A church in Durham diocese welcomed 1,200 people from the local community to an unusual event over four days in June 2019 – a beer festival in partnership with local businesses.

Members of St Mary’s Norton welcomed those attending and spent hours in conversation with parishioners who had not been to the church for decades. On a more “normal” weekend of holding weddings in the church, they might have had the chance to meet around 150 people and spend a few minutes chatting – so what changed?

St Mary’s was one of a group of churches in Durham diocese to embark upon a new journey with Church Mission Society through the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) process. This is a three-year journey of listening to both God and the local community, experimenting and taking risks in mission, then discerning how God is calling the church forward in his mission in the community.

In the listening phase, St Mary’s undertook a community questionnaire surveying how their community viewed the church. Although St Mary’s was “known and loved” among some respondents, others shared that it was “inconsequential and irrelevant to the life of the village”.

The congregation became acutely aware of the disconnect between the daily life of Norton, a village to the north east of Stockton-on-Tees with café bars and boutique shops, and the “chocolate box” Grade 1 listed church building.

In response the congregation took these perceptions seriously and reconsidered their core vision and values. After spending time renewing their discipleship, prayer and teaching, they have begun to reimagine how to share the gospel in their context.

Brewing up new ideas

One outcome of this was their “Love Norton Advent Trail”, in which local businesses hosted windows to tell the nativity story illustrated by local school children – and this proved to be a success with more than 30 local businesses getting involved. The vicar, Rev Martin Anderson, commented: “This enabled us to recognise that people were open for the church to offer something of value and substance, and provide a real focus within the community.”

As the church were considering how to build on this, Martin heard of other churches hosting real ale festivals – and he invited the PCC to consider something similar at St Mary’s.

Conversations soon followed with Three Brothers Brewing Co., a local business with strong church connections, and relevant dates were agreed. A small diocesan mission grant enabled the church to buy event carpet to cover an area of the nave floor, and church members assisted with moving furniture and distributing promotional leaflets.

Alongside the beer, local food businesses participated (including a sweet stall for children) and had to restock their supplies as demand was so great. Local musicians played each evening.

Gracious hospitality

The team were aware that not everyone would be in favour of the church hosting a beer festival, and they did receive some negative feedback. However, Martin reflected: “It created another space for mission, where conversations and relationships could be renewed, and parishioners given the opportunity to connect with the church in an informal way.

“Using our buildings creatively removes barriers that so many still feel about church. When our doors are open, and something dynamic is going on, we can meet people on the margins and reach out to those who for whatever reason feel excluded or uncertain about our welcome.”

The congregation seek to be like the 72 sent out by Jesus in Luke 10, proclaiming that “the Kingdom of God is near” among the many people around them who long for peace in their lives. By offering gracious hospitality through events like the festival, relationships can be forged and deeper conversations begin.

At the festival, members of the congregation met parishioners who had been married or baptised in the church 30 or 40 years before, but hadn’t been back until now.

A couple who had been married in the church six years earlier organised childcare for the Saturday so they could attend for their wedding anniversary, and were delighted to meet new people and share their story over a pint of real ale!

Church members heard stories of pain and conflict in family life and met those with concerns in the workplace. Others who came included the local councillor, teachers from a nearby primary school and off-duty police officers.

Faith at the heart of community

Martin shared that at the festival, “There was so much talk of Jesus implicit and explicit in the conversations.” This is a great starting point for the church to “be a space in which people can re-examine who they are and sense God’s prompting and call in their lives.”

Nigel Rooms, UK PMC leader at Church Mission Society, was at the festival and was encouraged by the buzz and warmth that the event brought to the church and community. He noted the enthusiasm of local people to talk to Martin and make a connection – even asking for selfies!

He shared that events such as this, which use contextually relevant approaches (craft beer and artisan food fitted perfectly in Norton) to build relationships, form community, “break the sacred/secular divide and uncover faith at the heart of the community.”

So what comes next? The church is being asked about dates for the festival to run again next year, and in the meantime they continue to find ways to open their doors and build connections in the community.

