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The Well

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cortonwood

Lieutenant Catherine Dodd is leader of The Salvation Army in Cortonwood, South Yorkshire. She tells how their mission to 'go, gather and grow' has developed in the past six months.

I've been in church leadership for the past 10 years and had been serving part-time at Cortonwood since 2010 – alongside being the Officer (Minister) at an established Salvation Army church locally. In October 2013 I was appointed as the full-time leader here and Cortonwood was recognised by The Salvation Army as a new Church plant. We are situated right at the heart of our community, in a neutral venue above the Cortonwood Miners' Welfare Club.

Cortonwood was deeply affected by the miners' strike 30 years ago and the subsequent demise of the UK coal industry. Cortonwood Colliery closed and, as the biggest employer locally, this meant that life was changed forever for most of the families here. As a miner's daughter, I understand the culture and have a heart for the people of ex-mining communities.

It had been felt for some time that God wanted to do a new thing in the Dearne Valley, and so began the process of discerning the 'what' and 'where'. Since 2010, The Salvation Army had been experimenting with different ministries through the formation of a Dearne Valley Planting Team, which I was blessed to part of. Confirmation soon came that Cortonwood was the place where God wanted us to be.

There was no physical Church presence in Cortonwood – the Methodist Chapel closed a few years back, and the parish church is situated in a neighbouring village, but I always believed that God wanted to build a church here in Cortonwood. Furthermore, I discerned that it was never his intention to plant a Church by parachuting in a group of Christians. He made it clear to me that this new plant was to be formed from people within the community who, for whatever reason, were not engaging with a traditional, attractional model of church. He wanted it to emerge from us 'journeying out' and coming alongside the community, working with them and seeing what would develop – without being prescriptive as to what it would look like or what shape it would be. To have the freedom to be part of that from the very early days, and then go on to lead that, is a great blessing.

Initially, we did not have a base of our own and so we used various community venues as gathering places, which is something that we still do and are keen to maintain– we didn't want to go down the route of having one place that would be regarded as 'Church'. We have been blessed with the provision of our base at the Miners' Welfare Club, which provides us with office space, a community prayer room and multipurpose room – it's an accessible place where people can come along without it being a traditional Church building, which can sometimes be a barrier to people. We use it for some of our events, but by no means all.

One of the venues that we use is Costa Coffee. We have always had a good relationship with the manager there, and so when we were looking for a venue for worship we made an approach and we were delighted to be allowed to use this space. Since June 2012, we have used Costa as the venue for our now monthly worship event 'The Gathering', where we meet after hours on a Sunday evening. It's an event which is aimed at unchurched people, where there is good coffee, conversation, live music and opportunity to pause for thought.

We were very keen to have multiple connection points with our church. Some of the activities that we are currently delivering include weekly school's ministry, Toddlersong, food drop-in (with budgeting advice on offer too) and a Community Choir. Since January 2014, a weekly informal and conversational cell group has commenced which we call 'Time & Space', giving people an opportunity to ask the difficult questions as they explore faith. It's beautiful to see how God brings that together. The people are shaping that time of worship themselves through partnering with the Spirit; that's the way it's got to be. We have some powerful prayer times and it's very raw; it's allowing people to 'be' where they are. We have got a lot of needs in this area and some people feel downtrodden; when they start to see their value in the eyes of God, it's quite a special moment.

The key to relevance, is, for me, all about being willing to be experimental and acknowledging that this is a valid form of church. It has to be fluid. Whatever we start, we are not going to put it on tablets of stone and continue with something ad infinitum; we view things in seasons, and we just go with it. I believe this missional community, this fresh expression, is not a 'stepping stone' to traditional church – it is certainly church in its own right; yes it's firmly rooted in Salvationist doctrine but we are not frightened to be quite pioneering in the ways we go and reach out to the community.

We want this to a place where people feel safe, welcomed and loved, where we can work out together what it means to be disciples of Jesus today as we serve the community of Cortonwood.

