school Archives - Page 3 of 3

The ARK

The ARK is a place where children and their families can learn about Jesus and explore their faith. Established in 2007 in Newmains, The ARK has since grown significantly and is aiming to make a real difference to the people of the area. Shona Stirling explains more.

We currently have 80 kids on our register and also run something called Oasis for adults, and a youth cell group for those in the first three years of secondary school. Plans are also in the pipeline for a new community project focussed on out of school support.

Oasis runs alongside The ARK in a cafe church style to give everyone the opportunity to learn about God's love, have fellowship and meet new friends over a cuppa.

Our support churches are Coltness Memorial Church and Bonkle Church; they are linked churches in that they have one minister but two of everything else. There has always been a real history of kids' work here but, over the last 10 years or so that work had started to decline. There were all sorts of reasons – changes in family life, different pressures on families, regulars getting older and a decline in the number of young families attending.

I was trying to make things more family friendly but was banging my head against a brick wall. Why did the numbers drop? Basically because we didn't have any influence at all with the kids in the village. As a result we decided to run a holiday club and see what happened, on the back of that we ran a kids' Alpha in the church at the same time as the adult course.

From that we established a core congregation of kids who were really interested, or who had come to faith from Alpha. We launched The ARK as a Tuesday night congregation, but from the beginning we made it clear that this was not an outreach from those meeting on a Sunday morning.

Sundays were definitely not the best time for something new as we've got a lot of single parent families in the area, and kids are either with the other parent at the weekend or the parent wanted to take them somewhere else. As everywhere now, there are also a lot of football clubs and sports clubs so there were lots of tired parents about. They were running around six days a week and, quite understandably, didn’t want to get up early on a Sunday.

It wasn't long before the Tuesday night sessions at Coltness Memorial Hall also had some of the parents coming along as well. They were using The ARK to dip their toe in the water, with the result that we had increasing numbers of adults there.

After another tranche of Alpha on a Tuesday, several parents formed a group to meet on a Tuesday night. For the children, we started off as being for five to 12-year-olds; then it became five to 13, and now it’s five to 14. We have grown up with them!

A particular challenge is trying to bridge the gap for kids between singing and worship. Traditionally we are very strong on sung worship in church but not everyone likes to sing. I do teach sung worship to kids and I do expect that we should sing but I also recognise that there are lots of people who express themselves differently.

We went on to introduce flags because some of our boys who hate singing really love flags. We are not getting it 100% right all the time by any means but we do talk about worship as a response to Jesus, and emphasise that worship can be done in a variety of ways. We say that if we want to respond by singing quietly, that’s fine, but there are all sorts of other expressions too. Some of our boys breakdance and some choose to just sit quietly or to use sign language instead of singing.

At least once a term we also have an all age get-together when we ask the children to invite anyone who lives in their house. The format there is a bit like Messy Church where there is some kind of teaching as well as craft activity.

We use the whole building at Coltness Memorial Church. For a while we did meet in a local café and developed great links with the Muslim owner and his family. Sadly his business faced real difficulties and we couldn’t use the café any more but our friendship with him goes on.

In the next stage we aim to have premises of our own. The church is currently on the periphery of the parish, which has about 3,500 people. Our vision is to move The ARK lock, stock and barrel into the middle of the village from where we could run a community venture, and provide other groups for children’s activities – both spiritual and otherwise. ARK is also working closely with Newmains Primary School and Morningside Primary School to offer a number of clubs for children and their parents.

We have a building in mind so we've been working on a feasibility study and business plan. Both churches are very closely involved in the future plans, and it’s exciting to see!

Fresh expressions of church have always been there but in our traditional congregations we have often become so comfortable with what we're doing that we forget there is any other valid way to 'do' church. As far as we're concerned, the whole fresh expressions thing is about blessing the community, not trying to do the hard sell and convince them that we know what’s best but simply to demonstrate the love of Jesus to those currently outside traditional church circles.

Bloomfield Estate

Kevin Metcalf, Church Army Evangelist, describes his early attempts at pioneering in Bangor, Northern Ireland.

My job title is community outreacher worker and I work alongside a Rector of a Church of Ireland Parish Church in the town of Bangor in Northern Ireland. My role is largely to reach out to the Bloomfield Estate in the southern part of the town and to build some fresh expressions with those who do not relate to more traditional forms of church.

