Church House Publishers approached Tina and me in August 2023 about writing a book. 

by Rev’d Greg Bakker

We prepared a proposal for the editorial board and were delighted with the affirmation that what we proposed was a ‘hopeful, conciliatory and constructive contribution to contemporary church life and the church’s mission’.  This summer, after three years of work, Into All the Parish:  Pioneering practices for every local church, will be published. 

Mike Harrison, Bishop of Exeter, describes Into All the Parish: “A wise, accessible and practical guide to helping Christian communities discern how God’s Spirit is at work inside and outside the Church. Tools are provided helping congregations to ensure principles eclipse preferences, abundance mind-sets hold sway over scarcity narratives, and different ways of doing and being church are held together synergistically. All this wrapped up in a missional understanding of being caught up in God’s sacrificial loving movement towards the world – personified in Jesus and inviting our participatory involvement. Recommended!”

I was asked recently why we wrote this book. Tina will share her response in a forthcoming newsletter. I wrote because I believe God is not done with the parish church. I dare to believe God has more for congregations than can be seen from where we currently find ourselves. I believe God invites congregations to journey, to explore, to discover what God has for us. 

God has shown me over many years that when engaged and generous congregations of all shapes and sizes redirect their energy, talent, and resources towards unconnected people and help nurture safe space for those on the margins to be seen, heard and valued, the thriving of local community and of Christian faith become possible. Into all the Parish is a reflection on the pioneering practices which transform the inner life of congregations through small but dynamic changes and cultivate an environment within and beyond the church walls for unconnected people to discover that they are seen, heard and valued by God.

Pre-order the book from Church House Publishing.

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‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’.  This was a proverb I learned growing up, and as I look out of my upstairs office window typing this I see a row of castles opposite.

by Rev Tina Hodgett

When the weather is good my neighbours sit in their gardens and pretend the others in the other gardens are invisible.

In ancient Biblical times people lived in tents that could be moved.  You’d see people coming from a long way away and would prepare to meet them on arrival, not knowing if they brought gifts or threat. In either case, as Abraham knew (Gen 18), offering lavish hospitality was a way of making it more probable the outcome of the visit was a good one for all.

Hospitality is about a posture of openness to the stranger. It is about holding a space for them and yourself to meet on shared ground as fellow human beings. A fellow human being is in need of water in the desert. She or he needs freshly prepared nutritious food, shade, rest. When we encounter others as fellow human beings – subject to bodily needs, physical and psychological safety, and a need to make meaning in our lives – we are more likely to see a stranger as an opportunity to share connection. Not barricade ourself into the castle of seeing people we don’t yet know as a potential threat.

When you read this it will probably be in the raw bright days after Easter Sunday. The encounter between Jesus and the couple on the road to Emmaus may be in your mind.  Sometimes we focus on what happens at the table in that story, but Jesus is hospitable way before that. In his tone of voice, body language, humble listening and responding to them in their distress and confusion, he has created space for them to see more and become more while they are together on the road.

This is what Pioneering Parishes aims to do and aims to help churches to do; create space for others to see more and be more through encounters with Jesus and others on the road.

Is being hospitable an important value for your congregation? Discover who your congregation aspires to be for God and your local community at the next Pioneering Parishes Values Setting and Embedding Workshop. Find out more.

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There is no getting around the idea of power. It is woven into the fabric of every human community and organisation. What is asked of every congregation and its leadership is to be attentive to the use of power.

by Rev Greg Bakker

An attentiveness to the use of power in our congregations is rooted in the humility of God. Our worship liturgy, sermons, and prayers frequently affirm the power of God. Yet, one of the defining but understated characteristics of God is humility.

We often read our Bibles and pray as though humility is primarily about our unworthiness. But what the coming of Jesus shows us about divine humility is its willingness to draw alongside humanity and nurture space for us to be seen, heard, and thrive. Equally, our disposition of humility before God is about cultivating space for God to be seen, heard, and honoured in our lives and world.

How would we know that our church community and leaders are being attentive to the use of our power? We might expect to see:

• significant efforts to include as many as possible in the contributing of ideas
• robust, transparent, honest conversations in our church communities
• a curiosity to understand others and what has shaped their perspective
• careful listening for ideas that reflect the whisper of the Spirit rather than just simply seeking the opinion of the majority
• pastorally sensitive, participatory processes of change rather than change done to us by those with power

How would we know when our church community and leaders are not being attentive to the use of power? Power lacking humility:

• frequently expects people to move quickly through stages of loss or adjustment (just get on with the new stuff)
• marginalises those who have questions or simply need more time to see in a new way
• reflects and benefits the personal preferences of the “powerful” within the congregation
• rewards those who get in line with the vision and strategies of those in charge without robust processes for communal discernment

Attention to the use of power is vital to the thriving of our church communities. Power used well, power to bless, is ultimately shaped by a humility which allows us all to feel we have been seen, heard, and valued within the kinship of God.

