You are warmly invited to our book launch!

We are excited to share our new book: Into All The Parish: Pioneering Practices for the Local Church.

This short and practical book is distilled from Greg Bakker’s experiences in the Church of England as priest of 30 years, training incumbent of pioneering curates, nurturer of a mixed ecology of church, and pioneer development officer at the Diocese of Portsmouth. Tina Hodgett adds practical wisdom from her time as a pioneer curate, pioneer team vicar and evangelism and pioneer team leader at the Diocese of Bath and Wells. In the book you’ll find practical tools for leadership illustrated by stories from parish life.

The book has received warm and enthusiastic reviews from lay leaders, church leaders, bishops and pioneer advocates.

Please book your place via Eventbrite to attend in person or online.

What can I expect?

The event will begin with refreshments at 7:00 pm, and we will start the ‘sit down’ presentation at 7:30 pm. Finish time is 8:30 pm.

There will be a short time of worship, interviews with the authors, and contributions from people who have benefited from Pioneering Parishes training and are seeing new life in their localities as a result.

When is it? 

• Thursday, 23 July 2026
• In-person: 7.30pm to 8.30pm 
• Online Zoom: 7.30pm to 8.30 pm (Link provided upon registration. Please check you get the confirmation email – let us know if you don’t.)
• Cost: This is a free event

Where is it?

• Venue: John Wesley’s New Room, The Horsefair, Bristol
• Parking: The nearest car park is The Galleries Bristol which has the postcode BS1 3DQ.
• Alternatively, the next nearest car park is Cabot Circus Bristol which has the postcode BS2 9AB.
• How to get to The Horsefair
• Accessibility: The New Room Cafe has step free level access. See more information.

Book purchase:

You will be able to purchase a signed copy of Into All The Parish: Pioneering Practices for the Local Church at the launch.

If you can’t wait, the book is also available from a range of online retailers.

Although we are not in partnership with Eden, they are currently offering a 15% discount: Into All The Parish on Eden.co.uk

Reviews:

Into All the Parish by Rev Greg Bakker and Rev Tina Hodgett is for anyone passionate about mission, community, and the future of the church. Rather than another ‘How to Grow Your Church’, this book offers something more hopeful and sustainable; working with what God has already blessed us with.

The book is rooted in scripture, with practical, lived out examples and case studies. Bakker and Hodgett share stories of ordinary churches and people discovering how God is already at work in their parish and learning how to join in.

One of the themes running throughout the book is that this is not another initiative. The authors show readers that mission is not about doing more. Instead, it is about recognising where God is moving, having an expectation that God is already at work, and responding with faith and courage. There is a genuine invitation for churches to become more adventurous; to be willing to walk with Jesus, take a risk, and do something different.

Into All the Parish places an emphasis on working in community, fostering unity and embracing diversity, encouraging churches to value the unique gifts, stories, and cultures already present within their parish thus enabling people to connect with Christianity in meaningful, and relational ways.

For leaders, dreamers, and blue-sky thinkers, this book offers plenty of imagination and possibility. It challenges churches to pay attention to where God is already active in their parish. For anyone longing to see faith become more connected, hopeful, and rooted in everyday community life, Into All the Parish offers a way to do church differently.

Rev Marie Meredith, vicar to the churches of Great Wyrley: St Andrew’s and St Mark’s

Into All the Parish is a wise and compassionate book which has at its heart a fundamental commitment to the parish and what it means to have the cure of souls in every place. Flowing from their own experience as parish clergy, the authors understand the desire to hold on to what is familiar in the face of an uncertain and unstable world; yet, as the Bible so often shows, it is precisely into places of uncertainty and newness that God draws us.

This short and lucid book is not a strategy or a programme but “an invitation to a way of being.” Rooted in the theology of dying to self this is no easy journey, but one in which we trust our fragility to the abundance of God. Here, Greg and Tina offer practical companionship for that journey. They share tools and processes that can enable it to happen with suggestions in each chapter for congregational reflection.

Long gone are the days when ‘pioneering’ was seen as being in opposition to ‘traditional’ parish ministry. Here is a clear demonstration of how cultivating a pioneering disposition enables parish church congregations to explore afresh their identity and vocation for the present time. A ‘must-read’ for all who want to see their local churches thrive!

Rev Canon Jane Maycock, Canon Missioner, Durham Cathedral

Contact: If you have any questions, please email the Pioneering Parishes Team: pioneering.parishes@churchmissionsociety.org

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Rev Greg Bakker and Rev Tina Hodgett, Into All the Parish (London: Church House Publishing, 2026)

reviewed by Revd Marie Meredith
Vicar to the churches of Great Wyrley: St Andrew’s and St Mark’s

Into All the Parish by Rev Greg Bakker and Rev Tina Hodgett is for anyone passionate about mission, community, and the future of the church. Rather than another ‘How to Grow Your Church’, this book offers something more hopeful and sustainable; working with what God has already blessed us with.

The book is rooted in scripture, with practical, lived out examples and case studies. Bakker and Hodgett share stories of ordinary churches and people discovering how God is already at work in their parish and learning how to join in.

One of the themes running throughout the book is that this is not another initiative. The authors show readers that mission is not about doing more. Instead, it is about recognising where God is moving, having an expectation that God is already at work, and responding with faith and courage. There is a genuine invitation for churches to become more adventurous; to be willing to walk with Jesus, take a risk, and do something different.

Into All the Parish places an emphasis on working in community, fostering unity and embracing diversity, encouraging churches to value the unique gifts, stories, and cultures already present within their parish thus enabling people to connect with Christianity in meaningful, and relational ways.

For leaders, dreamers, and blue-sky thinkers, this book offers plenty of imagination and possibility. It challenges churches to pay attention to where God is already active in their parish. For anyone longing to see faith become more connected, hopeful, and rooted in everyday community life, Into All the Parish offers a way to do church differently.

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Harvey C. Kwiyani, Decolonizing Mission (London: SCM Press, 2025)

reviewed by Paul Thaxter

Harvey Kwiyani lays out a well considered case for the need to decolonise mission in order to facilitate and improve contemporary mission praxis and theory, recognising that all followers of Christ are called into the worldwide mission of God. From the start, the coming of God’s kingdom was challenging to imperialism, as he notes in the chapters “Jesus and the Empire” and “Imperializing Jesus”, yet much incorporated military language within the mission glossary highlights the close link between Western imperial expansion and the spread of Christianity, especially over the last 500 years. Through careful historical research, and well chosen examples, Kwiyani demonstrates this interdependence of mission, empire, wealth, power, perspective and influence. For many non-Western people, this is obvious. In Chapter 1, Kwyani shares about his personal family experience growing up in Magomero, Malawi, where David Livingstone’s family had their colonial estate. Such experiences are so multitudinous across the globe yet hardly acknowledged even in current Western missiological discourse.

This intentional critique is seeking to open up new spaces in missiological thinking not dominated by Western discourse and seeks not just to decolonise missionary language but also to create new language to describe and demonstrate God’s mission in the world, aided by many new voices. In view of Christian demographics, this is long overdue as he emphasises when he quotes Andrew Walls saying, “Western theology is too small to answer the questions of all world Christianity.”

I would have appreciated a longer chapter on “Mission According to the Colonized” in which he quotes some key African thinkers such as John Mbiti. Kwiyani presents a genuine open challenge to Western missiologists: “Can you eat our missiology with us?” There is the plea for a much more authentic conversation and, amongst the church beyond Western paradigms, to encourage mission praxis into a greater reliance on a posture of humility, prayer and the Holy Spirit. He concludes thus, “We need to learn how to engage in God’s mission among God’s people in God’s world, simply as God’s co-labourers, servants and slaves – with no armies to make the way before us and no empires behind us.”

