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Deeper Network Church

Andy Poultney is minister-in-charge of Deeper Network Church, based in what was a restaurant on Romford High Street.

Deeper Network Church originated as 'Deeper' six years ago at St James', Collier Row, with St John's, Havering-Atte-Bower. Deeper, a fresh expression of church, came together as I began serving as curate with a bunch of young adults; my plan was simply to see what God was doing and join in with it.

Following much discussion and prayer, we decided that we wanted to focus on other young adults in the pub and club culture of central Romford. Night-time economy is important here; about 10,000 to 12,000 people descend on the local pubs and clubs every weekend.

We had great support from the community of St James' and St John's and the result was that we launched The Deeper Lounge as a safe space, in Romford's market place, on Friday nights. It started in December 2009 and it has continued to run most weeks; we have served many hundreds of cups of tea and coffee since then and – more importantly – met some great people and had some great chats.

Working alongside Street Pastors, we set up under one of the market stalls and operated from there. After a while, the local authority recognised that we were providing a valuable service and wanted to help us a little more so they bought us a large, pop-up gazebo. It was about a year ago that we moved to a prime spot and now we regularly see about 100 people a night.

I'm part of The Order of Mission and, using missional community 'language', I was – by this stage – beginning to think about what was to happen next because the end of my curacy was on the horizon. The Friday nights were going well and there was also a youth project called DIY (Deeply Impacting Youth) which was engaging with about 60-70 young people.

There was a very strong sense that if we moved away, the work was not yet strong enough to be led by anybody else, and in 2012 we felt God was calling us to become a permanent presence in central Romford rather than just dipping in and out.

In April 2013, ten of us were released from St James' and St John's in order to establish a new worshipping community known as Deeper Network Church. Our office base, and home to lots of what we do now, is called The Deeper Lounge and it's on the high street in Romford.

It's owned by the London Borough of Havering and we rent it from them. It used to be an Afro-Caribbean restaurant but the building has been gutted at a cost of £50,000. It's always incredible to see what God can do, time and time again I've been in the building while work has been going on and as people walk past, one in five will stop and ask what is going on. It offers a natural opportunity to get into conversations with all sorts of people. We applied to the Mission Opportunities Fund to cover our salary costs but money is tight and we are living by faith beyond 2014.

The Diocese of Chelmsford granted us a Bishop's Mission Order and this has been important in how we, and others, view the work. When talking about The Deeper Lounge I like to say, 'this is not a youth centre, it's not a community centre, I want to start calling it home – to us that home is a church'. It's a venue and the idea is that we will continue to do a lot of outward focused work and to engage with mission with different community groups.

We have got a reception area, a coffee shop-sized space, a small kitchen, an office and a prayer room. The plan after Easter is to do a bit of everything in this space, including activities for young people, homeless people and parents. Deeper Network Church will develop for all these different people groups.

Part of my previous role was to act as youth adviser to the bishop but I am now stopping that work as my wife and I will be moving into a community house because I'm becoming Young Vocations Champion for the diocese. This will involve mentoring interns and four guys will live with us and take on placements.

Basically, everything that we do begins with service. When we're out under the gazebo speaking to young people late at night at Friday, we'll say, 'would you like a free tea or coffee?' Generally the third or fourth question people ask is, 'why are you doing this?' You tell them and we get varying responses: from complete disbelief to 'oh, that's cute' or similar.

Everything we do is to move on conversations and relationships from 'Oh cute' to our vision of deepening life together as disciples of Jesus Christ. That can be a real challenge but there's nothing else I'd rather do.

Heathfield cafechurch

Plans for a cafechurch came about through Churches Together in Heathfield and District, East Sussex. Follow their journey as they prepare for 'opening night' on Friday 26th April 2013.

It was a coming together of ideas when a Costa Coffee shop opened in Heathfield High Street and cafechurch network advertised a training day in the area.

Members of the 12 churches represented in Churches Together in Heathfield and District wanted to find out more about what might be possible as a result of these two 'coincidental' events. Three people attended the Network's training day last year and were inspired to look at building on what had already been happening in the community.