The Bloomfield estate still has a lot of sectarian problems, so this type of work is hard but important. It takes a long time to build trusting relationships in a community like this, so I recognise this is a vision that will take time to be realised. At the moment, we are reaching out to children and young people, and through the children, making connection with families who live in these communities.

At present there is very little for younger people to do on the Bloomfield Estate, so I have been developing relationships with community workers to identify needs. I am passionate about children's work, so I have been focusing on activities that engage with younger people and provide positive opportunities. Although local young people have a lot of religious and bible knowledge through school education, many do not have a form of the Christian faith that resources their life. For example, at the local school of three hundred and fifty young people, only fifty have a stated religious affiliation, leaving three hundred with none. So in the context of Northern Ireland this is a bit of a paradox. Even though it is a very ‘religious' country, many do not have a committed faith that they find to be spiritually resourcing. My aim then is to enable younger people to come to faith and experience Jesus in a real and living way, not just knowing about him, but knowing him personally. Through this, I want to see whole families come to faith.

So far, I have built up connections with a local school, and a community association in the Council Estate. At the school I have been engaged with children through assemblies and after school clubs. In these times I have been using crafts and other activities as well as talking about God. In the Community house we have been running a 'Kidz Klub', using similar activities with a limited number of children as the space is quite small. To build on these relationships and see the work develop and grow, we have started running another Kidz Klub in the local primary school and a team of Christian volunteers visit the homes of the children who attend. Our first night we had 48 children! Through this we are building relationships with families on the estate and discovering how we can help support the wider environment of the children and witness to God's love.

The use of this primary school, I think will give us the space to build up a fresh expression of church. We are very aware that the local middle-class forms of traditional church are an alien environment for many people coming from the Bloomfield Estate. So we hope that a 'Messy Church' approach will be flexible, accessible and more laid-back and therefore appropriate. This will enable people to explore Christian spirituality, and the big issues of life, but also an opportunity to build relationships with local people.

St Christopher’s, Leicester

When a congregation in Leicester had to move out of their dilapidated building, they were given the chance to start a fresh expression of church in a local school. With that came the opportunity to do some serious listening and to refocus church life around the needs of those they were now in contact with. Revd Alison Roche takes up the story.

I was appointed the Vicar of St Christopher's parish church in the Saffron Lane Estate in Leicester City, an urban priority area. Before I arrived, the building had fallen into a pretty grotty state, so the previous vicar started the process of looking to rebuild on the same site. Following much discussion, the Bishop raised the question of locating the parish church within a proposed Church of England Academy School. So I took the job knowing that the parish church would move in two years time.

The church had a history of being good at outreach and community involvement. They took the risk and went with it. So a couple of Septembers ago, thirty people marched with me from the old church to the new building. We are now in a fantastic location, very accessible public space, with people dropping in and out of the building all the time. I loosely have a chaplaincy role to the school, which has reframed my job, but I am still the vicar of a parish. So we have used the relocation as an opportunity to listen and explore the possibility of new forms of loving service to local people.

We have focused on the real needs of families with children, mostly because the parish is in one of the highest areas of social depravation and educational need. We have therefore consciously worked collaboratively with the school to address the particular community and spiritual needs of the area.

In the last year, the church has grown in attendance to an average of forty adults and ten children. We try to also cater for older people and single people who have got involved. It is a very welcoming church. All the new people have been local.

One of the first things we did was an after school service. The identified need was around the exploration of parents and children's spirituality at the same time as the many after school clubs. So 3pm on a school day became an opportunity for engagement. When it started, no one turned up for three weeks which was really hard. On the fourth week a couple of families turned up and it took off from there, but it was a real lesson in patience and trust. We have also managed to continue and develop relationships with families with children who go to other schools, which has been really important as we are still the church for the whole parish, not just the Academy.

Our main challenge remains how to engage more with the families of children who go to the Academy School who are not Christian and unchurched. We haven’t quite cracked this yet. The good thing about the Academy School is that there are no selection criteria for attendance which is purely geographic. So the challenge for us has been to develop an accessible Christian ethos in a Church of England school where most of the teachers, parents and children are not Christian.