Related stories

Get our email newsletter:

SIGN UP

The post From irrelevance to community hub appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Numerous congregations meet in school buildings, but it is much rarer to find the kind of deep relationship that has blossomed in Thatcham as churches there participated in Partnership for Missional Church.

By Jeremy Woodham

“The school I went into seven years ago might have had an occasional visit from the vicar – now there are real relationships,” says the Rev Pat Jones, former team vicar at St Barnabas’ Thatcham Park, which along with sister church St Mary’s Thatcham, took part in the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) journey between 2015 and 2018.

St Barnabas’ congregation actually meets in Thatcham Park C of E Primary School but had struggled to make connections.

On a PMC awayday, Pat explains, the team – led by lay members of the church – was exploring the idea of looking for “partners of peace” in the community. “We realised we already had people who were parents – they had an inside role at the school, so we empowered them to be the main people.”

“PMC gave us language and permission to change imagining we might do something into actually doing it,” says the Rev Mark Bennet, Thatcham’s team rector.

Noticing what God is doing

One of the themes that emerges from churches engaging in PMC is realising how much they – or God – had already been doing, how much was already in place for the next steps God was calling them into.

The key spiritual practices involved, such as “Dwelling the World” and “Announcing the Kingdom” offer ways of spotting what God is already doing in the community.

Mark Bennet again: “Dwelling in the World opens your eyes to things that are on your doorstep but hadn’t noticed before.”

The seeds of the new relationships had been sown: church members already ran the barbecue at school fetes; Pat Jones had a background in youth and families work; a highly supportive new head teacher, Alison Webster, had arrived in 2014.

With growing confidence in the congregation at St Barnabas’, the church–school relationship started to flourish, as associate priest the Rev Brenda Harland explains.

“One of the main things was we had started to find partners of peace without realising what we were doing – it was a big confidence boost to realise something had already started with the PTA.

“Our culture was changing. Now, more people say ‘Ooh, I think that was God!’ – or there’s a light in their eyes that wasn’t there before!”

The church is not shy

The church has partnered with the PTA and the school pastoral team, which looks out for vulnerable families.

“We found relationships easy to grow somehow because we were noticing what was important to other people not just to ourselves,” says Mark Bennet.

The supportive community around the school is praised in its latest Ofsted report.

“Read the section about ‘personal development, behaviour and welfare’ because that is the biggest area that we work on together for the good of the children,” says Mrs Webster. The rating of “outstanding” speaks for itself.

While Pat has moved on to a new role, a strong network of relationships remains, as part of the PMC journey is about allowing lay people to take a lead.

“It feels now that the church is not shy,” says Leanne Baker, one of several parents at the school who found their own faith journeys revived thanks to the new connectedness of church and school community.

Coming home

“I was brought up in lots of different churches but I rebelled as a teen,” Leanne continues. “As I got older, I always had a faith but never went to church – I thought the Church of England was terribly stuck up and I was never going to venture in one!” Then a fellow mum invited her along.

“It was like coming home,” she says of her first visit to St Barnabas’ two years ago.

The symbiotic relationship of church and school is clear from talking to Leanne.

“I’m co-chair of the PTA – we couldn’t run a fete without them!” But it’s no longer just running the barbecue – church folk run prayer stations at the school fetes and clergy sit and have a cup of tea in the PTA building.

“The parents and children really embrace them – they have become so much part of the school community – that’s been lovely to watch.”

Head teacher Alison Webster agrees: “There is not a school community, there’s not a home community, not a parish community. We are one community. And when things arise we support each other.”

Changing the way you think

“PMC changes the way you think about where you are,” says team rector the Rev Mark Bennet.

For example, Leanne – who is now exploring a call to ordained ministry – is part of a new pastoral team, formed as a result of the PMC process, which is aiming to take discipleship out into the community.

“One of the big things now at St Mary’s is our response to dementia,” says Mark Bennet. “We host a memory cafe and are thinking more widely – in our community a number of residential homes for people with dementia are being built.

