Creating churches where you are

Creating and building new congregations is not rocket science but something much more difficult indeed. I don’t think it should be, but that’s the reality.

The problems which present at the very start of the process (rocket or church) dictate the path taken. The problem is that too many people assume that all that’s required to bring about the desired outcome is the use of the amazing ‘one size fits all’ solutions when they glibly talk about planting new churches. Wouldn’t it be great if the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Burnley (or some other worthy) could just pass over a handful of their magic beans and then, having watered then, had us all stand back to watch the new church grow?

But, to quote Jan Struther’s marvellous hymn, “Back into storyland giants have fled, and the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.’ We have no time for the distractions or empty hopes and forlorn last ditch stands wrapped in sensational and dressed up in empty hyperbole; for hyperbole is never to be taken as anything meaningful or real - it’s just a smoke and mirrors extravaganza!

If we are to engage in planting churches where there are none (something I desire and long for) then we are going to have to go to places where ‘church is not’ in a style perhaps more suited to the desert fathers and those Celtic types who took themselves off to the wild places. This is about going to the places where ‘God is perceived not to be’ looking to make Church a reality for those who are not!

This is what we have been trying to sell to the established church as ‘Fresh Expressions’ for what seems like a very long time. But for those for whom this is new (and having met a cleric very recently who claimed never to have heard of the term) let me give you a stock definition:

‘A fresh expression is a form of church for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church. 

It will come into being through principles of listening, service, incarnational mission and making disciples. 

It will have the potential to become a mature expression of church shaped by the gospel and the enduring marks of the church and for its cultural context. 

Fresh expressions of church: serve those outside church; listen to people and enter their culture; make discipleship a priority; form church.’ [and that church is a sacramental reality - my words]

Would that there were really such a thing as the 'Church in a Box' product. But the reality is that there really isn't a ‘one size fits all’ solution. What's more, putting aside the hopes views of some that the cavalry, in the shape of a church plant (which appear to be more often than not church partnerships or adoptions), will be coming over the hill to save us, we find ourselves in a wonderful position of opportunity to do something amazing for God and our nation.

We have the opportunity to create ‘intentional’ (a term I so often dislike as it is so misused) and unique expressions of Church in our communities. I’ve obvious read too much of the ‘series of unfortunate events’ as I feel the need to say, “Here, dear reader, the word ‘intentional’ means ‘done on purpose - being desired and intended’. We need to engage with communities, get in step with the mission dei, and serve those we find around us who are not Church.

A real opportunity to win our estates for Christ :-)

Having had the fifteen-minute timer ping (meaning it’s s time to stop splurging the contents of my brain on the virtual paper) I’m going to draw stumps here and go make some tea and do some praying, for there is fuel enough thus far for a month of ‘God bothering’.

Apologies for typos, weirdness and ‘vicisms. ’. I leave Jan Struthers with the final words:
“Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed 'Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed; 
And let me set free with the sword of my youth, From the castle of darkness, the power of the truth”

Think I need to focus on ministers and ownership when the next mist descends

Pax

Church Growth strategies: 'Change (or move) the building'

Working on Stanley Hauerwas' premise that:

'Church growth strategies are the death rattle of a church that has lost its way.'

We started our journey looking at some of the church growth thinking before us with the issue of 'worship' and the bus moves on today to consider the building we meet in. As we do I have to say that I am still surprised at the number of people who confuse the living stones that are Church with the bricks and mortar that is the church building - and sadly this is more than something of a problem with descriptors or syntax!

I recently visited a location where the original rural community had dwindled and almost died away almost as quickly as the new build housing developments had risen from the fields that once supported the area. No longer was the hand being put to the plough but to the world of commerce and because of this the new inhabitants of that place were generally commuting into the nearest cities as a new dormitory community was formed.

The problem was that the community was served by lovely old, yet small, rural churches. You know the sort of place: Lychgate, lovely little graveyard and possibly no toilet! These gems of church architecture and social history were posted around the new community with the result that there was no church building in the centre (a question: When developers build, why do they forget the infrastructure like shops, doctors, church and other staples of a good community?).

The answer here would be to build or otherwise utilise something suitable in the centre of the new population; a place where the community could come together and meet their needs (spiritual, social and community). The problem was that the lovely people in the pretty churches, although all up for growth and the spreading of the Gospel, only really wanted that to happen in a way that grew their congregations - and to be frank that just wasn't going to happen, So the place continues with the dying remnants of the churches that once was now keeping the lights on and having conversations over tea which hearken back to the 'good old days' (which I think happen after a gap of ten years has passed) when they had a congregation!

Meanwhile time will continue to pass and the Christian witness in that place will cease and the Church will have had another brick fall from the wall that is ministry and engagement fall and the witness will be weakened, probably never to return.

There is a another place I know where the people don't come into the church building even though it is central to the community. Here there are voices which call upon the people to move from the old building into something fresh and new and ready to be filled with new believers. Talking to one of the zealots (the definition of such being anyone who is more passionate about Jesus than me) about their desire for a new building I was told, 'This building is old and no one comes in - we need a new building where people are attracted and the old is put aside.'

Now I'm all up for Fresh Expressions of Church, especially in what we call a 'mixed mode' or 'mixed economy' setting where we find the inherited or established churches alongside night church, café church and other engagements where the people and Church come into relationship and God is seen to be acting in the place and in the people they serve (and it's not the established church building). The problem is that as attractive as it is 'moving out' is not the general panacea for healthy and successful church. In fact when we have an old building we find ourselves take up with the 'cure of souls' (that means we care for the people in our patch) and function also as the 'curator of a place's memories' - and this is important.