It's wonderful to see individual's lives being changed as God’s work develops. One of the guys, who is coming to food bank, wants to start to get involved in volunteering; we are also establishing a community allotment as a means of creating community, tackling food poverty by growing fresh fruit and veg for our food drop-in and caring for creation, and we are also seeing people from our local community get involved with this.

It's still very early days but it's a wonderfully energising thing to be involved in – you know that when you get up in the morning you are going to see evidence of what God's doing in people's lives. I have always had a heart for the unchurched and a real concern that people need to hear the gospel but can't – or won't – come to established church. At Cortonwood, we are seeing people engaging with our way of being Church who would not otherwise do so. It's so important to come alongside people in relevant ways as part of their community and leave it to God to engineer the conversation. We've seen that happening in all sorts of ways, including through the local school, where I have been involved for the past four years, and have recently taken on the role as School Chaplain. We did a whole school, in-school Messy Nativity and most recently a Messy Easter for all children and their parents.

Our next priorities will be serving people in practical ways by offering 'eating on a budget' (cook 'n' eat) sessions, and setting up as an Employment Plus Centre, where people can come along and receive help in their job searching. It's all part of discerning the current needs within our community and responding accordingly.

In January, Vicky Hughes joined our team as a part-time Community Development Coordinator. Her role is to develop the food bank and get our community allotment up and running. She will also ascertain community needs and put plans in place to ensure that we can, in the name of Jesus, do something to help towards meeting those needs.

Life can seem very busy at times as I seek to balance ministry and family life. As well as leading this church plant, I'm also doing a MA in Aspects of Biblical Interpretation through London School of Theology. Distance learning can be difficult and the 10 hours of study per week can be tricky to fit in but I carry on with what God has set before me; I always find that he gives me the time I need to do what he wants me to do. I never feel overwhelmed in any way, and firmly believe that Cortonwood is where God has called me to be.

Church has got to be accessible for people. We need to be available to our communities, to love them and be prepared to journey with them in an authentic way. When we move away from our perceptions of how church should look and abandon ourselves to the Spirit, then we see God do amazing things. It is a joy to behold. Lord, may your Kingdom come, your will be done in Cortonwood, as it is in heaven.

Life Church

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Eagles Wings

Eagles Wings is a church plant and community service ministry on a housing estate in Northamptonshire. It was founded by two neighbouring churches.

Two Northamptonshire Church of England churches were running a community ministry on a nearby council estate. A children's club and a family activity were each held monthly, while a team of 17 met every Tuesday evening to pray, worship and plan. Every member of the team lived outside the estate, but there was a growing desire to develop the monthly activities into church.

In 2005 the Diocese of Peterborough invited Richard Priestley and Mandy Priestley, of Church Army, to live on the estate. The Priestleys inherited a team, which they had to get to know.

Our first task was to live and to listen, to try to understand the team and to share a vision for how the church might look,

says Richard.

The vision was to create a community church, where a shared life might become evident.

Richard and Mandy along with the team spent the first year on the estate learning how to model Christian community. Richard and Mandy operated an open door policy to their home, encouraging the team members to eat with one another and setting the example by inviting members to eat with them regularly.

We opened ourselves up to them,

says Richard.

We tried to make the regular gatherings more social. We encouraged prayer for one another as a group, not just for the events and mission. We were modelling a fresh expression of church.

Eagles Wings: 'A place of refuge, a place providing spiritual food, help for practical problems and a listening ear'

The team began to share a vision for a church that would be

a place of refuge, a place providing spiritual food, help for practical problems and a listening ear.

One of the team's families moved house to live on the estate, while a few estate residents began to join in with the team's Tuesday night meetings.

Two types of members were forming in the now growing team: those living on the estate and those living outside, a development which caused Richard to experiment with dividing the team into two along these lines.

This caused some tension, but it helped us all to understand the needs of the estate,

Richard reflects.

We talked and listened through the problems and produced a different approach.

Two groups were formed but with mixed membership.

The process was helpful for community building and awareness of incarnational ministry, a focus of the mission itself,

Richard adds.