Discover more about paying attention to use of power during a Pioneering Parishes course. Find out more.

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At Pioneering Parishes, we are persuaded that pioneers and parishes need each other.

But the dynamics between pioneers and advocates are often challenging and disruptive. To foster better understanding and coloration in mission, Rev Greg Bakker and Rev Tina Hodgett, leaders of Pioneering Parishes, have created the beatitudes for pioneers and priests.

Last year, on our blog we featured a series on the Pioneering Parishes Beatitudes. Beginning with an introduction and then looking at each beatitude in more detail. You can see all the posts here:

• Introduction to Pioneering Parishes beatitudes
• Aspiring to be our best
• Show interest
• More in common than you might think…
• Equality…
• Think Win/Win
• Journey Together
• Practise the Better Way

Now we have put together the beatitudes into one download. Making it easy to share them with your priest or pioneer and see if you can support each other to be who you each aspire to be for God and your community?

If you would like support in working with either a priest or pioneer, Pioneering Parishes can help. Take a look at our training courses or get in touch with us via the link at the bottom of this page.

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We have some exciting news to share! We are partnering with the Church of England’s Church Support Hub to bring you a special introductory webinar on Thursday 26 February from 12 to 1pm.

If you want to engage with people who are unconnected to Jesus but don’t know how to start, this webinar will help.

If you have been thinking about taking a Pioneering Parishes course but not quite sure if it would be right for your church. Then sign up for the one hour webinar to find out more.

Invite your PCC or church leadership team to come along to the taster to get a feel and discover the tools, practices and postures we offer to help you go into all the parish.

By the end of the webinar, you will have a better understanding of how to engage with a wider range of people in your community who are unconnected to Jesus.

We don’t offer a one size-fits-all, quick fix. Instead, we provide tools to cultivate an environment in which new things can thrive in an appropriate way for your context and community.

As one former participant commented: “Every church wants to be more outward looking and this gives simple ways to be so”.

Book your place at Pioneering Parishes introductory webinar to get help to go into all the parish.

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by Rev Tina Hodgett

‘These are uncertain times.’

‘This is an unprecedented situation.’

‘Things don’t seem to work anymore.’

How many times a week do you hear these kinds of phrases on TV, social media, the radio? They appear in articles and book titles like ‘How to lead when you don’t know where you’re going.’

I wonder if you ask yourself what you can do to make it (whatever ‘it’ is) better, particularly in the context of leading in the parish church?

Often what needs our attention is our own posture towards God, ourself and others. What ways of being, listening, talking and doing do we bring to these areas of our life? Our existing ways of being may be wise and wonderful.

On the other hand they may have been formed in early life to keep us feeling safe, and it may be time to carefully, with self-compassion, with the help of our community, open ourselves to change them.

This is the essence of being adaptive. Understanding that new ways forward will depend on giving up existing beliefs and habits and adopting new ones; being willing to let go of aspects of ourselves and our familiar practices; take a risk for the sake of discovering something we hadn’t imagined; trying out new things and celebrating failure as learning.* This is, I would add, the essence of the life of a disciple of Christ.

All of this can be uncomfortable, but it will be more fruitful than applying an ‘off-the-peg’ solution that assumes our deep-rooted challenges in parish churches are purely technical and can be fixed like a faulty boiler (unless of course they are a faulty boiler).

Pioneering Parishes is an adaptive organisation. We try to model adaptive approaches and we encourage parish churches to do likewise.

*You can read more about technical v adaptive solutions in Heifetz, Ronald A., Marty Linsky, and Alexander Grashow. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Harvard Business Press, 2009 or find short articles on the internet.

Find out about how your church can make being adaptive part of who it is at Pioneering Parishes Values Day.

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The lecturer entered the lecture hall bellowing, ‘What questions do you have about the assigned reading?’ The room went silent. No one engaged.

by Rev Greg Bakker

The lecturer then raised the temperature in the hall. ‘Please take out your exam booklets,’ he replied. ‘If you don’t have any questions, I’m assuming that you have mastered the content and are ready to demonstrate this.’