This book is well worth the challenging read. It is historical research which is academically well evidenced. I found it both intentionally provocative and collaborative, inviting the reader into a deeper discussion so often avoided or ignored or dismissed by those with a dominant Western mindset. In my UK experience, the history and impact of the British Empire, colonialism and the spread of Christianity is rarely taught and little known, and where it is done, it so often focuses on its perceived benefits. Christian missionary histories likewise tend toward collusive narratives which describe the benefits of what has been achieved with little credit to local Christians, and so often no admission of their complicity in the denigration of people, place and culture. This book can be helpful in developing more cultural awareness and sensitivity about ourselves and others. I recommend it for those interested or engaged in mission today both locally and internationally, ministers, mission organisations and Christian ministerial colleges, and those engaging in (Western?) postcolonial studies. I doubt though whether the term post-colonial or post-imperial will ever be apt to describe the world in which we live. We will still need tools to recognise the various disguises of empire. All the more reason to decolonise the mission of God.

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Alison Milbank, The Once and Future Parish (London: SCM Press, 2023)

reviewed by James Butler

“The question should never start with, are we keeping the church open or are we closing it? The question really ought to be, how will we best be church in this context?” This is a question asked by one of the interviewees of some research I have carried out with Clare Watkins at the University of Roehampton. The question tries to move the discussion of church decline away from a question of economics to a question of theology and pastoral care. Behind this question are the very same instincts that led Alison Milbank to write The Once and Future Parish which seeks to advocate for the Church of England parish in the midst of a perceived turn against the parish within the way the Church of England operates. Milbank seeks to build on her previous book with Andrew Davidson, For the Parish, to provide a theological basis for the Save the Parish movement. However, while challenging a potentially unhelpful tendency towards centralisation within the Church of England, Milbank never seems to reach our asking interviewee’s question, “how will we best be church in this context?” because she already knows: it is the parish church. I think fundamentally this is the problem with the book, the underlying assumption that the woes of the Church of England are broadly all because the Church of England lost confidence in the parish, without a willingness to ask whether being faithful to the parish might look different in 21st-century Britain.

Reading the book I am broadly on board with the critique offered of the Church of England: the centralising tendencies and often uncritical adoption of management theory, along with a concern that the Church of England is losing touch with many in the population. However, the solution offered of having more confidence in the parish church seems to me to not really be interested in actually getting to grips with what is going on. At one point Milbank suggests that the secularisation of the UK was broadly down to the Church of England choosing to withdraw from public life through the decisions it made about structure and parish. The fact that the trends facing the Church of England are mirrored in so many UK denominations, not to mention established churches in other Western European nations, seems to completely pass her by.

The book is laid out logically, beginning with the broad thesis, and then exploring the history and development of the church. Milbank asks really important questions about mission, ecclesiology, the adoption of management methods, the approaches to church planting, and the understanding of the role of the clergy and laity. It feels, though, that there isn’t a desire to really get into the complexity of the questions, as she slips into polemic at quite a number of points rather than developing carefully evidenced argument.

I think there is value in reading this book to get a view of what some think about the ways the Church of England is changing and developing, and I think the questions she asks are important and helpful. Her instincts about the issues facing the church feel right to me. I would have just liked to see a more nuanced engagement based in a more careful study of the present realities of parish in all their complexity – their fruits and their failures. I’m sure the book will be celebrated by the advocates of Save the Parish, but whether it will helpfully open up the discussion, or speak to those who are more sceptical about Save the Parish’s proposals, I’m less convinced.

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Ed Olsworth-Peter and Dwight J. Zscheile (eds), The Starter’s Way: Leading New Contextual Christian Communities (New York: Church Publishing, 2025)

reviewed by James Butler

The Starter’s Way is written for those starting what the editors, Olsworth-Peters and Zscheile, have called “new contextual Christian communities”. While this name doesn’t roll off the tongue, I understand it to be an attempt to speak to a wide range of people who have a similar sense of calling. Focusing on the desire to respond to context when starting a new Christian community is a helpful way to encourage people to identify through what they have in common rather than through their differences, whether church planters, pioneers, leaders of fresh expressions or new monastics etc. Continuing this approach, the contributors to the book also represent a diversity of voices working with a variety of practices and approaches.

The book presents 15 principles which have been discerned as common across the practices of leading contextual churches, and are clustered in three groups. The first group, “Spiritual Foundations” identifies principles of Jesus-centred, life of prayer, calling, bicultural identity and responsive obedience. There are five inward qualities named in the second group as discerning, self-giving, playful, hospitable and resilient. Finally, five outwards practices of noticing, adapting, experimenting, co-creating and persisting make up the third group. Each of these principles forms a chapter in the book, written by a different contributor. The book is then topped and tailed by chapters introducing the book, and then drawing the ideas together in further thoughts and a conclusion.

The fact that many of the writers are practitioners gives an energy to the book, where ideas flow, and stories draw one’s attention. I found myself particularly enjoying the final section, where chapters on noticing and adapting offered some helpful wisdom developed in practice, and the chapters on experimenting and co-creating were both inspiring and practical. Each chapter ends with “five things to consider” which helps the reader to identify ways to think about the principle more deeply, to put the principle into practice and to reflect on their current practice in light of the principle. There was some gold within these “five things”, and I wondered whether some chapters would benefit from being much more focused towards them. The 15 principles are offered as a helpful framework, rather than any sort of model or approach. This is particularly drawn out in the introduction, final thoughts and conclusion which do a reasonable job of drawing together a huge variety of approaches, ideas and insights.

As might be expected from a volume such as this, some chapters work better than others, and the framing given by Olsworth-Peter and Zscheile isn’t always easy to hang onto when reading through the book. My biggest issue with the book is that there are almost too many ideas, suggestions, quotes and stories. While this is real plus, providing plenty of ideas to inspire and help one’s own practice, the negative is that it doesn’t always flow when reading it. I can’t help wondering whether it has slightly fallen in a gap between a theological account of these principles and a practical handbook. I realise that my perspective as a teacher and trainer before I’m a pioneer practitioner might shape the way I read this book, and I would certainly be interested to hear how those involved in pioneering and church planting day in, day out find it. I do wonder whether there is a way this could be streamlined to really play into that strength of its practical perspective. That being said, I can still happily recommend it as a book which has offered a helpful framework which I’m sure I will return to. There is a wealth of ideas and practices, and some really helpful chapters opening up ideas which are less commonly encouraged and reflected on. (Harvey Kwiyani’s chapter on bicultural identity particularly comes to mind.) What I can really get on board with about this book, and why I think it is a valuable contribution to reflections on pioneering and church planting, is the way it moves away from presenting particular modules towards encouraging principles focused on practices, postures and spirituality – in the words of the book, moving from a focus on doing to a focus on being.

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Jonny Baker and David Cotterill, Fringe Dweller (Getsidetracked, 2026) 

reviewed by Natalie Burfitt

Fringe Dweller invites the reader “to encounter the person of Jesus Christ afresh” through 40 reflections on a variety of gospel stories. It’s intended as a devotional text that can aid both individual and group engagement. The way in to this dialogue between the reader and the characters and action of the gospel is the idea of ‘fringe dweller’. This descriptor is taken from John V. Taylor, bishop and missiologist, whose work Jonny Baker has previously taken inspiration from (see Imagining Mission with John V Taylor by Jonny Baker and Cathy Ross). It’s a lens that the reflections employ with consistency and to powerful effect in two ways.

Firstly, it maintains attention on the radical and disruptive nature of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus’ encounters are repeatedly with people who live on the fringes of society. Jesus disrupts and disregards the multiple ways we categorise and marginalise – something that also makes him a fringe dweller. There are also ‘fringe’ places, those no-go areas that are best avoided by respectable people.

These kinds of people and places are highly recognisable in Christian ministry, particularly for those that have a pioneering or missional orientation. This is the second way that the fringe-dweller lens is effective, as the reflections and suggested spiritual practices are deeply rooted in the realities of ministry. There’s wisdom and encouragement here on the highs and lows of mission in fringe places and on the impact Jesus can have on those that live there.