“PMC helped us to listen and respond – just the spiritual practices equip you to see what’s going on in the world and respond. Embedding those is what’s changed us most.”

Related stories

Get our email newsletter:

SIGN UP

The post The church in the school appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

On Holy Saturday, the small congregation of Caversham Park Church, based on a large housing development on the edge of Reading, were taking part in a prayer walk around their community and distributing Easter gifts.

By Jeremy Woodham

Just one example of the increased confidence they have found through participating in PMC.

Church member Christine Viney says their church is now more a like a river – flowing out into the community.

“I enjoyed doing the questionnaire [an early part of the PMC process] – talking to people and getting a bit under the skin of what was happening in the village. People said there was no centre – they were feeling lonely.”

In response, the members of Caversham Park started a coffee morning based at a local social club and a monthly bring-a-friend lunch at a local cafe. Not rocket science but crucially out in the community, not in a church building (in fact, they don’t have one!). Along with the Easter (and Christmas) prayer walks, these are another sign of confidence, wanting to be visible Christians in the community, says the vicar, Derek Chandler.

PMC has also, says Derek, had for the congregation “a profound effect in terms of discipleship and God being a real presence that’s around every day of the week, not just someone you visit on Sunday.”

That said, the Sunday service has seen some PMC innovation with the spiritual practices of Dwelling in the Word (which now begins every service) and Announcing the Kingdom becoming firmly embedded.

“We have some tealights in the form of a cross at the front of the church,” explains Christine, “and people come and say how they’ve seen God working during the week and just light a candle in thanks and praise to God.

“That’s what’s helped me personally, the way of seeing God in everything.”

Find out more

Watch videos from several PMC participants and find out more about the process.

Partnership for Missional Church

Related stories

Get our email newsletter:

SIGN UP

The post Seeing God in everything appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Three years ago, Woosehill Church began its participation in PMC, a fairly new initiative which encourages churches to ask God to show us what he is doing in our communities and where he wants us to join with him.

By Eileen Fletcher, Woosehill Community Church

After much discussion and prayer the PMC team had felt that we should try to address the problem of loneliness and isolation.

It was clear, however, that Woosehill Church didn’t have the people or finances to undertake grandiose schemes to reach out to build community here on Woosehill. So we thought about traditional communal activities and set up a “knit and natter” group, which we called Wool With A Mission.

We began with a core group of older church ladies, which drew in people who were a little on the periphery of the church. This immediately brought a sense of involvement and purpose among the congregation.

Our mission was to create a truly welcoming group while crafting garments for good causes and the group has been growing as people respond to the leaflets we circulated.

One of our ladies hadn’t knitted for 45 years! Prior to joining the group she had been through a brutal time, with two bereavements within months. “Knitting has been my saviour,” she told me. “Life has been tough, the hardest year of my life, but once I pick up the knitting an inner peace comes over me. It’s difficult to explain and I wouldn’t have believed it, but it’s true.”

We had also been encouraged, through PMC, to think in terms of working with other people and organisations. And so we prayed: “Bring the people you want us to work with into our lives and enable us to be channels of your love in our community.”

Shortly afterwards, as we were meeting to knit and crochet, one of the ladies mentioned First Days, a local charity working with childcare professionals who refer families to them when they are at a time of crisis; when they need something for their children and simply cannot afford it.

Such a good cause and right on our doorstep! It seemed like a marriage made in heaven; lonely and isolated people, knitting for local children in need.

We attach a label to each garment that we produce. It says “crafted with love” and we hear from the First Days volunteers that mums, with tears in their eyes, express their amazement that someone would go to all the trouble of knitting or crocheting for their children.

Related stories

Get our email newsletter:

SIGN UP

The post Crafted with love appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Smack bang in the middle of an area of Stockton-on-Tees known for prostitution and drug dealing is a church. A traditional Anglo-Catholic church, they used to be content to keep themselves and God within their four walls. Now, they are actively involved in the community. This is their story.