Five years previously, Churches Together in Heathfield and District had set up a Street Pastors initiative under the auspices of the Ascension Trust which initiated the national Street Pastor movement. The small town does not have late night bars or clubs but it was suffering increased levels of vandalism. Street Pastors started to be available in and around the town's car parks, skate park, playgrounds and streets from early evenings on Fridays. They built up good relationships with the teenagers and young adults they came across and started to ask, 'but what happens next? How can we reach these people we wouldn't normally reach from our own church settings?'

The cafechurch is now seen as the next move in these ongoing relationships with individuals – and the wider community.

In November 2012, 130 people attended a Churches Together supper at the Beehive pub, Heathfield, when Sue Mumford – one of the cafechurch planning group – spoke about the vision surrounding its launch. More than 20 people signed up to be involved.

The cafechurch is focusing on attracting 18 to 35-year-olds though all ages will be welcome if they are looking to engage with a new form of church.

Sue Mumford says,

Heathfield is a lovely town but there is very little for teenagers to do here and our churches are sadly lacking in young people. We realised that it was right to try and go to them rather than sit back and hope they would come to us. We have listened to what they have told us and – through prayer – we believe it's right for us to step out in faith in this way.

We have no idea what will happen but we just have to make a start.

Keith Miller, another of the planning group, adds,

If you have never been involved in church, going into a church building is quite an ordeal. A coffee shop, on the other hand, is a very familiar, very safe, very relaxed environment. This may provide a step towards church – or it may not. It may lead to a new way of doing church or it may fade away. We'll have to wait and see.

We are fortunate to have several, very good independent coffee shops in the town,

comments George Dearsley, Vice-Moderator of Churches Together in Heathfield and District,

but they were a little too small for what was needed to get this off the ground. We have already seen that the teenagers and young adults are accustomed to going to Costa – but, personally, we'll certainly continue to make good use of all of the coffee shops in Heathfield.

A coordinator provides prayer backing, both in the development of prayer partners in each of the link churches involved and on site. A 'dress rehearsal' for young people from local churches was held last week in order to give the planning group an idea of timings and practicalities.

Friday's session will run from 7pm (for 7.30pm start) until 9pm. Watch this space…

Generation Project

Matt Caldicott leads the Generation Project, set up in 2011 by Rugby Deanery to connect with 20 to 30-year-olds in the area. Matt tells of the story so far, including the launch of Park Pastors.

I started in post in July last year and my brief was to connect with young adults. It was very much a blank sheet of paper and I thought about trying to reach this 'missing generation' in pubs and cafes but it was July, and quite sunny, so – on my first day – I went to the park!

I had previously visited Caldecott Park with my own kids but I didn't really know it that well. It underwent a nine month Heritage Lottery Fund restoration project in 2008/09 and it's a beautiful place, a little piece of heaven in the middle of Rugby.

I started to visit it three times a week to prayer walk and meet people. After a week or so, I thought it appropriate to tell Trevor, the park ranger, that I was a Christian hoping to connect with people there. His first reaction was, 'There's a better park down the road for you to do that!' But our friendship has grown over time as our relationship has deepened and now we work together from a position of trust.

My first aim was to meet people of peace and I made contact with many of them during the summer, including:

deanery clergy and other local ministers;

those involved in local specific mission focused ministries so as to try and not 'reinvent the wheel' and repeat something that's already happening;

people with no links to church at present.

An interesting, and positive, challenge in this area is that Rugby churches are connected through the Revive network. This means that church leaders from all denominations meet and work together regularly, renewing vision for the church's mission in the area and the emergence of new projects. As I was coming into such a strong environment of Christians doing all sorts of things across the town, I asked myself, 'How can I start something new with such a lot going on? Where are the gaps?' The park has been such an answer to prayer because it offers a unique base for ministry.