I really liked the straightforward style of the writing that makes the reflections engaging and accessible. However, as the authors state, this does not mean that they have left the academic at the door! There is sound scholarship and contemporary theology informing these reflections, making them a ready tool for use in all sorts of gathered settings. The liturgies add to the possibilities here. They are all ready to use or, as the authors invite, can be adapted or added to, or can inspire you to create your own.

There’s a humility to this book that is refreshing. While the authors are committed to the fringe-dweller notion, they also acknowledge that this needs to be read in conjunction with other perspectives on Jesus. The illustrations give the book the look of a graphic novel and this creativity in locating Jesus in our context so that we can follow his fringe-dwelling way is true to the book’s purpose.

Taking a cue from the 40 reflections, I used this as my book for Lent. So often I set out on these seasons of preparation with just such a good intention and only manage to make it to day three. I looked forward to picking up Fringe Dweller and travelled through Holy Week with the final reflections, having made it the whole way through! I highly recommend it as a resource to draw on for yourself and for use with others.

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Jamie Pitts, Organizing Spirit: Pneumatology, Institutions, And Global Imagination (London: T&T Clark, 2025)

reviewed by Revd Ben Morgan Lundie
Rector, The Looe Valley Benefice and doctoral candidate at the University of Roehampton and Church Mission Society

In Organizing Spirit, Jamie Pitts wants to challenge and complexify the dualistic either/or perception that the Holy Spirit is active in marginalised, community-based movements and absent from stable institutions. To develop his theology of how the Spirit may work in organisations, he describes a “pneumatological-sociological picture” (p. x). Writing as a professor of Anabaptist Mennonite theology, Pitts attempts to answer this question by putting Mennonite pneumatology in conversation with Pierre Bourdieu’s relational sociology. 

His argument builds over five chapters. In Chapter 1 he makes an argument for expanding how theologians see the Holy Spirit at work in the organisation of complex human social structures such as communities, movements and institutions. In chapters two to four Pitts develops his argument through three case studies, using the themes of eco-theology, gender and sexual minority inclusion, and racial justice. The book concludes with a proposal for a political theology in which the Holy Spirit is the organiser of Christian institutions that can counter the global phenomenon of neo-liberalism. 

I found inspiration in Organizing Spirit for developing theological insights into my own area of research interest of a practical theology of change in the church, and how institutional change could be influenced by the Holy Spirit. Practical theologians concerned with the topics of the three case studies – climate change, equality and social justice issues – will find value in Pitts’ work as a way of understanding how the Holy Spirit gives agency to human action, as will those who are interested in the growing field of organisational ecclesiology.

In my mind there are two shortcomings in the book. Pitts says that he will develop a framework for discerning if an institution is participating in the life of the Holy Spirit. I was interested in this as a practical theologian as a way of measuring or discerning how God works through institutions, but Pitts does not fully develop these criteria (p. 176). He draws out a few conclusions from the three case studies, and states the obvious, that “all institutions are fallible and liable to go wrong” (p. 160). I would have liked to see these criteria developed further. It is also ambiguous throughout the book whether the organisations and movements that Pitts has in mind are explicitly Christian in foundation and activity or whether the Holy Spirit can also act through non-Christian institutions. I think that he falls into the first category, but he does suggest that the Holy Spirit can use “worldly institutions” to call the church to account for failing to live up to its vocation (p. 150). Should you read this book? I would say yes, even if you do not have direct interest in the topics of the case studies. For many denominations, institutional presence and power can often overshadow the theological reality of the church. The perspective outlined in Organizing Spirit offers the possibility and hope for organisational redemption and sanctification.

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Andrew Walls, Christian Conversion and Mission: A Brief Cultural History (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2025)

reviewed by Paul Thaxter

Published posthumously, this edited, accessible, condensed short book (about 150 pages with notes) is an excellent introduction to the writings of Andrew Walls, who died in 2021. It explores the cultural history of Christian conversion which Walls, a Scottish historian of Christian mission, had spent most of his long life considering in the company of other leading missiologists and theologians from around the world. Conversion is a contested notion in contemporary societies. Walls perceived Christian conversion as “turning toward Christ what is already there”. He argued that the cultural context needs to be considered and understood both in and across history. People come to Christ differently and express themselves in both geography and history.

Mark R. Gornik writes an informative introduction to the lectures, notes and writings of Walls. Interestingly, the first four chapters are from his lectures at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1996, which were unpublished transcripts. They provide, in my opinion, a hitherto-lacking coherent, concise introduction into Walls’ writings and thought. They look at the nature of converts and proselytes in Jewish Christianity and Hellenistic Christianity, contrasting with Barbarian Christianity and the birth of Christendom, culminating in Chapter 4 with his insights on “Christianity without Christendom”.

Chapter 5 (“Worldviews and Christian Conversion”) highlights some of the important developments and implications for mission over the centuries, whilst chapter 6 (“Monks and Evangelicals”), only four pages, looks at the nature of Christendom and some of its radical movements. In Chapter 7 (“When World Christianity Fell Apart”) Walls describes the astonishing diversity of the Church in culture and geography, and comments that the current reality of global Christianity is “a return to normality, a return to the multicentric, multilingual, multicultural reality of the Early Church…” In the epilogue there is a summary of six different phases of Christianity with its ensuing diversity but also noting points of coherence and continuity. Having read Walls previously, I found this last short book to be a good entry point for both the general interested reader and for those students who wish to explore the dynamics of conversion and culture further. As it is edited posthumously from notes, lectures and conversations it occasionally lacks a completely smooth read but it does provide an authentic expression of Walls’ unique contribution to mission, theology and faith. 

This book is ideal for mission practitioners, church planters, discipleship trainers, evangelists and church leaders pondering the interactions of culture and conversion over church history. When we encourage people and communities to turn to Christ, what exactly are we seeking to do? How much of our culture (including the way we do church) is essential, disposable or open to transformation in the process? Reading this book could lead to stronger reflection on how to generate healthier, more open creative Christian communities, stronger disciples and a more multi-culturally relevant church. Not only do I recommend this book but I am buying it for friends and for those I think would benefit from contemplating its contents.

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A conversation between Nuam Hatzaw and Harvey Kwiyani

This conversation between two CMS lecturers, Nuam Hatzaw and Harvey Kwiyani, took place at The Assembly in Glasgow in November 2025. Harvey describes how he came to write his book, Decolonising Mission (see the book review section) and offers reflections on mission and empire. He tries to imagine mission being done without power and money, but rather reliant on the hospitality of others, rooted in relationship and motivated by love.

1. Motivation for the book

N: Harvey, can you tell me what motivated you to write this book? I know you have a long career in mission organisations.

H: Two things, really. First, I’m trying to process what happened in my own story – my village, my people, my family. My great-great-grandfather, Mtimawanzako Nacho, was one of the first converts of Scottish missionaries working at Blantyre Mission in Malawi at around 10 years old in the early 1880s (after escaping from the hands of slave raiders who took his parents away). The missionaries later brought him to Stewart’s Melville College in Edinburgh where he attended from 1885 to 1887. After returning to Malawi, he worked closely with the missionaries and eventually became the first Malawian to be entrusted with running a mission station independently.

He served Chiradzulu Mission faithfully from the 1890s into the 1920s. But later in life, he became entangled in conflict with Alexander Livingstone Bruce who owned the Bruce Estates at Magomero (where I was born) as part of the British settler farmers during the colonial era. That conflict escalated to the point that, in his 70s, after a lifetime of Christian leadership, he took his own life in 1945. So for me, this is not abstract. It’s deeply personal. I’m trying to make sense of how mission, faith and colonialism became so entangled that it produced that kind of outcome for someone like him.

Second, I am convinced that much of our missiology today remains shaped – often unconsciously – by the colonial assumptions that have shaped much of mission in the past 500 years. There lingers a defensive posture, as though Christendom is perpetually under threat, as if Constantinople might fall again. That anxiety continues to frame mission as the protection of the faith against external others.