By Camilla Lloyd

A couple of years ago, their diocesan development officer nominated them for Partnership for Missional Church (PMC), Church Mission Society’s three-year layled programme which encourages churches to explore what God is doing in the local community and how they can be a part of it.

At the time, the small church of 70–80 members had a thriving choir and ran Messy Church and Toddler Praise in order to attract young families. But at the same time, the church was fairly static, almost lethargic, with an ageing congregation. Ruth Hicks, leader of the PMC steering group, says, “We were very satisfied with ourselves. We used to come on a Sunday for ourselves, for the congregation.”

Initial surprises

One of the first things the PMC process led them to do was a community assessment, which yielded some surprising results. For one thing, their neighbourhood wasn’t full of elderly people as they had assumed: most residents were aged 20–35, which came as a great surprise. The team also came across research by the University of Durham stating that the average life expectancy for a town centre resident is a whopping 18 years lower than that of a resident on the outskirts.

A discrepancy likely due to the high incidence of generational cycles of poverty, addictions, poor diet, etc. in the town centre. While some churches need to spend time looking for where they can be of use, for St Peter’s, local needs were staring them in the face.

Street workers were dropping in to the church, asking for money or help. The church was approached by police – they’d had complaints of goings-on in the church grounds, and perhaps the church could install more lighting as a deterrent? The vicar, who lived a five to ten-minute walk away, was propositioned almost every time he walked to church.

A leap into the unknown

When a particularly demanding girl came to the church one day and wouldn’t leave, Ruth rang local charity A Way Out. Anita Burke, general manager of the charity, says, “That was a phone call that I often recount. And I probably will never forget.”

On the phone, Ruth explained that the church was right in the centre of the patch where the girls work, and that the girls kept propositioning the vicar. Anita listened, and waited for Ruth to berate her or ask her to move the girls on. To Anita’s surprise, Ruth asked how the church could support these women, welcome them and help them. The rest, as they say, is history.

A Way Out embraced the offer from St Peter’s and took time to equip these new volunteers by putting together and delivering a comprehensive, rigorous training package. It was during this phase of waiting and preparing to work with street workers that the current vicar of St Peter’s, Bill Braviner, took up his post.

Passionate about going to people on the margins, like Jesus did, Bill was excited and surprised by their plans. “I haven’t really come across a church before who said, ‘We’ve realised there’s a need here and we want to do something.’ They felt challenged by God to leap out of their comfort zone.”

Getting started

By now, St Peter’s was almost ready to put a plan into action. Having chosen a ministry they were excited about, found volunteers easily and organised training, the PMC group took a proposal to the parish council. Their proposal outlined a six-month pilot in partnership with A Way Out, inviting girls into the church once a fortnight, offering hot drinks and food.

The council passed their proposal unanimously. “I was shocked rigid,” Ruth says. “That was a huge change. For the congregation, and especially for that council, and they’ve been supportive ever since.”

They went ahead with their pilot, but it wasn’t a great success. Once a fortnight wasn’t often enough to build relationships and the early evening timeslot wasn’t convenient. Additionally, the chaotic schedule that often accompanies street work made it too easy for girls to turn up on the wrong day. Another barrier was that some of the girls couldn’t get past the fact that it was happening in a church. Whether they had faith or not, the street workers felt condemned and judged and gradually stopped coming. After a few months, St Peter’s exciting new offer needed to be reviewed.

After so many green lights, including from the church council, what had gone wrong?

“Send us out, Lord”

At the end of every Sunday service, the congregation were praying to be sent out, but in practice, they were asking people to come to them. If their pilot was anything to go by, this method wasn’t working. A Way Out’s other staff and volunteers, however, had the opposite approach, and were actually doing what members of St Peter’s were praying for every Sunday. The charity’s tried, tested and trusted method of engaging with the girls involves going out and meeting the girls on their own turf. “We know it works,” Anita says.