A turning point came when Trevor and I started to chat about the possibilities for the park's Café which had been closed due to the economic downturn. The original idea when the park re-opened in 2009 was that it would become a community hub, but that project had never been realised. We started to dream dreams about, 'What if it reopened as a joint venture; a council-church-run community café that connects with people in various ways? I proposed that we would offer Park Pastors, running along the same lines as Street Pastors, as a spiritual thread to that. We would be based at the Café.

During my times of walking the park I had a real sense of it being a place of peace and restoration and I wanted to work on that theme of the peace of the place. We could ask people the question, 'If there are things in your life that are broken, how can we help you to be restored?' Ultimately the idea is to grow missional community out of that.

Rugby Borough Council welcomed the idea of opening up the Café again, put in more than £20,000 for catering staff wages, and even provided us with Park Pastor t-shirts and sweatshirts to signify our 'official presence' within the park. We will be running a pilot 'year' from April to October and the aim is to work towards establishing it as a charity so we can attract funding. My appointment currently sees me running the project for three days a week with the rest of the time spent in pioneer ministry training with the CMS Pioneer Mission Leadership Training Course.

Thankfully I also have a colleague, Aaron Lincoln, who is working alongside me on this. As a church planter he had been called to the area three years ago but he really felt God calling him to get involved in something new – not the traditional church plant he had done before. We started to meet and it has developed from there.

Park Pastors plan to launch at Easter, when the Café is scheduled to re-open, and I would seek to have a mixed-age team. We will welcome all we come across but we do also hope to focus on young dads. There are lots of places for young mums and their babies to go but we want to put the park on the map as a good place for guys to come too, somewhere they can meet other blokes that understand the pressures of family life.

The council has also provided us with a wooded area of the park to install a permanent outdoor labyrinth and we will provide guided meditations for iPods. Hopefully that will be ideal for people working in the centre of town who want to get away from it all for a while at lunchtime.

In another development, I have also become chaplain at Rugby College of Further Education; it is relationship building time at the moment but I can see that in the winter – when we can't be in the park so much – we will be able to base our missional community there.

I have been thinking very much of the theology of the guest: God is here, now, with us and in the conversations we have with people but – in the park – we are on someone else's turf as well. We have been so privileged that the council said yes to us; we are guests in this environment. It turns the tables on what we think about mission and shifts our perception of who holds the power.

If we adopt the attitude of a guest, it takes away some of the barriers as to what is expected of us. It will help us think creatively about how we approach mission and focus us on collaboration, both with the council and the people who visit the park. The very word 'pioneer' can have some very difficult connotations attached to it; I don't like the theology of 'claiming' – it’s too Gung-ho for me and speaks less about Jesus than we might think.

Joining in with what is already happening in a community means that you don't have to try and make people jump through hoops to do things or go somewhere they wouldn't naturally connect with. As Park Pastors, we can offer an added dimension to what is already going on in the life of the park, and hopefully illuminate God's presence through missional community drawing alongside the people we meet.

We have to bring the gospel into new places but when you're invited into someone else's environment, you can't make all the rules, you have to adapt. We need a mixed economy, to be flexible and connect in ways that surprise people.

River in the City

The vision for River in the City is to create new ways of 'being church' for people who work, relax and live in Liverpool City Centre. Pioneer minister Keith Hitchman envisages a growing network of small communities in workplaces, cafes, and many other areas.

Liverpool ONE is one of the biggest shopping centres in the country. Its 42 acres includes 160 shops, more than 20 bars and restaurants, a 14-screen cinema and a park. It is the largest city centre regeneration project in Europe.

River in the City will seek to serve those who visit, work and live in this development but it will also be there for anyone in and around the Liverpool city centre. The slogan for Liverpool ONE is 'Love the City'; the aim of River in the City is to follow Jesus' lead and to love the city in his name, demonstrating that love in useful and practical ways.

The Diocese of Liverpool is looking at a model of church that doesn't involve a large number of people coming together in one place but sees groups being established around a common interest – whatever that interest may be. In a world of choice and change, people form groups with others who share the same interests and views on life. It is through these groups that they discuss and ask the big questions and I want to help people to do that.