Some members left the team, partly as a result of this time of change, which proved a turning point in members' realisation of their commitment to Eagles Wings. While some wanted to continue, others realised that their time of involvement with the new community was over.

They left with a blessing,

Richard says.

We gave permission for the tired members to stop, and we ended one of the events as it was not working in the way it was intended.

Eagles Wings is now heavily involved on the estate. It runs youth work and children's activities and partners with other groups such as a Neighbourhood Learning project, which runs cookery courses for low income families, among other things.

Mandy and members of Eagles Wings run a breakfast club at the primary school, which makes contact with parents on the estate, and there is a partnership with a bicycle recycling project. A weekly Sunday tea reflects its vision for sharing and socialising with the local community. Held in a parish hall with around 55 participants, it has taken on 'an identity and a life'. Members have a chance to lead and contribute to the input.

A time of reflection is followed by tea. For a short period of time they tried once a month to have a reflection extending to half an hour of worship as 'a bridging event' for those who are drawing nearer to full participation in church life. This experiment did not work and was not continued. Other ways to bring people to worship are being sought. Small groups take place on alternate Tuesdays, with a central meeting for teaching and worship on the other Tuesdays.

Our vision is for a growing church, but our method is organic,

Richard says.

We want to be a community of faith that by its nature draws people to God, nurtures disciples and sends to mission.

St Thomas the Apostle, Groombridge

St Thomas the Apostle, Groombridge – an Anglican church on the Sussex/Kent border – would describe itself as 'a Eucharistic parish', says minister Tony Fiddian-Green.

Communion services take place twice every Sunday. Four or five times a year a 'café Eucharist' replaces the main morning service, and Tony is also involved in a Eucharist with the church school.

Tony prepares the children for this termly event with three preceding classes, during which they trace the practice of Eucharistic fellowship back to the Exodus, through to the Upper Room in Acts and on to the parish.

Every time we do it we recapture the stories, and they do remember,

he says of the children.

At each service the children are involved with the prayers, readings, candles, banners, drama and music and the offertory, which includes a basket of cracker biscuits or matzo bread, chosen because of the biblical references to 'thin' bread.

'We have a celebration of the Lord's resurrection every time we practice the Eucharist. We get together, remember Jesus, and break bread.'

However, not all the school children are confirmed.

Having a school Eucharist would be bewildering for pupils who learn about it and then can't receive,

Tony says. So while those are who are confirmed receive, children who are not leave with the gift of a portion of blessed bread and a carton of juice.

This is an idea inspired by the Orthodox tradition where believers receive communion rarely, and after much personal preparation, but may leave a service with blessed bread on ordinary occasions.

Then there is the Café Eucharist to which the normal congregation is encouraged to invite their neighbours.

It's a fellowship breakfast really, with the breaking of bread in the middle,

explains Tony.

Non-churchgoers come to these services, held in the church hall, as well as the usual congregation of up to 100, which means that as many as 130 people can be present.

Tables for eight are laid with cloths and flowers for a simple breakfast of croissants and rolls. The service includes a two or three minute talk and the consecration of the elements with the words of institution. The bread and wine are passed round the tables from person to person.

Those who come often say they didn't know church could be like this,

Tony says.

We have a celebration of the Lord's resurrection every time we practice the Eucharist. We get together, remember Jesus, and break bread.

Eden

When, in 2001, Deanery Youth Missioner Derek Spencer began researching youth work among the parishes in his Horsham area deanery, he found that nothing was on.

He invited young people connected with his 20 local, largely village churches to fortnightly meetings. One was held in a village hall, the other in a grammar school, both at different ends of the deanery to make the groups widely accessible.

With an emphasis on the social aspect of the Sunday evenings, the initial twelve members grew over a year to 35 Christians and non-Christians, who were keen to attend every week regardless of distance. As a result, the two groups amalgamated.

The best youth work is done in social events when the guards come down and they are relaxed,

Derek believes.

