 11am on Sundays though when it first got off the ground, it was more like a discussion time for our young people. They would come with their mobile phones in hand and then we'd sit around. We had much of our music on a CD and they would laugh at us trying our best to sing. Not one of us who started the group could hold a note and the young people would be in hysterics listening to us. I also always did a very short bible study but our young people had no idea who the biblical characters were.

Right from the start we were up front about what we believed in, asking the young people if they wanted us to pray for anything. One of our first requests came from a boy who said his family always had mashed potato on a Sunday, could we pray that it wouldn't be made lumpy again?! But gradually those prayers got a lot more serious with requests like, 'Lord I want to stop drinking, please can you help me?' or 'Nan has cancer and I don't know what to do. Please help me.'

This pattern of meeting went on for at least two years, we'd have 10 or 12 regulars but nobody made a commitment. People used the prayer box; we talked about issues in their lives and made sure that anything we studied in the bible related back to their situations. We learnt bible verses off by heart – in fact they first learnt them by rapping them. Having been a teacher for over 30 years, I thought we had to find a way that they could remember so I ended up going on Google to find out how to rap! We started with John 3:16 and then we started to rap our own rap songs, we formed a group called The X-treme Rappers and the Strangled Duck and we would learn verses or hymns and stories like the Prodigal Son.

So we just kept on going, doing the traditional in a very untraditional way. They would ask me all about the things we can take for granted in church, things like, 'Why do you put your hand in the air when you pray?' 'Can I lie on the floor?' In the end they just did their own thing and nobody had any inhibitions in God's presence.

When we started, the youngest was 12 and the oldest would have been about 18. Most of them were about 14 or 15. On a Sunday there could be two or three coming along or we could have 12 to 15. They were the core who would say to their friends, 'Come and see what we do.' On a Friday night at Shackles Off youth club we would have 45-50. That was all great but I knew that the thing to make it complete would be to know just one person come to know Jesus.

In summer last year, the prayers were answered when we took 11 of them to Soul Survivor and nine became Christians. That totally changed everything. I can see that commitment in their lives and in their worship; it's now personal. It has changed them but, of course, it's a mixed picture. Some are intermittent and are struggling while others would go to a big event without any problem at all. This year we are taking 20 (13 young people and the volunteers).

God saves, not us, and he knows when people are ready. For too long I think the church has tried to force people into the Kingdom or seduce them into the Kingdom but it's got to be fruit that will last. All I'm doing is telling them about God and teaching them all the things they need to know. We go to a church with them if we are invited to take a service – there are usually three or four of those invitations a year.

For ongoing discipleship I tell them there are three things they need to do every day; namely talk to God, worship God and read his Word. To me it's that simple. If they do that, they will grow as Christians.

We have things that are causing big hurdles for us because we are a Christian-based project – not just a social project. We come under the Methodist umbrella but we also work with other denominations. At the Christian end of things we can be seen as being 'too social' while, in the light of our social commitments, we can be viewed as being 'too Christian'. It's an interesting balancing act!

Our next challenge is looking at the question of, 'How do we have communion in our drop-in centre?' We are talking that over with Methodist Circuit Superintendent Philip Peacock but the fact is that we are pushing boundaries and making the traditional churches think about how things have been done in the past and how they may need to change now.

Full immersion baptism is another issue. Some of the young people said, even though they had been baptised as babies, they wanted to publicly declare their faith and be baptised in the sea. We are hoping for baptisms and declarations of faith to take place in the sea at Seascale.

We have broken a lot of rules here but I don't mind because Jesus broke the rules, not the laws. The last thing we would want to do is to upset the churches around us so we get involved and help in any way we can. We come under pressure sometimes because people will ask us to come and plant a Shackles Off youth project in their area. I tell them to get together and seek God's face to find out what he wants in the place where they are – not to take on what someone else has done because it may not necessarily be right for them.

St Ives Café Church

St Ives Methodist Church, Cambridgeshire, hosts Café Church once a month. Minister Matt Finch explains how the church's new website has also helped to 'open the door' to newcomers.