Yet, when we turn to the Gospels, we see something quite different. Jesus is not defending an empire; he is announcing and enacting a kingdom that unsettles and subverts it. His mission does not secure power: he wants to give it away to those oppressed by the empire so they can live their lives to the full.

As long as mission remains tied to empire or to the cultural frameworks of Western civilisation, Christians from the rest of the world cannot participate as equal agents. At best, they are incorporated; at worst, they are managed. But we now inhabit a different moment, the era of world Christianity. Christians from every part of the world are already on the move, bearing witness to the gospel in ways that are not dependent on traditional sending structures.

Mission is no longer the preserve of one region or tradition; it is a shared calling of the global church.

2. Empire and reference points

N: That’s really helpful. The gospel spread in the context of empire, but not through empire. In colonial theory, there’s always a “centre” that defines everything. In Jesus’ time, Rome was that centre. Who is the centre today?

H: The British empire is no longer what it once was, but it still carries immense influence. The American empire certainly does. And when we look at global evangelicalism, those centres still shape much of what we call mission. But it’s not just Britain and America: European empires more broadly continue to shape global Christianity. These are the powers we are still negotiating as we serve Christ today. I am also aware of conversations that suggest that Silicon Valley and many other technological hubs are centres in the economics of empires.

N: And there’s also a kind of Christianity that functions like an empire, a very narrow definition of what it means to be the church or to do mission.

H: Exactly. Empires shape how people think. They produce theologies that serve their own interests. I argue in the book that what we call evangelicalism today can sometimes function as a kind of “religion of empire”, spreading a form of Christianity that serves imperial structures rather than subverting them.

3. Power, empire and the Spirit

N: Let me push back a bit: can God not use centres of power? Think of Cyrus in the Bible.

H: God can use anyone. But the issue is this: even when we are within empire, the gospel of the kingdom subverts the logic of empire. The danger comes when we mix the gospel of Christ with the logic of empire. That’s where we lose clarity.

Empires organise the world around centres and peripheries. Historically, to be ‘Christian’ was to be located near the centre – the city – while those beyond it were dismissed as ‘pagans’ or ‘heathens’. Jesus disrupts this geography even before it emerges. He forms his disciples in Galilee, far from the recognised centres of power, and sends them out from Jerusalem – not Rome or Alexandria, but from a marginal, contested centre within a colony, one that would itself be destroyed within a generation.

Mission, in this sense, does not proceed from imperial strength. It begins at the margins and moves outward – without the backing, validation or resources of empire. And crucially, he tells them to wait – not for political power, but for the power of the Spirit. So, if we are serious about decolonising mission, we must ask: are we relying on the power of empire – money, influence, institutions – or on the power of the Spirit?

4. Money and mission

N: That leads us to money. Mission requires funding, but money is also tied to power. How do we think about that?

H: In Luke 10, Jesus tells his disciples not to carry a purse – just go. They are to live as people without power, dependent on the hospitality of those who receive them. Mission, in that sense, is not resourced by wealth but sustained through relationships. Today, however, mission is often restricted to those with access to financial resources. Yet, when Christ says, “Go,” he is addressing everyone, rich and poor alike. If participation in mission depends primarily on access to money, we need to ask what kind of mission we have constructed.

This is especially important today when millions of Christians are already on the move. A Pew Research Center report (2024) suggests that around 47 per cent of international migrants are Christians.¹ They move for work, education and trade, but they also carry the gospel with them. We rarely recognise them as missionaries because they have not been formally “sent”. Perhaps decolonising mission requires a shift in perspective. Instead of asking, “Who can we send?” we might begin by asking, “Where is God already at work through people on the move – and how can we join them?”

5. Rethinking success in mission

N: What does this mean practically, especially in areas like funding, reporting and evaluation?

H: In Western systems, we often measure success through numbers: how many people were converted, how many decisions were made. That drives funding. But what if success looks different?

What about the missionary who spends years building relationships, showing the love of Christ, but sees no immediate conversions? That witness may bear fruit in the next generation.

Mission is relational. It is about presence, faithfulness and witness – not just measurable outcomes. If we change how we define success, we will change how we practise mission.

6. The complexity of mission history

N: How do we deal with the complicated legacy of mission, both its positive and negative aspects?

H: It is complex. Take David Livingstone, for example. In Malawi, he is remembered as a hero. But historically, he also contributed to arguments that enabled colonisation. His work led, almost directly, to the colonisation of the Congo by Leopold II of Belgium, to the Berlin Conference of 1884, and to the Scramble for Africa that followed.

And then there are stories like that of Nacho, my great-great-grandfather, a local mission leader whose contributions are largely absent from the official record. I had to come to the Edinburgh archives to learn his story. It is not preserved in Malawi.

So, the issue is not that every missionary was bad. The issue is the system. The system was entangled with empire. We need to acknowledge that honestly – lament it, repent of it – and then imagine new ways of participating in God’s mission that are not shaped by those same structures.

7. Imagining mission without empire

N: Finally, what might mission without empire look like?

H: We need to ask some fundamental questions. Can we imagine mission without conquest? The word missio has military origins: it is about the sending of soldiers. But the New Testament idea of sending (apostolos) is relational. It is people sending people, not empires sending agents.

So what would mission look like if it were:

• driven by love rather than fear?
• shaped by vulnerability rather than power?
• rooted in relationship rather than conquest?
• empowered by the Spirit and not empires?

Can we imagine mission that is not backed by military or economic power, but by compassion? If we are to rethink mission today, these are the questions we must take seriously.

About the authors

Nuam Hatzaw is MA lecturer in Asian Christianity at CMS; her research and teaching focuses on migration, Asian theology and world Christianity.

Dr Harvey Kwiyani is a team leader at CMS where he leads the Acts 11 project on mission and migration and leads the African Christianity route through the MA. He is a theologian and missiologist specialising in African Christianity, diaspora mission and intercultural leadership, working at the intersection of theology, migration and the global church. He is the author of Decolonizing Mission, which advances a vision of Christian witness beyond imperial frameworks toward a more Spirit-empowered, polycentric and relational global church.

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Notes

1. Pew Research Center, The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants (Pew Research Center, 2024), https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/08/PR_2024.08.19_religious-composition-migrants_report.pdf ︎

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How movements happen: Parish Collective and Pioneering Parishes

Tim Soerens and Tina Hodgett in conversation

Tina and Tim ponder their experience of the key drivers and dynamics of movements. Clue: it’s a lot to do with the Holy Spirit.

About the conversationalists

Tim Soerens is the co-founding executive director of the Parish Collective and an author based in Chicago. 

Tina Hodgett is co-creator of Pioneering Parishes with Greg Bakker. She works at Church Mission Society, training lay pioneers and clergy in the tools, practices, skills and postures of contextual mission and a mixed ecology of church.  

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Transcript

Tina Hodgett [00:00:03] So, hi, Tim, I hear it’s snowing in March in Chicago.

Tim Soerens [00:00:08] It’s snowy in March, in Chicago, yes.

Tina Hodgett [00:00:13] And you look warm and sunny in March.

Tim Soerens [00:00:16] Well, thank you. Yes, I’ve got I’ve got good sun lights around here.

Tina Hodgett [00:00:21] It’s good to see you. We’re here to talk a bit about movement and how you make them. So you’re CEO of the Parish Collective, is that correct?

Tim Soerens [00:00:36] Yeah, executive director, same thing.

Tina Hodgett [00:00:38] Tell us about the Parish Collective.