At this point, the only thing that made sense was for St Peter’s to abandon their idea of inviting girls into the church, and join in with what A Way Out were already doing. Now, a team of volunteers, which includes nine people from St Peter’s, takes turns going out in the van from 8–10 at night, three times a week. They don’t have to go far – driving in circles around the church, they always meet girls who are out working. How many girls they talk to in a given evening varies; sometimes it’s two or three, another time they spoke to 11.

“When we go out in the van, we might be the only people that day who have looked them in the eye and smiled. And asked them if they’re all right. They’re either invisible or they’re scorned,” says Sandra Hawkswell, volunteer with A Way Out.

Understandably, A Way Out require all volunteers be female. For Bill, it’s the first time in 24 years of being a vicar that he can’t participate in a significant project going on in his church. Happily, though, the team is so capable he has no qualms about supporting from a distance.

Baby steps

Local street workers are generally comfortable talking to the ladies in the van – those who haven’t met them before hear from others that they are safe. But getting beyond a chat can be more difficult. For many of these girls, their life experiences have completely disintegrated their ability to trust, meaning the volunteers may spend a long time building trust through hot drinks and sandwiches before the girls feel they can accept anything more.

As the volunteers get to know girls better and they disclose that they are sex workers, the volunteers’ attitude is acceptance and a desire to help them to do what they do safely. “We offer a needle exchange, condoms, toiletries, and once they trust us, we invite them into our centre to a drop-in where they can access hot food, a wellness session and a one-to-one assessment where we start digging down into why they’re on the street,” Anita says.

Whether they are working to fund their own or a partner’s substance habit, or to pay the rent and put food on the table, none of the women are there by choice. Each one of them is trapped, unable to find a way out on her own.

Anita tells of one girl who said, “I was stood on this corner and I was crying out to God, and saying, just give me a sign that you’re there, because I am desperate, and I’m having to sell myself.” As she was thinking that, the A Way Out van came down the road. When the ladies saw her, they did a U-turn and stopped alongside her. Testimonies like this inspire volunteers and the charity to keep going, even though tangible results take time.

“Just making themselves vulnerable to open up to receive love in a different way for me is a step towards Christ, towards the arms of Jesus, because they’re actually realising what real love is,” says Anita.

From first encounter to fresh start

The journey from meeting a girl for the first time to seeing her start over in a new location is a long one. For most of the girls the team meet, their behaviour and emotional trauma is highly entrenched, and sex work is generally part of a much bigger and more complicated picture of interconnected issues. It can take five, seven or 10 years from meeting a girl on the street to the point where she’s living independently. Rather than steady progress, it’s a long process of continual ups and downs.

Girls who have gone on to start a new life with the help of the charity have generally done so in a new location, meaning the charity often doesn’t see girls come all the way through to a living faith. But they have sown the seed; girls know that the organisation is based on Christian principles, and they meet Jesus through people like Anita and the many volunteers who are Christians.

In addition to their partnership with A Way Out, members of St Peter’s Stockton help at local primary schools, provide emergency accommodation for homeless people and support families in crisis. They also put their church building to good use, hosting Toddler Praise, Messy Church, Cafe Church, as well as a weekly English class for asylum seekers and refugees, with 130+ registered, and 40 people attending regularly from 24 countries. They will soon be running a children’s lunch club during the school holidays as well.

From ordinary to buzzing

People in Stockton-on-Tees say St Peter’s is very different now compared with three or five years ago, but how did this church go from static and inward-facing to active and engaged in the community? According to them, it’s very clear what’s made the difference: prayer and PMC. It all kicked off when they started praying together every week, and prayer is still very much at the heart of everything they do. PMC helped the congregation to know the community better and be more intentional about mission. Now, they’re looking, listening and engaging with the real issues, making church more real to people on the outside, and their congregation has almost doubled in size, to nearer 150 communicants.

According to Bill, “PMC has transformed St Peter’s both in terms of what it does and in terms of its self-understanding as a church. It’s turned the focus outwards, which is a great thing.”

Find out more

See our Partnership for Missional Church pages

Related stories

Get our email newsletter:

SIGN UP

The post Beyond the four walls appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).