We built in a spiritual programme, but it was relaxed, not hard-line, a platform for their questions.

Further activities included a week's camping and a weekend away in a forest cottage, events still regarded as highlights.

'The best youth work is done in social events when the guards come down and they are relaxed'

Derek had also been visiting local schools, giving lessons and assemblies. The drama hall of the largest struck him as a potential venue for a service.

I spoke to the young people who were excited about using their school for God,

he says.

A meeting was held in Derek's own home – of those he had approached from among the adults of the deanery, including some parents – to pray and plan. A pilot service in 2003 led to Eden, a monthly, Sunday evening multimedia service, often employing zones (which people could dip in and out of), and with the freedom to grab coffee or coke at any time. While generally around 100, for special events such as a visit from Matt Redman, numbers can rise dramatically as young people and interested adults come from across the diocese.

In 2004, Derek was ordained in a unique training programme, a development in his personal journey, and this has enabled Eden to hold services of Holy Communion, often using material from the Iona Community. Derek's ordination to priest was held during an Eden service at the school.

Despite Eden's diocesan-wide appeal, Derek is concerned for the youth he began with, many of whom count Eden as their church and who were uninvolved with church previously.

'I don't want it to become just another church; I want to keep original and keep pushing the boundaries'

I want to make church for them,

he says. In 2005, Eden became a fortnightly service, alternating between a service and a 'talkzone' which takes the form of a public debate between local experts, followed by discussion groups and feedback. An extra service was held on Easter Day

to show that Eden is a church.

Derek foresees the ongoing youth groups amalgamating within Eden to become weekly cells and Eden itself happening weekly. In the meantime, it already has its own bank account and support from donations.

I don't want it to become just another church,

Derek says.

I want to keep original and keep pushing the boundaries.

What began with twelve local teenagers meeting in two different spots has grown into a fortnightly Eucharistic gathering held in a school, attended by around 100 young people and adults with a vision to grow into deeper fellowship.

River Community Church

Steve Kelly, of River Community Church, is Assistant Rural Dean in Telford Deanery and fresh expressions advisor in the Diocese of Lichfield. He would never have described himself as a pioneer.

My wife Maggie and I have always had a sense of adventure and we like to travel light. That means we've always been willing to 'get up and go' wherever God leads us. After hearing a calling from God in 2003, I left my career in the car industry to train to be a vicar. I have always had a heart for evangelism and outreach and after my training as a curate had been completed in 2008, Bishop Alan Smith approached me with an idea for my first post.

He asked me if he would be interested in drawing on fresh expressions' methodology to explore the possibilities of a church plant in Telford. My main brief was to reach those who weren't connecting with the established church.

My exposure to fresh expressions had been churches doing it on the side. Most of these were expressions of outreach from churches seeking to engage in mission and outreach. The opportunity in Telford was to grow a new church in a new community and it wouldn't be part of any existing church.

I was given a blank sheet of paper to engage with a community of 150 houses that would increase to over 3,500 in the next few years.

In 2008, we moved to Telford and became part of the community. Initially there wasn't a place within the community people could gather – no pubs, no cafes – so we worked with others in the development of a community garden. We slowly began to build relationships with others who also had a heart for community. The garden provided a place for people to meet each other and we ran a series of outdoor family events for those in the neighbourhood.

In Christmas 2008 the neighbours asked if we could organise something called 'carols on the green'. It was an informal outdoor carol service which over 100 people came to. After the popularity of the event, we ran a 'taster event' in the local school and asked people for their views about the timing and style of a community worship event. It was decided that a café-style event at the local primary school would be most welcomed.

A hybrid of café church, Messy Church and charismatic church, we were delighted that people came. It started quite small but that monthly event has remained as an enduring feature of what we do.

Just over a year later, River Community Church was officially launched in June 2010. It is a church community which has a real mixture of people at its heart. The church has drawn some who already have a strong faith, some who have come to faith, some who have returned to their childhood faith and some who have seen what's happened and are thinking about the next step.