Tim Soerens [00:00:42] The Parish Collective is a network based in the United States of congregations and small groups, missional communities, sometimes new monastic communities across a whole bunch of Christian denominations who all have one thing in common, which is that they are seeking to be the church in the neighbourhood. And that’s somewhat contrast with the major emphasis of getting people to go to church or getting people to count rally around the Sunday event. And so it’s essentially it’s a network. It’s a learning network and a national community of practice. And we’re trying to tell stories of how this is possible all across the country and with friends like you around the world. And we host convenings and learning communities. And we also have conferences and work with all kinds of denominations, but essentially we exist to connect people to be the church in the neighbourhood, and our long-shot dream is that we could help be a part of what we feel like God is doing to reimagine and reorganise the church around relationships that are pursuing shalom in their places.

Tina Hodgett [00:01:59] Yeah, and I got a bit of a flavour of that two, three years ago when I came to the Inhabit conference and met you all, which was really exciting and inspiring. And how long have you been going and what’s it been like trying to create an idea and make it a movement, take an idea and make a movement of people.

Tim Soerens [00:02:25] We don’t have an official start date, but we’re somewhere in the ballpark of 13, 14, 15 years old as an organisation. So more than 10 years for sure. We’ve been at this for a while. Yeah. And here’s how – I’m curious. I’m gonna put this back to you soon – but here’s how I think about movement making. I primarily don’t think that you make movements. I think that connect them. I think you listen closely and try and discern some, like, common desire, maybe some common language, yearning, which typically happens on the edges of institutions or places. And a lot of times, those people with a common desire or longing, I think like inspired very much from the Holy Spirit, can inherently feel a little bit out of place, or they can feel. Like they don’t know what they’re doing, or by nature of not going with the historic status quo, kind of the default system, it’s disorienting. And so when you meet other people like you, or even other congregations who seem to have a similar longing, it just, it is magical. So that connection, I think is at the heart and soul of what we’re trying to do, but I actually think that’s how all movements actually grow, is from the right connection with the right people at the right time. I would love for you to reply in the same way. Lots of people probably know about Pioneering Parishes and I’m a huge fan. But just in case people don’t or need a refresher, could you tell us a little bit about Pioneering Parishes? And then same question to you. How do you think about movement making or how movements could possibly be made?

Tina Hodgett [00:04:15] Yeah, so Pioneering Parishes feels like a kind of cousin to the parish in the neighbourhood. Our concern is that the parish isn’t defined by the people who show up on Sunday, but that we express God’s longing to be the church that expresses a desire to reach, connect with people who are unconnected across the whole parish. And to shift the, to unlock capacity in the parish church, to shift energy outwards towards the people who aren’t yet connected, and to join in with partnerships with people in the local area, because we’re a values-based organisation, and once we’ve established our values, very often those values can be shared by partners in our neighbourhood, and then we can agree together how we can serve the neighbourhood together and then work in partnership with that. So, it’s a lot of things, one of which is unlocking potential and capacity in congregations through having open and honest conversations, doing congregational discipleship, encouraging people to do congregational missional listening, work out what God’s calling us into and find the surprising God resources to move out into that. So we’re still finding the language for explaining what it is that we’re doing, I think. And I came into it from being primarily a pioneer in the Church of England, called into the Church Of England to join in with that movement of God’s Spirit, that deep movement of God’s Spirit. And as time went on with me having roles to set up pioneers in parish spaces and finding that they often didn’t flourish as well as they could have done because the parish wasn’t folding itself around what they were doing or wasn’t able to see what God was calling them to do, what the relationship was, a lot of parishes thought that the pioneers were there to create people to come to church on Sunday, which was never the intention – it was for them to create contextual forms of church for people who probably would never show up on a Sunday morning. So trying to create more of a symbiotic relationship between the mother church and the new baby churches. And that was when I met my colleague, Greg Baker, who’d been working on the parish end of this paradigm for a while. And when we got together, I thought, yeah, this is a good combination of the two of us to kind of work from a parish based and more pioneering outward perspective and see if we can create an ecosystem where everybody has a gift to give the other to help all the churches, the time honoured and the new ones to thrive and flourish together.

Tim Soerens [00:07:33] Beautiful. Okay, so then, I mean, I hear some movement language in that, but how do you think about movements and movement making and even like movement architecture or how, what, if you want to help create or connect a movement, what are the building blocks for how you’re thinking about your work?

Tina Hodgett [00:07:54] Well, I think some of it’s kind of standard, you know, we need a brand, we’ve got a really great digital comms officer, we needed to do the occasional dance on Instagram, which I love and Greg hates. But for me, the really deep thing is that often it feels as though the Spirit has already done the heart work in hearts and minds and created the desire. So we worked, we try and work in partnership with dioceses and early on we met, we had an advocate, so I think advocates are really vital, not very high in a diocesan organisational structure but she banged on the door and kept insisting that some of her colleagues listened to Greg and I talk about our work. And then they listened carefully, asked great questions. And then one lady who had been agnostic about anything to do with pioneering suddenly had this epiphany moment. And she went, I’ve been looking for a tool like this the whole time I’ve being the director of ministry in this diocese. This is exactly what I need. And then she opened all kinds of doors for us to show our wares, really. We did some training and she and all the people in that diocese have just unlocked so many doors for us including: we’ve just done some training with a partner with a next-door diocese to this one which went well because we’ve been learning and getting things wrong and readjusting and finding more language to explain what we’re about. So some of it’s just about allowing – the movement making is actually happening in us as we work out what is the gift we’re holding and where it’s best applied and how to talk about it. So we’re championed as well by Jonny Baker who’s my line manager at the Church Mission Society. He’s a great champion and so we’ve got champions in the pioneering CMS mission world and champions in the diocesan world. And then people come and are in the training session and often they’re people who know that what we’re offering is what they need. There’s just that sudden sense of oh these are the tools we need and if they could have stopped for a minute and thought about it, that’s what they would have said they wanted. I really love, in Winnie the Pooh, there’s a picture at the very first page of the book, where Christopher Robin’s coming down the stairs with Winnie the Pooh held by the leg, and Winnie is banging his head on every step. And he says, if only I could stop for a minute, I’m sure there’s a better way of doing this.

Tim Soerens [00:11:05] Hahahahahahahahahaha.

Tina Hodgett [00:11:08] And it feels as if the church is like moving so fast and it’s been doing things the same way for such a long time it’s like if only we could stop from it there must be a better way and I think – so we had a young priest the other day say, finish our training and go: these are the tools I need to go and do my thing. And it’s not like we’ve had original ideas, it’s almost as though the Holy Spirit has been preparing the way for the day when church leaders, through my colleague Greg working this stuff out over about 30 years and refining it more recently, it’s almost like it’s ready. It’s a ready package for us to bring it to the world and then for people to go, ah yeah, this is the thing I’ve been waiting for and the Holy Spirit’s going, well here you are, have it in your hand, but we’re still trying to articulate it. So it’s like receiving, receiving something, I think, for me. And then working out what it is, and then, working out how to use it.

Tim Soerens [00:12:12] I love that! A couple things that I’m hearing that are somewhat in common. One is that desire is the kind of raw material that we get to work with. And would you say that’s true?

Tina Hodgett [00:12:28] Yeah, always.

Tim Soerens [00:12:30] Right? That’s like, that’s the only thing that we have if we’re not going to try and, you know, do kind of power over or create a technique or just be in constant sales mode, that it always requires a posture of listening for the gift and the desire of others. And then I just really, and I firmly believe this too about what’s happening here: either the Holy Spirit is doing this work and then we pay attention to it and try and join or not. It’s kind of that simple at some level. It’s incredibly complex for how we go about that.

Tina Hodgett [00:13:05] Yeah.

Tim Soerens [00:13:06] If the Holy Spirit is not cultivating the work ahead of us, then it’s backbreaking work. It feels like, to the Winnie the Pooh metaphor, you know, we might even accidentally keep bringing Pooh down the stairs without meaning to.