This is about taking church out of the church building and into the workplace environment. It's about growing faith where life happens and life happens in the workplace and places like the city centre.

It's interesting how people see my work. Someone recently described me as 'the travelling vicar.' In a sense I suppose that's what I am! Other things are also important here. I have already been asked the key question of what football team I support. My son has chosen Liverpool because I don't think we'll survive without supporting a team from the city but I'm going to stick with my own favourites, West Ham. That means I don't have to be a 'Blue' (Everton) or a 'Red' (Liverpool). Anyway if you add the blue and the red together you'd probably get the claret colour of The Hammers!

Culture is changing so rapidly that, for me, fresh expressions is not an add-on. It is vital. We're mapping out the way the Church will look over the next 200 years and that's exciting, but it’s also disturbing for people I think. The line that comes to me is from the book of Acts, 'these people are disturbing our city'.

Supportive bishops, deacons and those in leadership in the Diocese mean there is a growing understanding of what it means to do church in new ways and be church in new ways for a new time. I love the fact that there is a strategy for pioneer ministry here and the imagery of Lake and River – with the river of fresh expressions flowing into the lake of the inherited models of church. There's something very holistic about that.

Presence

Beer and a singalong helped to launch Leicester-based Presence as a Bishop's Mission Order. City Centre Pioneer Minister and Presence leader, Revd David Cundill, looks back at a whirlwind year and outlines his hopes and plans for the future.

It all happened very quickly. I started in post at the end of May 2009, discussions took place over the summer to sort out the BMO, and it was signed in December at a Beer&Carols event. We certainly reaped the benefits of the hard work that other BMOs had done before us in Exeter and Thanet.

Bishop Tim Stevens started the ball rolling when he gave me a brief to 'just go and plant a new church in the city centre. I give you permission to fail; you have got to take risks.'

That church was to be in an area of new apartments, waterside redevelopment, and the DeMontfort University campus. The result is Presence… a fresh approach to church. We describe it as a church for people who don't do church or go there, never did, don't anymore, don't think they fit in, doubters, sceptics, seekers and the spiritually curious.

In the middle of the BMO area is The Quay, a canal side pub which was itself part of a regeneration project a few years ago. It is now the base for Presence's midweek meetings, and some of those at Presence have become regulars at the pub’s open mic session on Thursday nights.

My first task is to develop a 24-strong planting team to reach out to the area's diverse communities; including those based around a series of tower blocks in gated developments at Freemens Meadow, Westbridge Wharf and Leicester Square.

These new blocks are in stark contrast to the area's traditional terraced streets. Each tower block looks in on a quadrangle, and you have to get through two gates to get into the heart of it all. There are no community facilities. When you look at the ads for these apartments you'd think that we had so many stockbrokers just about to nip on their bikes to Canary Wharf – and yet the development stands at the edge of the country's biggest Hindu population, but you’d never know that from the marketing image portrayed.

The regeneration of great swathes of the city means that new communities have become cut off from parish churches because the landscape has shifted, but by starting a fresh expression alongside those churches, we can redefine a pastoral boundary. It has just worked brilliantly in that it's possible to run a straight mixed economy which lets the existing parishes do what they do while we look at how we use these places in new and creative ways.

In other areas people may say, 'we are all in this together', but underneath the surface they are worried. In Leicester I believe it has worked – and, with God’s help will continue to work because of the unique circumstances surrounding redevelopment of this city.

This is a minimum 10 year project, and part of the challenge is that the landscape will continue to change dramatically during that time. Large brownfield sites in our area are set aside for new developments but are yet to be built on, so we need to be flexible in our approach and planning.

But some of our plans are very firmly in the pipeline, including the launch of a film club in the Highcross area; the setting up of a Christians Against Poverty (CAP) centre and money management course; and a term time Street Pastors scheme around DeMontfort University.

We also very much hope to be involved at The Quay on St Patrick's Day. There are lots of possibilities but we might look at having a religious 'bit' followed by Open Communion using Naan bread – reflecting the type of area we're in. We want to reclaim these celebrations for God, and show that we're a church of festival and fun.