Right from the start, the leadership team have been excited by a 'kingdom vision', a vision of the growth, transformation and healing that comes when God's love and power begin to touch people's lives. We have tried to keep the church community focused on incarnational mission. Whilst some aspects of church life are 'attractional' by their very nature, we have continually emphasised the need to be outward-looking, bringing blessing to our neighbours and the local community.

Like Paul, we believe that God is able to do much more than we can dare to ask or imagine. As we have prayed about this, we have been inspired by the vision in Ezekiel chapter 47. In this prophetic vision, the River flows out from the place of worship (the temple) and out into the desert. We read that trees spring up on the banks of the River. These trees remind us of the vision we have of our church – rooted, flourishing and fruitful. We believe that this is also vision of what God can do today – in Telford! The River speaks of the life and power of the Holy Spirit. So we have given our church the name River Community Church. It expresses our desire to be a church OF the River, a community BY the River, a people IN the River… and that's what we're praying for!

Living Place Project

Revd Chris Lewis tells how Mount Zion Baptist Chapel has turned a piece of its ground into a training garden as part of a Living Place Project. This project is generating 'spin offs' which are helping Chapel members to begin reconnecting with the community.

Mount Zion is still called 'the Mission'. Founded after World War I as a daughter church of a nearby Welsh language chapel, Mount Zion was designed to have a more missionary emphasis in catering for the growing English-speaking population of this part of east Swansea.

Like many chapels it dwindled but about three years ago we had an opportunity to apply for funding from the Welsh Government to improve the overgrown and rubbish-strewn area behind the chapel to make a training garden. This would be used to encourage people in our relatively deprived area to grow their own vegetables and improve their diets.

Working on the garden caught the imagination of a local secondary school head teacher. Soon, parties of young people began to get involved as part of the 'community service element' in their Welsh Baccalaureate programme. Some came in their own time and have since started attending our fairly informal Sunday afternoon services.

The garden has taken three years to create and now further funding from Health Challenge Wales will enable us to run courses linked with it. Local adults who were previously involved with Mount Zion through Girls and Boys Brigade hold it in some affection and the word is gradually getting around that the apparently quiet little chapel is still alive.

There are not many of us – we make double figures on a good day – but we're beginning to be approached about hosting community events. These include a performance of short plays written by the school pupils, a craft evening, a community archive evening and a 'visioning workshop' by the Transition Swansea organisation. We hope we might also become an outlet for the Trussell Trust food bank.

Slowly but steadily our network is re-growing. Our approach is not about preaching but it is about incarnation, befriending and responding. Incarnational ministry is reflected in our immersion in, and solidarity with, the area and its distinctive culture. Our pattern of ministry draws on the values of service represented in the church. One member, for instance, is a long serving councillor while others have had trade union and other community connections.

Our project definitely has a missional purpose but exactly how it will work out is not clear yet. The base is a small and traditional Welsh chapel congregation which may continue in parallel with a new congregation. To some extent, we are legally constrained by our governing document (the Baptist Union model document) but there are clauses within it which encourage the advancement of education and befriending of young people; it's on the basis of these that we're going ahead with this particular aspect of the work. Our underlying strategy is incarnational and is not necessarily therefore aimed at creating an institution but to be, in some sense, transformational in the lives of those associated with it. Transition Swansea recognises our project as one run on Transition principles – and its members, with or without church connections, visit us.

The result might be a classed as a 'para church'. As someone who spent a considerable part of my ministry in what used to be called 'Industrial Mission', I am reminded of the work of Ted Wickham as Industrial Chaplain in the Diocese of Sheffield many years ago. The then-Bishop of Sheffield, Leslie Hunter, had appointed Ted Wickham to further the Bishop's "vision of a revitalised Church and a Church re-established among the industrial working class."

Ted gathered together working people who were alienated from the institutional church. Their meetings were informal and he used to say that the job of the church was not to fish in the dirty waters of the world in order to transfer people to the clean waters of the church but to work to clean up the dirty waters.