Tina Hodgett [00:13:26] Yeah. And I don’t think I’d ever quite realised it until I said it then, that it’s been prepared way, way in advance. And it’s so much through people that God has visited and said, you’re going to be the person that spearheads this. You’re not… You’re the one I’m calling. And you see that pattern through the Scriptures, you know, God showing up with individuals often on the edges, and going – and often surprising – and God is going, you’re going to be the one that leads on this. And then you need the first follower. You need the people who can see God at work or see the genius in that person and go, well, I’m gonna, I can see this too, and I’m going to support you through it, which is probably in this particular situation, me, going: this stuff that Greg’s got, the church needs this. And, um… And we need to find ways to share it more widely and gather people round it.

Tim Soerens [00:14:32] Have you ever seen that short TED Talk that’s called How to Start a Movement, with the person at a music festival who’s dancing and then people start joining? That came to mind as you were talking because maybe that was Greg’s role was to kind of be the first person dancing for maybe a long time. It takes a lot of courage to dance by yourself but as the speaker in that TED Talk says, that’s not a movement, it’s you paying attention and having the courage to dance along and then others and then others. It’s a beautiful metaphor.

Tina Hodgett [00:15:13] Yeah. And that first person’s the first follower, and I think I’ve always wanted to be the mad person dancing, but actually, we’ve got to have the humility, haven’t we, to – and discernment – to join in with the person that’s the mad dancer and not see them as the mad dancer and think, how can we amplify this? And yeah, I think that whole role of the person who can join in and know all the people who can amplify because we wouldn’t be anywhere without a whole string of people who’ve opened doors for us in places we didn’t have access. So we have used our personal networks in the early days. I was just you know emailing everybody I knew and going: well we’ve got this thing and would you like to know a bit more about it and maybe you can contribute… Because what we found in having conversations with people was that we understood more and more, they were saying what they needed and we were going well yeah maybe we’ve got something that can help. So it was kind of like dough rising as well, that’s another metaphor.

Tim Soerens [00:16:27] I love that metaphor as well. Well, is there anything that’s on your mind right now as you, on behalf of Pioneering Parishes, are thinking about the future, as you’re thinking about the next faithful steps in trying to help cultivate a movement? Is there anything that springs to mind, a challenge, an opportunity, something you’re particularly excited about?

Tina Hodgett [00:16:50] What a lovely question. I feel I’ve been talking quite a lot. I’ll tell you there’s a book coming out. We’ve got a book coming out and I think that will be another kind of catalytic thing. You tell me a bit…

Tim Soerens [00:17:07] Does it have a title?

Tina Hodgett [00:17:08] Well, it’s called Into All The Parish: tools for… I can’t remember quite the rest, but Into All The Parish, yeah. And you’ve written books as well, have they helped your movement making?

Tim Soerens [00:17:25] Yeah, you know, we’ve talked about this in the past a little bit, but another visual that has been really animating for me and for our work is what has called the two-loops theory of change, where you have one loop that is a normal default or dominant system that tends to be in decline, and then an emergent system, and the beginning is naming and framing with language. And so I do think that writing and even conversations like this is really, really important because it is a kind of flag that we can wave to people that perhaps God has been speaking to or where there is desire and yearning, where there’s like, yes, you’re putting language to something that’s been swelling up within me -as well as all the incredible tools for folks that want to be resourced like you’re talking about. But yeah, with some friends, I wrote a book called The New Parish and – about seven or eight years ago – and then a follow-up that was more for everyday Christians called Everywhere You Look: Discovering the Church Right Where You Are. And those publications have absolutely been catalytic and framing in meeting heaps of new friends and colleagues.

Tina Hodgett [00:18:39] Yeah, so in the last minute, if people want to join in with what God’s up to in the world and the church at the moment, how can they be part of movement making or movement connecting?

Tim Soerens [00:19:05] Well, my first invitation would be to… think about their actual lives and where those actual lives get played out. So I’m a big fan, obviously, of geography, of local places and spaces. And I think a powerful question to connect with God’s movement is to simply ask out loud and even better with a couple of friends and maybe other people that are following Jesus, maybe even people from your congregation, what might be some of God’s dreams for this place? And I think that question, and I do think it’s plural, probably not singular, I think asking that over and over again and being open to what might that look like, creates a whole new path for us. And I think the more of us that are asking, you could say, that question of what God is longing for, what does God desire, in a very real place with real people and real systems and real histories and real power dynamics and real complexities… I think taking action into that, even experimentally, is the way of the future, which is incredibly complex and chaotic in many ways. But I think that’s where the movement is. And then if we can share those stories of experimentation, whether things work or not, I think we’re all going to be able to tell our friends and our kids and nieces and nephews incredible stories of how we got to join what God was up to, at least in part, in our day. Final remarks for you, Tina. What would your, your advice be to join in movements?

Tina Hodgett [00:20:48] Yeah, I think I’d just match it with one of our core questions, which is, who do we aspire to be for God and our local community? And again, it’s place-based. And it’s in the now. And it’s very powerful.

Tim Soerens [00:21:06] Yes, it is.

Tina Hodgett [00:21:07] And it’s about the being as well as the doing and uniting them.

Tim Soerens [00:21:13] Yes.

Tina Hodgett [00:21:16] So I’m feeling very moved, so I think we should finish before I have to go.

Tim Soerens [00:21:22] I think you’re right.

Tina Hodgett [00:21:23] Really lovely to chat to you. Tim Soerens [00:21:26] Same, same to you now, what an honour. Thank you so much.

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Mission, movements and sodal life

Johnny Sertin in conversation with Kris Rocke

J: Street Psalms has been at the forefront of cultivating a sodal network over a number of years. What first compelled you to give your life to this kind of movement rather than a more traditional organisational model?

K: Thanks for the opportunity to journey with Aspen or what I affectionately call a “sister sodality”. There are not that many of us. As you know historically there have been two main forms of church in history – the sodal and the modal form. The modal form is what we think of when we think of a local congregation – a community that does life together from cradle to grave in a specific parish community. The other form is the sodal form. This is a community that gathers around a shared mission and has a shared “charism” that it nurtures for the sake of the larger body of Christ. Typically, these were called “orders”. Well, “orders” fell out of favour at the Reformation but the need for the sodal form of the church has never stopped. I grew up Catholic so orders always made sense to me. In fact, I was drawn to the missional focus of the orders. I knew I didn’t want to pastor a local congregation (which is a good thing, because it was a mutual feeling… as it turns out, no local church wanted me as a pastor). So, it was always sodality or bust for me. Street Psalms’ mission is to free leaders to love and serve in Jesus’ name. Our charism is the way we “see and celebrate Good News in hard places”. Our role is to steward this gift on behalf of the modal form of the church – to walk alongside leaders and congregations who are living out the gospel in their context.

So, we are an order with a seminary and a design studio that serves a global network. We have 41 ordained members scattered throughout the world (that is, they are ordained into Street Psalms). Our seminary is the reflection side of our work. It provides formation for those seeking ordination, our fellows and all those who want to be formed with us. Our design studio is the action side of our work. We co-create models of social innovation that lead to human flourishing. So, we are a religious order with a seminary and design studio that serves a global network that represents more than 100 cities around the world.

So, that’s my best spiritual answer as to why we chose the sodal form of the church. And it’s true: it fits who we are. We’ve been doing this work for nearly 30 years and we have always shown up as a sodality, even when we didn’t know that word. But it wasn’t until about four years ago that we got serious about formally incorporating as a sodality and the truth is it wasn’t exactly a spiritual impulse. To put it bluntly, by incorporating as a sodal community it allowed us to continue to receive large grants from high-impact donors and foundations. I won’t try to explain the complicated philanthropic codes of the United States, but let’s just say that it was greatly to our advantage to incorporate as a religious order – which we were happy to do since that is how we understood ourselves anyway. Sorry if that makes us a little less spiritually grounded, but hey, it’s the truth.

J: Looking back over the early years of Street Psalms, what have been some of the most significant learnings, particularly where reality didn’t meet expectation?

