Growing the church in new housing estates

As part of a current project to shape the church in a new housing estate I was reflecting on the tasks facing the person who starts up the work in a new housing area. This is the ‘simple’ job description I came up with:

  1. Welcome and orientation of new residents in the area and networking across churches and community groups (pastoral)
  2. Lead/plan a coherent church response to changes in the area, working with parishes and deaneries (apostolic)
  3. Explain (and model) the distinctly Christian perspective on community – with stakeholders, with developers, with local authorities and local community leaders (teaching)
  4. Identify needs/promote action in the area, especially in the poorest and weakest parts of the local area (prophetic)
  5. Fan the flame of faith and mission inside and outside church (evangelistic)

Underpinning all these activities are the essential skills of administration and leadership, without which the work will lack coherence at best and descend into chaos at worst, with an associated waste of resources that most churches can’t afford.

And it’s worth noticing that this combination of roles are nothing new: it’s a job description that every priest in the Church of England (and any other denomination) should be able to fulfil.

It just doesn’t fit … (church, that is)

Last week I had a very entertaining evening with one of my oldest and best friends. In a Pizza Express somewhere in Chinatown (we enjoyed the irony) our thoughts turned to the pressures on life – living away from home in the week, short time at home at the weekends, exhausting long hours at work, conflicting commitments – and how these pressures can affect our capacity to sustain our faith in the week and participate in the Christian community at weekends.

“Going to church on Sunday  when you’re away all week? It just doesn’t fit” 

my friend said. And he’s right. As long as we who lead the church continue to measure commitment (perhaps our own as well as others’) by what we do on Sunday we will miss the vital and significant addition all those for whom Sunday church simply doesn’t fit can make to community life. In the demanding scramble through the (post) modern, 24 hour world it is increasingly important for church leaders to create spaces for the nurture of hundreds, and probably thousands, of people for whom Sunday no longer works.

Community Hub in Nine Elms Vauxhall

In an earlier post I published a draft template for a new parish church (or Christian community hub). It makes for a very different conversation with Local Authority representatives or councillors if you ask for 13,000 square feet of space instead of pitching in with some general idea of supporting the local community. So I added space standards.\r\n\r\nFor a zoomable version click …here \r\n\r\nBANE-HUB-001

A New Parish Church?

We hear a lot about new models of church planting, and the benefits of ‘network’ churches formed around networks of people. Establishing a new parish church along traditional lines is generally out of favour, because of the initial set up cost – the Church of England no longer has the resources available to it in the 19th century – and the running costs to future generations.\r\n\r\nBut if I could get hold of sponsors/investors or some discounted D1 community space I would go for it, a new parish ministry built around a sustainable multi-use facility. Why? Because for all it’s faults a good parish church works beyond networks and responds to the the particular grain of its surroundings. This offers great opportunities for effective service.\r\n\r\nAnd who else would do it?\r\n\r\nSomething like this. (For zoomable image click here …)\r\n\r\nBANE - PROPOSAL FOR A NEW CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY.ai

Emerging Communities Group

The Emerging Communities Group has come out of my work to build community and support mission in Battersea and Nine Elms, the largest redevelopment site in London. With over 30,000 new residents and 25,000 new workers moving to the area in less than ten years, how can these new communities flourish? And what about existing inner city communities, and churches? We’re looking for members, sponsors and collaborators … (zoomable version here …)\r\n\r\nEMERGIN COMMUNITIES DIAGRAM.ai

Running on a Heartbeat … or a Programme?

Does anyone else worry in their organisation that the dominance of programmes may hide the absence of a heartbeat?\r\n\r\nProgrammes are imposed from the outside; heartbeats come from – the heart.\r\n\r\nProgrammes bring rotas; heartbeats bring rhythm.\r\n\r\nProgrammes can be avoided; if heartbeats are avoided …

Holy Trinity and St Stephen’s

These links connect to some recent projects carried out in church mission, ministry and development, and some links to creative projects in arts or design.\r\n\r\nThe first four links on the top row connect to some strategic work, thinking creatively about some contemporary church issues. The first is a church plant proposal for Bristol Harbourside described by Professor Eddie Gibbs of Fuller Seminary as “one of the best proposals for church planting I have seen – a clear and transferable model”.  The links on the second row connect to larger projects in urban theology and mission, including a simple teaching guide ‘Being a Christian Means …’\r\n\r\nTaken together these works form part of a larger project to find ways for the church to create realistic strategies for mission in cities.\r\n\r\nThe icons on the bottom row connect to images of different kinds of work, from writing to art to building transformations.\r\n