That is what we are doing here In Swansea. According to government indices, we are operating in what is recognised as a deprived area. The training garden aims to address some of the resulting issues and later this year we hope to add the food bank. We are also looking to try and find opportunities for our growing number of teenagers to express themselves in arts and performance as they have a lot of interest, quite a bit of talent and a great deal of goodwill!

Springfield Church

Will Cookson is minister of a 'church that was a fresh expression before the term was invented'. He tells how important it is for fresh expressions of church to keep on reinventing themselves.

Watch Will Cookson and Sue Bosley discuss multiplication not duplication (transcript available on the update Oct12 link to the right).

Springfield Church was originally set up by Holy Trinity Wallington in 1992 to reach out to the community. In 2002 it became what is known as an Extra-Parochial Place (EPP) in Southwark Diocese which meant we had no 'official' parish and no church building. Our two key objectives were, and are, mission and worship and we now have about 400 people of whom about 40% are under the age of 18.

Springfield's two congregations meet in different places in Wallington on Sundays at 10.30am. The larger one gets together at Wallington High School for Girls while our second is the Springfield@Roundshaw cafe church which meets at St Paul's church on the Roundshaw estate.

The thing about a fresh expression is that over time it can become regularised in the way it does things so it has to re-discover itself. To an extent, when I came here almost 10 years ago that was what had happened to Springfield; it had got set in its ways. The thing that cried out to me was to go to a cell church model because everything has to be relational if it's going to 'speak' to people outside inherited church.

We are doing this through a whole series of different things, such as a Christian club at a local school (Xplore), Messy Church in the same venue (Footsteps), parent and toddler group transformed into Messy Church format, as well as cell groups and various ministries – such as an English conversation class – planted in the community. When we were asked by the vicar at Roundshaw estate to plant a new congregation in that area, we sent out 25 people and now average about 40 at the café church. Most of those who have joined come from the estate itself.

We have a huge focus on relationships and building events and ministries that reinforce and complement each other. To my mind, too many Messy Churches have focused on trying to get the numbers in and getting the event done efficiently. We concentrate on the relationships that people can make there and – as a result – have seen friendships growing, families joining us for other events, parents getting involved to help and some becoming part of Sunday congregations, cell groups and taking part in Alpha courses. The social events organised by those different cell groups look to encourage community and it may take one, two or three years for people to get involved to that level – but that's OK, it all takes time.

The common problem for many churches is that they have some great ministries but they are stand-alone and don't benefit from the relational overlap. So, for example, children come to Xplore on Mondays after school with their families invited to our monthly Messy Church. Those in Year Six are given invitations to our youth outreach The Mix, again every month, at a local community centre. The larger-scale events we put on are never officially advertised; we prefer to use word of mouth and ask people and families if they'd like to come along. Feast in the Field attracts about 600 people as a community event with laser quest, assault courses, Scalextric and face painting among other things. We also take up to 600 people to the cinema at Christmas. If we advertised I am sure that we could get larger crowds in but we would lose out on relationship building. We find that the more that we overlap and inter-connect what we do, the more that people are interested and able to take the next step in their faith journey.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will be visiting Springfield Church to help us celebrate our 20th anniversary next year by preaching and presiding at our Sunday morning service on 18 March. It's a wonderful recognition that churches such as ours are now integral parts of the Church of England and no longer an oddity! The Archbishop's visit is a practical sign of his enthusiasm for this mixed economy and a huge encouragement for us.

Springfield has always been a different sort of church. We were a fresh expression before the term was invented! The thing with many fresh expressions is that as their communities mature then it's all too easy for them to revert to 'normal' church mode.

We really emphasise to our leaders that the focus shouldn't be on the task but on the people they're seeking to serve and reach for Christ. This has led to a real depth of community with a very high level of participation; about 80% of our congregation is involved in something.

The important thing for anyone involved in a fresh expression to remember is that we're here to reach the unchurched. The disenchanted Christian and dechurched Christian will also come our way but keeping that outward focus is vital if we're going to continue in our true calling.