K: In retrospect, Street Psalms got lucky about something that took us years to understand. Nearly 30 years ago, a diverse group of leaders came together around our shared love for the city, the most vulnerable and Jesus. What we didn’t anticipate is that we would become such great friends who liked each other. I have a hunch that it was our delight in each other that became our most attractive quality. We were having fun and others wanted to join the party. Maybe there is something more powerful than friendship, but I’m not sure what it is. Even Jesus seemed to think that friendship is what agape-love looks like when it is fully mature. He says to his disciples, “I call you friends.” I don’t want to undersell the high ideals around which we gathered – they too have served us well – but it’s the gift of friendship that has sustained our movement, from early-stage friendship where affection was easy and mostly just fun, to late-stage friendship that can bear one another’s wounds and failures and hold life’s complexities. We are now testing the next frontier of friendship – one that includes our enemies. We’re a dispersed and diverse, cross-denominational community of Protestant and Catholic and this includes right of centre and left of centre and all that entails. The gift of friendship looks different now, but I have a hunch that if there is a future for our community, it will come down to something as simple as our mutual affection for one another.

J: In your experience, what is it about place and community that makes mission come alive? And why do you think this is especially important in this cultural moment?

K: I live in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, in the city of Tacoma, near the Puget Sound. I have a well used fishing boat that allows me to get out on the water. It’s a happy place for me. Every boat needs a name, so I named the boat “Now.Here.This”. It’s from the title of an old Off-Broadway play. The name reminds me that the only moment we have is the present moment. That’s all we ever get. It’s in this moment that Word made flesh comes to us. That is how God is enfleshed… moment by moment. I bring this up because most of us are conditioned to live in a constant state of FOMO. There is always somewhere else we want to be. I am the chief of sinners in this regard. The key, I am told, is to be where we are… living in the now (not then) and being here (not there), and welcoming this (not that). “Now.Here.This.” It’s in this light that our community is encouraged to take something like a vow of stability – to dig where we stand – to root where we are planted – to love, not only the people in our lives but also the places to which we belong. And to do so moment by moment, in community, which is the only way this works. At Street Psalms we are not dogmatic about our quasi vow of stability (life is too complex), but given that it takes most of us a lifetime to become fully human and build communities of human flourishing, generally speaking it’s a good idea to stay put and work it out. If there is nowhere God is not, and all ground is holy ground, then I suppose wherever we are is plenty good enough. God is fond of the particular. Now.Here.This.

J: For those of us nurturing emerging sodalities like Aspen, what practices or postures have you found most essential in forming people for this kind of shared life and mission?

K: It is tempting to list off practices that have meant a lot to our community, but I don’t think that’s how it works. What’s more important is that you have some practices and it’s even more important that you have rhythms by which you engage those practices. Finding what Paul describes as “the unforced rhythms of grace” is worth all the effort. As for “posture”, well, I’m a big fan of whatever posture allows you to take your work and call seriously without taking yourself too seriously. I guess you’d call that humility, and a good indicator of humility is having a sense of humour – which is something that I’ve experienced first-hand in your community.

J: There’s often a tension between movement and structure, freedom and form. How have you navigated that within Street Psalms, and what wisdom would you offer to others trying to hold that balance?

K: The creative tension you speak of is where the mojo is. Living in that creative tension is the role of leadership, I think… and leadership is one long creative act. In my experience, creation is not a thing that happened a long time ago… it is a present reality to which we are invited. When Jesus in-spires the disciples in the resurrection – literally “breathes into” them – he is not only animating them with life, but calling them to participate in the ongoing act of creation. And for my money, creation happens in the creative tensions you describe. Too much “structure” and not enough “movement” restricts, clamps down, holds back. Maybe that’s something like constipation. Too much movement and not enough structure, well, I’ll let you guess what that is like. Anyway, given the various temperaments within a community, the creative tension will probably make the whole community slightly frustrated and I sort of think that might be healthy.

J: If you were to name one or two signs of genuine transformation in people or communities, what would you point to as evidence that this way of life is bearing fruit?

K: One of the surest signs of genuine transformation in a community that is undergoing the gospel of Jesus is the increased capacity to receive and give mercy. And this opens the way to an unusual kind of community. The kind of community that can create belonging without othering… the kind that can occupy its wounds and the wounds of the world in a way that becomes the womb of new creation. This is the sort of sign that I think Jesus had in mind… And then again, all this can sound so serious and can leave us feeling a bit too self-important. So, perhaps the chief sign of genuine transformation is something that one of your very own jolly prophets noticed. It was G.K. Chesterton who said, “Joy is the gigantic secret of the faith.” Yes, joy may very well be THE sign of transformation.

About the authors

Jonny Sertin, Britain hub movement lead at CMS, is a well-known practitioner in the field of local and global missions. He is an entrepreneur, community developer, and ordained minister. He has lived or served in over 40 nations exploring the edge between contextual mission, spirituality and community practice.

Kris Rocke is the executive director of Street Psalms, a global organisation focused on developing incarnational leaders in urban communities.

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Servants Southall community scrapbook

by Idina Dunmore

Ten years on from closing our doors, this collection of memories illustrates the journey of pioneering the Servants Southall community. I hope this ‘scrapbook’ gives encouragement to anyone considering this type of incarnational ministry. It all began with a picture God gave me in 1999:

From the Servants Southall newsletter, December 2010

I can’t help feeling a little old when I consider that it was back at the end of the last century when God gave me a vision of transformation in Southall. At the time, 1999, I was working as a Health Visitor at a clinic in Old Southall, so I was becoming acquainted with the issues for families in the area: low quality and crowded housing; poor medical facilities; relationship problems including substance misuse and violence; financial difficulties; lack of safe public places…. Although it was overwhelming, I also had a growing passion to contribute to change and help find solutions to some of these issues.

One weekend, I was driving out of London with my prayer-partner and good friend. As we drove around the by-pass we had a good view of Southall and the iconic blue gas tower that looms over the area. As we were on the flyover, the sun broke through the damp clouds and a rainbow appeared, overarching the tower and the town. “There,” said my friend, “God’s giving you a sign about his promises for Southall!” We laughed and didn’t think much about it, except that it was one of those pictures in your mind that doesn’t fade, neither for me or my friend. And we often reminded each other of it.

Funnily enough, more than ten years later, my friend lived in Southall for several years, having married a local vicar. And I live here now too, with a supportive team, and most of my work is in the community with women and families. In September I, with a small team from St John’s Church, set up a Baby & Toddler Group in the Parish Centre. It has started small but already good, supportive relationships are being built with and between parents.

And having prayed about a certain house on Havelock Estate, which was in an ideal location, Mary and I moved into it at the end of October. On the first weekend living there, another rainbow appeared outside our front door, framing my view of the estate. What can I say about God’s plans, except to exclaim with the Proverbs writer, “We make our own plans, but the Lord decides where we will go.” And that they are good!!

Innovation

It was in September 2008 that five people relocated to Southall to start an intentional, Christian, missional community. God had given me the vision two years before and confirmed it clearly.

I was on the board of trustees of a small mission organisation called Servants (www.servantsasia.org). They were looking to set up teams in the Global North, and independently a vicar in Southall met the international coordinator of Servants and requested him to send a team to Southall.

When I heard of their interest in Southall, I wrote a vision document, prayed for a team, and we moved into the area. The photo below shows us at our first meeting – gathering to thrash out what a community would look like in Southall.

We were united by our faith in Christ and the principles and values of Servants, but between us we had little experience of living or serving in community.

Below are some of the steps we took. We really didn’t know what we were doing, but with good counsel, and as we stepped out in faith, God did guide our path.

Nurturing new growth

Before we did anything, we hired an allotment… a prophetic statement about transforming the wasteland into a garden – but also with the vision for starting a community garden on the plot.

This was quickly realised by partnering with A Rocha and became a thriving gardening project/community who worked on the land together every week, supporting each other, and starting Southall Transitions Group funded by the local council. Seeds of another A Rocha project were sown here too: Wolf Fields Urban Nature Reserve was subsequently created half a mile away and continues to be a beautiful urban oasis.