Now that we have been here two years where we have established trust and joint working relationships, we are now beginning to see greater engagement from local people seeking us out for spiritual needs. So this is beginning to grow. Amongst other things, the school end of term collective worship aimed at parents and students has increasingly grown which enables our greater visibility. I hope to spend more time in the morning in the restaurant area at the heart of the school between 9 and 10am, where parents are invited to have free tea and coffee, to get to know parents who do not come to our events.

Regarding discipleship, it remains a real challenge how to engage people from a non-book culture. We have been using the START course by CPAS, but like everyone else we don’t find it easy to find appropriate resources. START is good because there are things to make and do, and is less wordy than some discipleship courses, but this is an ongoing struggle. People in a UPA are may not necessarily be the sort of people who are confident sitting around in a group. One thing that we are actively doing is to ensure discussion groups in every other Sunday service to make it more participative, more effective and grow confidence.

We hope that the Church will grow by developing small specialist congregations, which will get more missional. We hope that a recent and jointly appointed detached youth worker will in time, set up some form of youth church beyond the walls of our church buildings.

3.08 @ Kingshill, Nailsea

When the Bishop told Associate Vicar Steve Tilley he would be comfortable with a few ‘heroic failures’ he gave permission to those wanting to start fresh expressions of church to experiment in a daring way. The leaders at Christ Church, Nailsea in the Diocese of Bath and Wells, took him at his word. Here Steve takes up the story.

Why didn't Christ Church, Nailsea reach families in one of its more distant estates effectively? 10 am Sunday, with a walk involving crossing the main road, may not have been an attractive proposition.

So we decided we would like to have a go at planting an all-age congregation in Kingshill School. It was easy to reach, and attended by the children of many of our target families. We opted for a monthly service and it didn’t clash with Christ Church's own all-age service. But what about Sunday lie-ins, local football teams and Sunday morning shopping trips? Inevitably this conversation happened:

'What time shall we start?'

'How about 3.00 or 3.30?'

'Why do church services always start at times like that?'

'Don't know.'

'Why don't we start at a strange time; then everyone will remember it?'

'What, like eight minutes past three or something?'

'Why not?'

And 3.08 was born. We expected everyone would arrive at 3.15. We planned that the first seven minutes of our event would be good, but never important. Over the next two years only once was anyone late. People tended to arrive for 3.00. We finished by 4.00 pm with tea, cake and chat.

Lesson one: start at a memorable time.

How did we try and attract people? We leafleted every house in the neighbourhood. We put an entry in Kingshill School parents' sheet. We advertised in the local paper. We used word of mouth. We gave everyone who attended a postcard with the details of the next two events.

On our launch 43 people turned up. Many had come to support us from local churches. There were few, genuine newcomers. That was disappointing and it proved to be the highest number we ever got. Most of our guests over the next two years were folks from other churches interested in trying it themselves. That may be where it bears fruit, we thought.

The content? We went for simple teaching and worship with activity. For the first year we worked through the creed, in the second year the Lord's Prayer. We grew in confidence as a team and our mini-dramas were appreciated. A puppet, Russell (the crow) asked awkward questions by holding up laminated sheets with his beak. We used many of Dave and Lyn Hopwood's Telling Tales resources (CPAS). For our prayers we tended to split into three groups so that some could talk and meditate, some pray together and some work on a craft.

We planned carefully every month (we met at 6.08 for about an hour – the 08 was catching). One of us would bring an outline and then we'd put some meat on the bones, allocate tasks and fix the running order. Lots of the details were finalised by email.

Lesson two: a wise use of technology can keep preparation meeting time low.

Sadly, despite working really hard on our publicity, we never penetrated our target constituency. Maybe there wasn't enough personal invitation by word of mouth? Maybe the idea was flawed from the start? Perhaps it simply wasn't God's will for now. There will be many reasons why 3.08 at Kingshill didn’t work as we hoped.

Reluctantly we took the decision to stop after two years and 22 events. The all-age leading skills learned will be used at Christ Church. An afternoon event at that church is being mooted. A couple of us are going to try another angle and maybe target men.

Lesson three: if it isn't working, stop.

Mawsley Church

Ten years ago, they began to build a new village from scratch on a 'green field' site south west of Kettering in Northamptonshire. They called it Mawsley. Paul Seaton-Burn, curate at Mawsley Church, continues the story.

Now there are around 840 houses, so the local community has come together as an eclectic and diverse group from all over the country, initially as strangers, as no previously community existed. In the original plans, it was intended that a new church building was to be included, but it was never built. The local parish church is a mile away across the fields with no direct access.