We recently launched our new site and it is fascinating to see how it is being used. I'm finding that it acts as more of a front door than the church's real front door; I'm getting regular emails from people asking things like, 'how do you come to church?', 'Is it all right to just turn up at church or do I need a special invitation?' The internet allows them to step across the church threshold and allows us to step across the threshold into their world too. In time I hope the website will become a real focal point for what's going on so that it will create a community outside the building.

At St Ives Methodist, the journey has always been about a mixed economy approach. The pressure with that revolves around working with those folk used to established ways of doing things and those who bring in newer idea. I'd like to say that all parts of the church at St Ives are finding renewal in what we are doing but there are always going to be difficult and honest discussions about the best way forward.

For us at the moment, fresh expressions is about seeing what can be done with a real missional intention in this church setting. Café Church is a case in point; it is now attracting an average of 100 people – sometimes up to 130. For those folks there's no doubt that it's a real blessing; we've got an all-age band together and it's interesting that – apart from me and one other person – the Café planning team is made up entirely of people who weren't in the church three years ago.

Discipleship is developing through those planning meetings because we talk about faith as we look ahead and talk and work things out. We engage with people where they are and try to answer the questions they have.

We don't have to advertise the Café Church at all because it's all about drawing together different networks and making them feel welcome. Email is important and Twitter increasingly, because just one email will be sent around to everyone's personal network of friends. You just have to have the trust and confidence to let the information go out there and be distributed. It's a real joy to see how things develop; someone who has been on the fringes of church and is now café regular recently said, 'I want to be confirmed'. I'm still trying to work out what that would mean in a café context.

Café Church takes place from 10.30am on the 3rd Sunday of the month with tea, coffee and pastries served from 10am. We also offer a podcast from of every service Church for those who would like a taste of all our service without committing themselves to coming.

There is space to talk with others, join in the activities, reflect quietly, sing a song if you like or just read a Sunday newspaper. We know that lots of people want to talk about faith, even want to come to Church, but find a traditional service hard to understand, or boring to sit through, or just plain confusing.

As a church the children stay in every week because we had recognised that a traditional Sunday School wasn't working for us any more. We also understand that weekends are precious times for families to be together so we wanted to create a fun, engaging space where children and young people can feel welcome too.

We provide good quality children's toys and activities in the back corner of the church so, yes, it can be noisy at times but that's the way it is with children. I appreciate that some people can find that difficult but I've also had messages from others saying, 'The reason we have stayed with you is because you don't send our children out.' When they are encountering church for the first time they really don't want their kids to go out to another room with a stranger. They want to be together. I suppose we are making a stand for how families operate these days and changing our way of doing things in order to accommodate those who know nothing of the way that churches traditionally work.

For those looking for a creative and engaging place to think about God, we have a monthly alternative worship service called Breathe. Some of those who come along have been Christians for many years while others would struggle to identify themselves as Christian and are just looking for a place to reflect on spirituality.

We also have a young adults group known as Phos (Ancient Greek word for light) trying to think through life and faith in the 21st Century. They meet in people's homes to look at various topics, talk about them together and pray. If I'm honest this is struggling a bit but trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us in what is next.

I've now been here for nearly four years and the idea is that St Ives Methodist Church should become a centre of excellence, a place which could inspire and change a whole Circuit. We have run the mission-shaped intro course for instance; we provide café resources for other churches, I meet with leaders and try to offer a central hub where people can find out more about this thing called fresh expressions of church. What does it look like in reality? What does it mean to be a place for waiting on God? We look at these things constantly and we know there is no such thing as a 'quick fix' as we see how God shapes what we do and around those who seem to like the idea of joining us.

New Song Café

New Song Café has been running at Bold Street Methodist Church, Warrington, for three years. Jackie Bellfield traces its story as a fresh expression of church.

It's amazing to think back to how it all got started and what our intentions were with it. The whole point was for it to be a stepping stone to some sort of gathering in a local Costa.

We did not anticipate that people would come in the numbers they did and we still welcome new people every month to the Bold Street Mission's church hall but we're not in Costa… yet! We're currently up to 125 and we'd struggle to fit more people in at the moment. About 30% of regular attenders now see New Song Café as their church and that number is increasing all the time. It's because New Song Café is offering them vibrant Christianity while creating community, building relationship and providing opportunity to explore issues of faith in a friendly, non-threatening environment.