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A PROPOSAL FOR A CITY CENTRE CHURCH PLANT
A PROPOSAL FOR A CITY CENTRE CHURCH PLANT
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THE HALLMARKS OF MODERN CHURCH COLLABORATION
THE HALLMARKS OF MODERN CHURCH COLLABORATION
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A STRATEGY CHART FOR ORGANISING A MULTI CHURCH COLLABORATION
A STRATEGY CHART FOR ORGANISING A MULTI CHURCH COLLABORATION
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7 TOP TIPS FOR GROWING MESSY CHURCH
7 TOP TIPS FOR GROWING MESSY CHURCH
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MAPPING MISSION OPPORTUNITIES - USING RESEARCH IN MISSION
MAPPING MISSION OPPORTUNITIES – USING RESEARCH IN MISSION
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LEADING THE CHURCH IN MULTICULTURAL MISSION, EASTON, BRISTOL
LEADING THE CHURCH IN MULTICULTURAL MISSION, EASTON, BRISTOL
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DEVELOPING STRATEGIES FOR MISSION IN A MULTICULTURAL INNER CITY, BARTON HILL, BRISTOL
DEVELOPING STRATEGIES FOR MISSION IN A MULTICULTURAL INNER CITY, BARTON HILL, BRISTOL
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SERMON SERIES - ON BEING A CHRISTIAN
SERMON SERIES – ON BEING A CHRISTIAN
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PLACES - EXAMPLES OF BUILDINGS TRANSFORMED BY DESIGN
PLACES – EXAMPLES OF BUILDINGS TRANSFORMED BY DESIGN
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IMAGES OF ARTWORK
IMAGES OF ARTWORK
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THE EXTRACTION AND REFINING OF OIL - THE STORY OF A SCULPTURE
THE EXTRACTION AND REFINING OF OIL – THE STORY OF A SCULPTURE
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A SHORT CV
A SHORT CV

From Maintenance to Mission

I took a course once called ‘From Maintenance to Mission’. It was about how to move an organisation out of a maintenance mentality into new focus on mission.\r\n\r\nThat particular course was about churches, but looking around the businesses I see and work with it could have applied easily to almost any organisation. For some reason the complicated network of relationships both within organisations and between organisations and their contexts seem to bring a paralysis in innovative action and an uneven distribution of power.\r\n\r\nThere are some obvious reasons behind this but for now the question is, how do we move our organisations from Maintenance to Mission?\r\n\r\nHere’s one thought:  become Innovative Learners\r\n\r\nWarren Bennis suggests that the way organisations learn is essential to the way they behave. He distinguishes between Maintenance Learning and Innovative Learning.\r\n\r\nMaintenance learning is a necessary but insufficient (and institutionalized) way of  ‘…comparing current performance only with past performance, not with what might have been or what is yet to be.’  And so corrective action in organisations is usually designed to deal with perceived weaknesses and failures, and not to build on strengths. The learning is limited to what is necessary to maintain the existing organisation.\r\n\r\nI know many churches like this.\r\n\r\nInnovative learning is also necessary but difficult and hardly ever found. Innovative learning is the means by which an organisation can prepare for the future, working in anticipation of uncertainties that lie ahead. Bennis puts it this way: ‘Innovative learning deals with emerging issues – issues that may be unique, so that there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error; issues for which solutions are not known; and issues whose very formulation may be a matter for controversy and doubt .\r\n\r\nI know few churches like this.\r\n\r\nInnovative Learning was a phase coined in the study ‘No Limits to Learning’, sponsored by the Club of Rome. Bennis quotes:\r\n\r\n

“…for long-term survival, particularly in times of turbulence, change or discontinuity, another type of learning is even more essential [than maintenance Learning]. it is the type of learning that can bring change, renewal, restructuring, and problem formulation  – and which we have called Innovative Learning.”

For my part, I’m restless when I’m not fully engaged in some aspect of Innovative Learning, but I am aware that it can tire people out.\r\n\r\nMy answer to this? \r\n\r\nBe careful to make the distinction between the Organisation and the Community it frames, and commit deeply to the Community when innovating in the Organisation.\r\n\r\n‘Good leaders make people feel they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery.’ Warren Bennis.

Starting the church

I’ve heard debates about when the Church began.\r\n\r\nWas it when Jesus breathed on the disciples in a room in Jerusalem and said receive the Holy Spirit?\r\n\r\nOr was it on the day of Pentecost, when Jesus breathed on the disciples in a room in Jerusalem in a more dramatic way and 3,000 people became followers?\r\n\r\nI’ve never heard anyone say that Peter’s first pronouncement to his fellow disciples was the start of the church, but in some ways it had all the hallmarks of a functioning church.\r\n\r\nPeter’s first recorded discourse concerns the appointment of a new member of the ‘senior leadership team’, the Apostles. He stands and recounts the disappointment of Judas, framing it in scriptural terms, and drawing the conclusion that led to Matthias being appointed as the 12th Apostle.\r\n\r\nOne observation we can make is that by this time, between Jesus leaving and the Spirit coming, there was a strong sense of Assignment and Designation.\r\n\r\nPeter says that Judas had an ‘Assigned place’ in the ministry of Jesus, and his replacement has to be someone ‘Designated…as a witness to the resurrection’.\r\n\r\nThe Administration of the Designated calling of individuals to an Assignment to serve the community…\r\n\r\n… sounds like a church to me.