Initiating community

We rented two houses in the same street – near enough to “carry a casserole dish of food in our pyjamas”!                    

We set about forming a rhythm of life: prayer in the mornings twice weekly at 6.30am, and twice weekly team meetings in the evening, with shared meals together. One of these evenings soon became ‘outward-focused’, where we invited our neighbours in to join us for a meal and social time.

Our God, you are Trinity, Community,
Unbroken relationship, Love without beginning or end.
And most wonderful of all, you make room for us,
Drawing us in out of the cold, calling us friends.
As we come to you, you lead us to each other,
Into the security of belonging,
And the risks of openness.
We will not attempt alone what we can do together.
With family and friends, team and neighbours,
With those we would prefer to avoid.
Help us live the reality of trust and forgiveness today

From Servants Rhythm of Prayer – Into the Presence

Reaching out to those beyond the church

How did we get to know our neighbours? We did it through:

• partnering with churches and volunteering at other organisations,
• such as A Rocha, Missionaries of Charity, teaching English in a Somali NGO
• hanging out in our front garden, and D. starting to mend bikes for local children 
• as the children started hanging out in our house, getting to know the parents, and starting an impromptu homework club 

And we took every opportunity to celebrate: festivals, birthdays, babies, hellos or goodbyes:

Happy Anniversary!

We’ve now all been in Southall for one year. How does it feel? What have we done? 

We’ve all got new paying jobs and joined local churches

We’ve lived in the community: over the summer the local kids from our street played in our home most days. We’ve talked to social workers, started tutoring sessions, helped with computers, mended bikes, given out vegetables, hosted cooking and art lessons, taken trips to the local library and even warned off drug dealers! 

We’ve started hosting regular Creative World Justice evenings with a local flavour: for example, we invited some friends from a persecuted people-group in Burma, the Kachin, to inform us of their struggle. Most recently we heard from a Tamil leader about the genocide that is currently occurring in Sri Lanka.

We’ve progressed through our Formation material: we’ve discussed issues such as simplicity, Islam, non-violence, eco-responsibility, community development. We’ve read relevant books each month and shared our reflections together.

We’ve prayed consistently early mornings on Mondays and Thursdays

And we’ve served the local community: helping at English classes, a toddler group and soup kitchens. 

Personally, I rarely tire of this vibrant community, where I very often meet people I know in the street as I go to the local vegetable shop or grocers. I hear Hindi spoken all around me, which encourages me to continue learning, and I enjoy the Indian essence of our neighbourhood.

Written by Idina in Servants Southall newsletter – October 2009

Team building and pastoral care

In our first year we followed “formation material” that our organisation provided and we adapted to our context. We had a reading list of books we studied and then discussed together. We also majored on team-building and understanding each other through personality profiling. This remained important to us in the many ups-and-downs of community life. We had ‘team days’ and also annual weekend retreats away, as well as spending social time and eating together. We all found spiritual directors to encourage our spiritual growth.

Prophetic voice

We led discussions on missional community at the margins and ran a promotional stall at Greenbelt. We also engaged with other like-minded groups and contributed at conferences, including Speak Network.

Re-visioning

We had known from the outset that our charism was to reach out among the most marginalised in Southall. As we prayed about this, we felt drawn to a local council estate, called Havelock Estate.

In the summer of 2010 when our former landlord asked us to move, we found a house to rent on the estate… and subsequently two houses on the same street.

Servants Southall

As a community of Christians choosing to live in an urban, multi-cultural and low-income area of west London, we commit to:

• Follow Jesus
• Share our lives and support one another as a community of households
• Extend a warm welcome and generous hospitality
• Empower local people in co-operation with churches and other organisations
• Challenge the individualistic materialism prevalent in our society
• Work for justice from both local and global perspectives

Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength… Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

Our community flourished as we met our new neighbours: through the community garden, in the street or at other activities, and at events such as an unofficial street party (for the royal wedding in 2011) and carol-singing around the estate.

Forming a new community of faith

We began a weekly Thursday night bring-and-share meal to which we invited our friends and neighbours.

A stable group began to emerge, mainly of people at the margins of their own community for some reason: family difficulties, single parenting, domestic violence, mental or physical health issues, poverty.

The group slowly became a support for each other, perhaps an ‘extended family’ for those with few other resources – and for us who had moved into the area.

We planned a programme of social activities: barbecues, bonfires, trips to local countryside and the beach, and to cultural events. We also encouraged sharing and creative responses, which gave people confidence in their abilities.

Creative faith-sharing

Our neighbours and friends were mostly from Sikh, Hindu and Muslim backgrounds. However, they knew we are followers of Jesus and many natural faith conversations arose. We had a time of prayer for 30 minutes before each evening, and also led Jesus-centred worship, prayer and discussion especially at festival seasons. A men’s discussion group and a creative women’s group emerged, where issues of faith were the focus of the sessions.

A time of reflection and response to Jesus as the light of the world on Diwali (Hindu and Sikh festival of light):

It was interesting to notice that as the members of our group were nurtured, they became keen to volunteer and especially to serve others in Southall who were in difficult situations, because they recognised the needs of people in the neighbourhood, and perhaps because they saw us modelling that service too.

They have helped with a food bank, winter night shelters for the homeless, Messy Church and toddler group, a community garden, and an English class crèche. And they, in turn, built community in those places.

Partnerships and networking

From the outset, partnership with local churches was at the heart of the Servants Southall community aims. At the local CofE parish churches, we were able to encourage and catalyse the church to serve its local community through outward-looking ministries:  

• parent-and-toddler group
• Messy Church
• homeless night shelter
• food bank
• mental health drop-in and warm space

I became a governor at our local nursery school, and part of the planning group of an annual fun day at the Children’s Centre on our estate, to which we invited the parish church, Servants and Transitions to have a presence. I found this an exciting event, as the community came together to share and connect with one another, and discovered that we could work for transformation together.

Working for transformation at the margins:

Sometimes the needs in Southall seem overwhelming. It can seem that almost every household has a major issue going on; whether sickness, disability, financial hardship, family breakdown, mental health concerns. It can feel hopeless. But we know that Jesus came to restore hope, to bring life, and establish shalom – ‘life in all its fullness’. Can we dream what this means for our friends here? Do we know our part in this? Maybe we’re just starting to… 

Written by Idina in Servants Southall Newsletter – April 2010

In living among our neighbours and walking with them through good times and difficulties, we started to see glimpses of transformation, in them and in ourselves. It is often that the new is growing alongside the old, and at times we see more of one, at times more of the other.

But we kept praying with those in our neighbourhood and held on to faith that in Christ transformation to a new, full life is possible, to become all God has made us to be.    

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm,
May he bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you.
May he bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.

Northumbria Community blessing for Morning Prayer

Endings

After eight years, in 2016, it became clear that it was time to close the Servants community in Southall. There had been 11 team members during these years, and they scattered to pursue new initiatives, the majority inspired by their time in this community.

The Thursday evening group was able to be nurtured into a new worshipping community at the local parish church, called The Table, which has been documented in this book: https://ccx.org.uk/resource/send-me/, and this video: https://ccx.org.uk/stories/the-table/

Ten years on, I hope something of the legacy of Servants Southall remains. We keep some contacts in the neighbourhood, and it is encouraging to hear about continuing faith journeys and engagement in community transformation. The local churches continue to work together, with the neighbourhood now partly gentrifying.

With our friends we continue to pray for God’s goodness, justice and peace in Southall.

With thanks to everyone who has been part of the Servants Southall community

About the author

Idina Dunmore was a founding member of the Servants Southall Community in 2008. She was ordained as a pioneer minister in 2019, having trained at CMS, and is currently associate minister at Church on the Corner (COTC) in Islington. She is enjoying seeing several new pioneering initiatives emerge there, including a warm-space drop-in with prayer-space, an international meal with refugees, and a lay team focused on community ministry across the parish.  

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