New Song Café meets on the 4th Sunday of the month from 7pm to 9pm. In saying that, it never starts on time… we have local preachers who come along and point at their watches because people are still chatting to each other and having coffee at 7pm. They say they're ready to start but we tell them that we have already started because the chatting and the coffee and the being together is all part and parcel of it. That's what community is.

In a way, we are a bit unusual as a fresh expression in that the whole thing for us is about focusing on worship as the heart of what we do. Many fresh expressions discern that introducing worship may be later down the line for them in their development because so many people have so little experience of what it means to worship. For us, in our context, it is different.

When people arrive they'll get a coffee or tea and select from what is normally a mountain of cake on offer! They'll have a chat, I'll welcome them in – particularly anyone new, we may have a short video clip or something but then a worship band will lead us in singing 12 songs during the evening. We'll have a giggle and I'll tell a few stories and have a joke with people as we go on because it's important to celebrate people's presence.

We recently welcomed a special guest – Wolfie, the mascot for the Warrington Wolves rugby league team. People queued up to get a photo taken with him. Everyone really enjoyed that – except for fans of the club's local rivals, the Widnes Vikings!

Our band comprises drums, trumpet, keyboard and guitar. They really get things going and it's fantastic to see all the ages taking part – our oldest regular is 89 and the youngest participant was six days old. We've now got every age in between. There's also a great denominational mix among those with current and previous church links – mind you, some of those links have been very fragile; some have mums or dads who go to church but they have been fringe members themselves. New Song Café has helped them to get engaged on their own terms because of its very open environment.

We'll sing six songs, including two new songs every month, and then we'll have a break of about 25 minutes before singing a further six. In the past three years we have learned over 300 songs. If people are not accustomed to singing in public with others around them, they can be a little puzzled at the start of it all – but that's OK, we'll just give people time and space to get used to what's happening. After just one song, I can guarantee that the feet will start tapping and there maybe tears or they will be singing. People are really responding to the worship and those not linked to traditional congregations or fellowships now see New Song Café as their church.

We need to consider what we do next with New Song Café because we are at the critical stage of thinking about how we move it forward. One thing that is going to happen is that we will grow the New Song network to include a New Song Breakfast to again offer a very different style of church – though still in the context of worship. There will also be New Song Pub Church.

Some of those who come along have been disenfranchised or hurt by traditional church but they are seeing New Song Café as their future. In feedback from them they say they know they can also bring their non-Christian friends along with them because they know it's going to be consistently good and it helps them to start having godly conversations along the way.

There's no doubt that New Song Café is becoming a very loving and caring church. A key decision as things unfold is whether to create New Song Church as a separate entity or continue to operate under the authority of Bold Street Methodist. At the moment we decided to continue with the latter. This has been great and has really enabled us to see mixed economy in action; the established church has been really fired up because they see New Song Café developing. As a result they see the future of Bold Street – now part of Sankey Valley Methodist Circuit – as being more secure because of what we are doing. It really is mixed economy in action.

I love the traditional, I love the inherited but that alone is not going to be sustainable in its present form for the next 50 years. What will carry Bold Street through is the network of church communities developing. New Song has grown beyond what we ever imagined. Thinking back to the original idea for it all, we might well end up going into Costa and we have an invitation to do so but the next thing is Pub Church in a local bar on a Sunday night.

There are still so many questions of course. How do we grow this? How do we nurture it bearing in mind that some of the people feel disenfranchised with institutional church? How can we adapt our denominational system so that we can be more flexible in structure when things are developing? Could worship leaders, for instance, be licensed to a circuit rather than to a church? At the moment there are quite a lot of challenges around these things and it can be quite frustrating at times.

Sankey Valley Circuit has brought together the former Warrington, Widnes, St Helens and Prescot, and Ashton and Makerfield circuits. Its purpose is to release us for mission and it's wonderful that New Song Café certainly does tell others about Jesus. However, we know that New Song Café is not for everybody and that will also be true when we start up the Pub Church but we're happy with that because we are simply looking to create opportunities for godly relationships.

We have also set up discipleship evenings and between 18 and 25 people now come to that. Thirty five people also came on an away day to explore more about faith. People are being transformed by singing worship to God and the tears of freedom and liberation are phenomenal.