Hands were quickly raised in hopes of heading off an exam few were adequately prepared to sit. What followed was extraordinary. There was no lecture. There was only engagement around the questions, insights and connections of the learners in the room. Sometimes questions raised were even answered by other students.

I was in that lecture hall. I was profoundly changed that day. What Ted Hamilton, “lecturer” in Geography, did was transform me into an active participant in my own learning. His whole approach to teaching was to model what he expected of himself and what he wanted to see in us – participative learners who were curious, questioning, noticed patterns and able to explain our understanding of content to someone else in a way which contributed to their learning. His medium was his message.

One of the key values of Pioneering Parishes is ‘we model what we want to see’. In many ways, this aspiration is the pinnacle. It is the value into which all our other values flow. This value is the commitment to embody who we aspire to be in the little and big things we do. The implication is that if, for example, we aspire to be creative and pay attention to the use of power, we will cultivate systems, ways of going about things which in themselves convey our aspirations. The medium of communication, as people say, becomes the message.

This, of course, isn’t fancy corporate speak. It is deeply Christian for we follow the One whose very life was his message.

Come along to Values Day to find out more about modelling what you want to see. Book your place now.

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A church where I served in the early 2010s runs an event at this time of year called Star Trail.

by Rev Tina Hodgett

The 13th century civic parish church of St Peter’s in Portishead is turned into a Middle Eastern landscape, starry skies are projected onto the vaulted ceiling, adults dressed as the Lord of Time, navigators, magi, Mary… school children travel the star trail to meet the wise men to hear their individual stories in elaborately decorated gazebos. It’s magical… there’s no shortage of adults to dress up and rock a baby Jesus on a bale of straw, or dress themselves as an alchemist trading in myrrh.

It’s a playful, embodied, interactive and relational way of telling the ancient story. It’s immersive and engages the whole person. As infant nativities do, they draw us in to the moment body mind and soul. Of course, with infant nativities there is risk and mistakes, laughter and the unpredictable rogue child. Families attend to watch their child go through pre-school ritual, but also to enter into the jeopardy of the story again.

I’ve always seen the story of the birth of Jesus as the story of God at play. After all, here is the Son of God appearing on the human stage dressed in flesh and blood, heart and spirit, acting out the drama of God’s design in the world while the angels look on. It’s a breath-taking event, full of twists and turns, surprises and overturnings. The Holy Spirit directs the play – the drama – and creates the space for spontaneous improvisation by the human actors – the unpredictable rogue adult.

In Pioneering Parishes we are convinced that God is inviting us to join the Holy Trinity at play in the world today, like little children confident in the love and welcoming gaze of their adoring parent. We try to be playful in all we do… beyond Christmas and in the training space, in the parish, in our newsletter. How are you incorporating play into your practice as a priest or minister? Let us know!

If you would like to gift your church the opportunity to be playful in training why not buy a gift voucher for your church? Drop us a message here.

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Independent research has found that Pioneering Parishes is impacting the fulfilment of the Church of England’s six bold outcomes at the parochial level.

Recent independent research demonstrates that the small, start-up training organisation is giving long-established parish churches the tools and confidence to revitalise for mission, enabling them to reach out to children and families in the wider communities, and cultivating a framework for growth in discipleship. Read the Executive Summary here.

The research was independently commissioned by the Church of England Vision & Strategy team to evaluate the impact Pioneering Parishes is having on those who have attended courses and on the parishes they are part of. It was carried out by Paul Bradbury, ordained pioneer minister in the Church of England and associate tutor with Sarum College, Church Mission Society and Ripon College Cuddesdon. This research evaluated the experiences of Pioneering Parishes attendees against the six bold outcomes of the Church of England’s Vision and Strategy.

The data in this research indicates how Pioneering Parishes enables parishes to renew their life of worship and witness in their communities. The result is a move toward community listening, prayer, new initiatives and to changes in existing provision which makes it more welcoming and accessible.

Parishes are complex places, with long histories and multiple influences. Yet, it is also the case that many participants credited PP directly with many of the changes they were seeing in their parishes.

This is the work of culture change; work to help move parishes toward renewed vision and values for their common life. Such work can be slow and difficult. This research indicates that Pioneering Parishes is a significant and powerful tool to help parishes make substantial progress in this area in a relatively short period of time.

Read the Executive Summary of the research.