Initially a group of people emerged as a small Christian community, meeting in a house for bible study which they called 'Christians in Mawsley'. This ecumenical group maintained a presence over the years, supported by the local Anglican vicar (who lived elsewhere) and a retired Salvation Army officer.

Three years ago I moved with my family to Mawsley in my first post as a Curate. 'Christians in Mawsley' was then a group of Christians coming from different traditions that didn't really reach out to the village. There was a sense of collaboration and enthusiasm but no clear strategic purpose, and I was asked to assist in developing this into what we would call now a fresh expression of church. I was a traditional curate in a benefice to four churches in other villages, but also being a pioneer in Mawsley.

We changed the name to 'Mawsley Church' to reflect the conservative (with a small 'c') nature of the place and its people. While hardly prosaic it 'said what it did on the tin' and was recognised by friends at the school gate. They needed the confidence that this new church was trustworthy. We maintain a broad ecumenical welcome while being supported solely by the Anglican church.

Building on growing relationships with local people in Mawsley we began twice-monthly gatherings for public worship in December 2006. We meet on Sunday mornings in a Community Centre in the heart of the village – very much in secular space – where children's ministry began last year. Small groups have also met, with varying degrees of success, in homes across Mawsley. Larger scale 'messy church' events for children up to 10 years of age and their carers have become a regular opportunity for outreach here at significant times such as Christmas & Easter (and have spread to a nearby village too). We deliberately hold these in Mawsley's local Primary School. These more participative forms of worship have successfully engaged with fringe people, again of the 'de-and-unchurched' type. This year on Easter Monday, we had a Messy Church event and ninety-five children plus their parents and helpers attended. For the first time the school parents' group asked to be involved this year. These events happen mainly because of the participation of many fringe and non-church parents.

We have sought to develop our participation with other village events as a form of outreach to local people. So we play our part in fayres, family 'It's a Knockout' and other social events, and this has increased our ability to build relationships with people who do not go to church. Regular assemblies, a Bumps & Buggies group and starting an annual litter pick have also played their part, too.

The challenge of enabling people to join our community is happening, but must embrace both new and recognised ways of welcoming people. Our all-age remembrance day worship in 2008 was supported by some 240 people.

We now face the challenge of discipling people. So we have a community whose faith needs developing and maturing. So far we have been reliant on formation through action and participation in doing Christian events. So in this way, in a one-to-one approach, we have seen some pre-discipleship development. As my family and I prepare to move on, the good news is that a new ordained pioneer curate, Richard Priestley, is coming to Mawsley with broad experience of nurturing discipleship. This is the next step, to develop a contextual approach to discipleship on top of the relational mission and worship that God has started.

Vanessa describes her experience of Mawsley Church

I came to Mawsley just over two and a half years ago. To put it mildly my soul was broken. I was emotionally battered or in the words of a Pink Floyd classic hit 'Comfortably Numb'.

I had been through several years of two failed and dysfunctional relationships. I was living alone with my two children aged then 7 and 8 and my youngest son lived with his father and I didn't see him. I was lost but still had a glimmer of hope left in me. Mawsley was a new start, my own house at last, but something was missing. I yearned to be an ordinary family, mum, dad and the children, but somehow it had been an elusive dream.

At that time when I look back, God had already manifested himself in my life. A bout of depression had lead me to take solace at a convalescence home, and it was whilst I was there I was introduced to the chaplain. I remember it as a 'ping moment' when I felt I was metaphorically lifted by the spirit of the Lord and held. I was like a lost child being embraced and protected having been lost, and I had a sudden feeling of my pain and anguish being taken away from me, relieved of my burdens that had weighed me down for decades.

I made a conscious decision when I went to Mawsley to invest some time in me. I wanted to discover my spiritual side, and in response to my experience at the convalescent home, I plucked up the courage to go to Mawsley Church. I took the children with me. Everyone was so welcoming and I soon came to learn that the small congregation were all on different parts of their spiritual journey. It was within Mawsley church that I found the family I had yearned for. It was right here on my doorstep.

I learned too that even in the church, there was so much 'brokeness' in the lives of the people I met. One of the good things to come out from this is that the church allowed me not to focus on my own issues, but made me more open to help others in their time of need.