New Song Breakfast is just about to start from 9am to 10.15am at Latchford Methodist Church followed by a traditional Communion service. There will be half hour of bacon butties and then there will be a couple of video clips to prompt a discussion time. The same theme will be used for the New Song Breakfast and the Communion that follows.

Looking ahead, we have been discussing our strategy for future development and 20 people have made a commitment to the New Song Network. We are now exploring the future and are developing a variety of roles in leadership. To be honest, I'm just trying to keep up with it all. We've just given out a New Song calendar detailing what we hope to achieve in 2012. It says, 'Keep calm and pray on!'

The Lab

The Lab is a missional community of young adults in Newport, South Wales. Team leader James Henley explains more about its ministry and the development of its work as a fresh expression on the Alway estate.

We want people to feel that they can be part of The Lab no matter where they're from or what they believe. We try to be as welcoming and open as possible for people who are exploring their faith or who aren't used to church at all.

The Lab is made up mainly of people between the ages of 18 and 30, many of whom are students. We would describe ourselves as an experimental form of church but basically we're still a group of people trying to follow Jesus together.

The Lab was initiated by the Bishop of Monmouth five years ago in order to develop a church community of students and young adults in Newport who would otherwise not have contact with a traditional parish church. It involved trying to be church in a different way. At first we used to meet in a pub but now our gathering takes place on Sunday evenings in the hall of St Paul's City Centre Church in Newport City Centre. We also have a weekly community meal in which people take it in turns to cook and serve each other.

Things developed four years ago when The Lab began work in the Alway estate on the edge of Newport, identified as one of the most deprived areas in Wales. According to the 2001 census, nearly 50% of the population of Alway and the surrounding area is under the age of 25. Our aim was to form a residential community of young adults who would invest their time in the local community and build relationships with its young people.

The Diocese of Monmouth offered us a vicarage there and in September 2008, a group of four of us moved in and started to develop links with the community. At first there was suspicion because the local people found it very odd that we should want to make our home in Alway. Slowly but surely they grew accustomed to us but it has been hard at times. Unlike the approach of traditional evangelistic thinking we have not put on big events and asked people to come along to them. Instead our mission strategy has always been to be as pragmatic as possible and simply join in wherever we see God at work.

For instance, the parents of younger children in the area asked us if we could run some sort of summer holiday club. We did, and lots of families came along to join in. As a result we've had a lot more contact with the mums and dads.

What we do in Alway is constantly changing and expanding as new initiatives are developed and old ones are expanded. At the moment we are involved in youth work and a chaplaincy project at the local high school; primary and secondary school assemblies and RE lessons; youth and children's work in partnership with Bishpool Methodist Church and detached Youth Work. St Teilo's Church (Church in Wales) and Bishpool Methodist Church have been tremendous in working with us and building up contacts on the estate.

As a result of the partnership between these two different denominations we are accountable to both of them through different structures which have been created to support us. We also love to work closely with and support other local churches as well. The Lab is supported financially by the Church in Wales and the Methodist Church, though we also receive grants and funds from various organisations with further donations coming from Lab members and supporters. I am paid by the Diocese to work full-time as project leader.

The team has grown since we first got off the ground. Four people are now based in the old vicarage; me and my wife now live just down the road in another 'Lab' house. From September we will be taking on another youth work student who will be with us for three years and we also have funding for two gap year students to work full-time with the Lab.

One of the challenges we have encountered is people being interested in spirituality and faith – but as individuals not as part of a group. We think that perhaps this is the direction youth culture is going, as we seem to be meeting lots of young people whose reliance is not on a particular friendship group.

The other challenge is to marry up the gifts of the young adults who join us at Alway with the needs of the estate. Different people bring different skills so it's important to monitor who's doing what and where because things change. Our missional intention has always been to form relationship; if something looks like it's stagnating we are not afraid to put a stop to it and try something else.

In the next year or so I'd really like to see us developing some kind of church or forms of church with the groups of young people in this area. I'd also like us to build on the work we have just started with families. The long-term vision that we are exploring is what it would look like to plant a second Lab community in another area of Newport.

Part of the Welsh religious heritage is that the country was originally evangelised by small missional communities of monks. It seems fitting now that we are attempting to be part of a new wave in mission by essentially doing the same. That's inspiring and challenging!