To move into a place where the people ARE is important and missional (telling people about Jesus) important BUT being in a place where people identify themselves as part through their heritage and family history is something we cannot afford to pass up and brings some unique selling points and relationships.

More recently I am beginning also to hear those who want to move from an existing building because they don't want to be tied to a building and the maintenance and the money having your own place demands.

'If only we weren't tied to the building,' said one of the most lacklustre and boring people I think I may ever have met, 'Then the people would flock in I'm sure,' they continued. My question was, 'Why? What good is a change of venue without a change in the way that you think about those who aren't coming?' My question was met with a steely star and the conversation dwindled away and my colleague left offended.

There are many reasons to change what is inside the building - after all we celebrate the various architectural bits from the generation passed and yet struggle to make the buildings fit for purpose - changes that keep a building relevant are useful and necessary as much for the soul as the welfare of the people and when the time comes that the building is no longer an effective place than it needs to become a 'festival church'; a place where the building is used for set services during the year but no longer for regular Sunday (and other) services.

Add lighting, PA, TVs or projector screens to help make the services run (and projectors and TVs cut costs as there's less paper to print and trees to cut down!) as we would like it to run - and what about a place for baptism other than the font (get digging)? Building kitchen space and toilets and the stuff that make a building useful and utilise every crook and nanny* you can find in the place: We must never walk away from our buildings lightly and yet we must not let them handcuff us either!

There's a lot in this splurge and there's so much more I'd love to add and comment upon but I'm sure you get the picture by now. Our buildings should be aids to ministry not lead weights that drag us down and yet, that said, sometimes we blame the building when the real problem lies in the nearest mirror.

Pax

* Yeah I know - apparently it's a 'vicism'

Bread on water or pearls before swine?

That's one of the challenges that so often faces us when it comes to being and doing church.

How do we decide where (and upon what) to spend our cash in our attempts to 'build the kingdom'?

Do we plant new churches and engage in Fresh Expressions (FE) or do we invest in people?

I engage with people who are keen to try new things and some of them are wonderful, other quite weird and other are just plain wacky; yet each idea needs to be considered not just with human eyes, business plans and the like but with spiritual eyes too.

For me, whilst I know it is important, money is neither prime mover or reason for binning something, what I would have us think about are:

i. impact on the community,

ii. impact on the church, and (most important until last)

iii. The calling (what does God want you to be doing?)

I have seen stuff tried and failed majestically, sinking like the Titanic without the benefit of deckchair or band and yet it has been a success. How can that be (I hear you mumble)? Well, from the ashes has come a bunch of people who have bonded and risen from the depths to engage with something else that will be a success because adversity brings one of three things:

Increased resolve and coherence

Despair and dispersion

Confusion and apathy

The key to knowing the where (and what) of any church plant, FE or church engagement is to ask a few questions - a social audit or walk around your patch with a missioner or someone who will bring fresh eyes will pay dividends in helping understand what is needed.

For instance I often find people who have decided to start doing Messy Church just yards from another church who are doing the same thing. What is called for here is partnership but no, each does it's own thing and this not only dilutes the audience but, in one notable case, brought animosity (they're trying to pinch our people!') and caused despair (all set up and no one comes doesn't leave you with a spring in your step, does it?).

We need to be speaking of kingdom rather than 'our church' - seek to do what we can in partnership (especially in smaller locations where the population and place is small, limiting those we can reach) where we can - doing what we do alone where this is not possible.

When a church began a parent and toddler group in the centre of our town they were advised that such a work 'never' brings new people in. Their response was, 'Perhaps not, but we provide something that is needed and build relationships,' and that was a start - the issue was that that neither clergy or church members tried to engage with the people who came. For those who came, the people who ran the group were 'church' and the rest were strangers (and strange) and remained that, even after a visit to a service.

I meet, or hear of, people who are doing great stuff; things that the community really lacks and has need of. The problem is that when we seek to meet them, whose name do we do it in and what is the desired outcome?

It's not good enough to do stuff anonymously for fear that using the name of Jesus or using the word 'church' or 'God' or 'Christian' or any other perceived weakness or threat, will scupper or limit the work.  We go out in the name of Jesus the Christ the name above all names and if we can't, then we need to ask ourselves what we meet for and why we're considering looking at engaging with the community.

I have asked this and my (perhaps cynical and wrong) assessment of some of the responses is this:

1. If we tell them we are Christians they will think we're 'scalp hunting' 
but what, and how, we do what we're doing will some scupper, or confirm, that.

2. If we don't tell them we're Christians we can influence them more
because they think we are the same as them (and when they find we've 'conned' them - what will they think!

3. We don't label ourselves because we want to be socially active rather than do gooder Christians
for me there are two questions here:
so are you Christians in a secular project? if so, excellent - we need Christians in politics, secular projects and the like. My next question is, 'This is a secular project or partnership with a secular group, isn't it?' (And if it's not then surely you're denying Christ?
OR
are you merely people who gather together and do good stuff using the church building as a base? Where does Christ, the Gospel and our call to 'go into all the world . . .teach them to obey, sit with you?

So much more buzzing in brain but after this seven minute splurge (I feel better now) I know I'm leaving you with questions, challenges and perhaps some guidance and thought-provoking stuff for me in return.

Happy Wednesday - visits, service writing, tenebrae to print and Holy Week to contemplate (and then lunch :-) )

Pax