It was through the help and advice from the church, that I permitted myself to let go of some of the things that continued to weigh me down. They showed me that I had a choice and that I could choose to seek happiness, and that happiness has been found through my faith in God and my church family in Mawsley. I had learned to forgive the wrong that had been done to me, and I virtually removed the chains that had paralysed me for so long. My reward is that I now enjoy helping and encouraging others move on from places where they have become stuck.

I was not the only one to benefit from my experiences with our church. The children made new friends, and drew strength from the improvement they saw in me, a happier mummy. The question arose around baptism and I pondered over my decision for many months. I let the children decide whether they also wanted to be baptised. The answer was a resounding yes. I decided it would be a wonderful idea to have a family baptism. I wanted to share this point of Megan and Ewans spiritual journey. I saw my position as their spiritual guide, equipping them with the many tools our faith offered for their later journey in life. On the 28th September 2008, we had the marvellous experience of being baptised by submersion as a family at Mawsley Church. It was an incredibly charged moment for me personally, I could barely hold back my tears of emotion. That day I felt all three of us had turned a corner and we began a new journey strengthened by the love of God.

Charlie my youngest son, is now firmly back in our lives. He is, thank goodness, a happy and well-balanced little boy. He openly admits he models himself on his dad and is influenced by dad's stance towards religion which is predominantly atheist. He however does come along to church with us, and will often revert to rhetorical gibberish about not believing in God because his dad says so, but more recently he competes to say grace at dinner times and has even asked if I would come and bless his house to take away any 'naughty spirits'. I hope in my heart that Charlie will learn to trust the Lord. My job for now is to 'fan his flame' within.

Wootton

Ian Mobsby talks to Rona Orme, Children's Missioner for the Diocese of Peterborough, about the beginnings of a fresh expression in a new-build area of Northamptonshire.

Wootton was a classic English village on the edge of Northampton, which in the last ten years has been absorbed by the building of new housing to become a larger suburban part of greater Northampton. The needs of this population have steadily increased, many of which are unchurched families of young parents with young children. The local Parish Church of St Georges has not been able to make an impact in many parts of this new community, whilst developing its continuing work to the older parts of Wootton.

Two years ago, a new parish priest was appointed who began to develop a more engaged ministry with local people. Although requests for baptism and numbers attending monthly Family Services have grown, it soon became apparent that she did not have the capacity to engage further with the people living in the 'new-build' areas with its two new primary schools, secondary school and growing community of unchurched families.

Additionally, there were very few local links between the old village of Wootton, and the community developing in the new-build area, making things even harder for the Parish Church to have an impact in the newer areas of its community. In effect, two parallel communities were emerging out of the local context. So the Diocesan Mission Enabler, Children's Missioner, Archdeacon and Parish Priest became increasingly aware that the mission and ministry needs of the new-build area of Wootton remained unmet.

This then raised the need to develop a 'mixed economy parish' – deepening and developing the work that had already been started, alongside beginning something new and pioneering to address the needs of those parts of the local community the church had not been able to reach.

An opportunity presented itself, when the Church of England Commissioners offered the Diocese of Peterborough money for setting up four posts to engage with new-build housing communities with pioneering mission initiatives. It was offered to assist the Diocese to engage in mission with a local population expansion of 20%.

Providentially, these posts were to be focused on meeting the specific mission and ministry needs we had already identified in Wootton. So the Diocese quickly explored what a potential pioneer post could contribute in assisting the Church to engage with the needs of largely unchurched families with young children living in the new areas of Wootton, which is now the key focus supported by the Diocese, Deanery and Parish.

Already partnering discussions have begun with one of the local Primary Schools. Preston Hedge's Primary School was very keen to develop collaborative pastoral support for working with children facing family relational difficulties, and to develop after school clubs exploring faith and other issues. The school see the need as supporting the emotional and spiritual development of pupils, creating an exciting opportunity for contextual mission and ministry. There is now a real potential for birthing something really interesting and innovative in a local mixed economy of church.

The Diocese are currently seeking the appointment of a full time Pioneer Minister (open to Lay or Ordained Pioneer Minister) to lead this exciting new project, with support from the local Parish Priest, Diocesan Mission Enabler and Children’s Missioner. It is hoped that this work will build an evolving ecclesial community coming out of mission and ministry needs of local children and their families in a school context.

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