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Group think is a common feature in any well-established church community. ‘Group think’ is that settled consensus of thought which emerges within a congregation over time. It is a significant dynamic within a church which impacts on the way the world is seen and navigated.

by Rev Greg Bakker

I once participated in a Sunday morning Christian education class offered by a large church. Somehow during the session, the teaching took one of those turns which revealed a closed way of thinking. In this particular case, it unlocked group think about the people of another religious tradition. It wasn’t even about the beliefs of the religious tradition, but about the people themselves. In the midst of many negative comments from participants, I told a story about how I repeatedly entrusted my life as a Christian mission partner in a rural African nation to the group of people being discussed. My story introduced an alternative perspective to the settled way of thinking within that particular gathering.

Pioneering Parishes do just this – they tell alternative stories which question what is. Pioneering Parishes ask questions which challenge the settled consensus of thinking about the ways things are understood and done in congregation.

Learn to question what is through the Culture Change in Practice course.

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CMS’s Britain team were delighted to welcome visitors from the board of Fresh Expressions Germany in October.

“God, we need seven Bavarians to send into context!”

This prayer, written by a German visitor to CMS House in Oxford in October, refers to one of the founding stories of CMS: that the first missionaries sent by the newly established charity were seven Bavarians.

The story goes that the search for UK volunteers proved fruitless, but there were seven committed Jesus-followers from south Germany who were willing to go overseas to share the good news of God in Christ.

The story testifies to a strong connection past and present between the German church and CMS which is underpinned by warm friendship lived out through learning exchanges.

The Fresh Expressions movement in Germany looks to the UK as if – it seems – to an older cousin or sibling, and on 20 October a group of 17 visitors dragging damp suitcases and shaking wet umbrellas arrived in the foyer of CMS House to a very warm welcome from us.

The visit was organised by the Fresh Expressions board of Germany and made up of Protestant and Catholic office holders from different parts of the country in a variety of roles connected with pioneering mission. First order of the day was to agree on an understanding of mission as participating with God through Christ in the healing of all things.

Jonny Baker shared something of the more recent history of CMS in the context of UK church planting and pioneering, inspiring with his understanding of Jesus’ desire to cross social boundaries to engage with people like Legion in the story of the Gerasenes ‘on the other side of the lake’.

I was delighted to be in a room for several hours with old friends whom I first met through online webinars with Paul Bradbury as we launched and tested the Pioneer Spectrum tool online during the pandemic.

Since then a number of the visitors have worked hard on contextualising and translating the Pioneer Spectrum for a German audience. 

The overarching inquiry for the visitors was ‘How does mission shape the church?’ and it was great to be able to share the learning of Greg Bakker in this area over three decades as a parish priest in multiple contexts summarised as the five key dynamics of a Pioneering Parish as well as the Beatitudes for Pioneers and Priests we have been featuring in our monthly newsletter, ably backed up by the Beatitudes map designed by our gifted graphic designer Sophie Killingley.

In the afternoon I tested out some theories I’ve been considering that connect the character of Jesus, neuroscience, play and clowning with a new audience.

The group did amazingly to engage with this topic across language barriers and joined in with some embodied activities aimed at awakening their more lateral-thinking ‘baby brains’.

There was lots of laughter, plenty of wonderment and some insights for me from the subsequent discussions.

We finished by creating a shared poem in which each participant shared their key insight from the day (below).

Wir sind die kirchliche No-Go-Areas die dich zittern lassen wie Espenlaub, dort, wo alles heilvoll werden kann.¹
Let’s be fringe-dwellers!
Little things matter to a bunch of lake-crossers to help others focus on worlding the world.

Become a baby brain and don’t stop playing.
Wenn ich nicht werde wie ein Kind… ²
We need more baby brain in our church.
Be the change you want to have with a playful baby brain!

Finally finding my own tribe and play space
Trust in the playful guidance of the Holy Spirit!
God, we need seven Bavarians to send into context.
Don’t be so serious!
Schaut Tina mit ihrer roten Nase an…³
Spot the niche to intervene, be playful, and live your job as a clown.

Clap for the failures
Folge seiner Intuition⁴
Let’s go to the other side of the lake
Cross the bridge of understanding.
Be brave, be even more brave, just try it and dance!

1. We are the No-Go-Areas for the church, that make us tremble like an aspen leaf, where everything can find healing. ︎
2. Unless I become like a little child… ︎
3. Look at Tina with her red nose… ︎
4. Follow your intuition ︎

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As I explored Holy Island with many other holiday makers, I pondered this question.

by Rev Greg Bakker

I’m sure that many insightful sermons have been preached and erudite books written on this theme over the years.

For some reason, I thought of Sophie’s Pioneering Parishes’ Journey Together Road Map which she kindly drew for our newsletter some months ago. There is something about the journey together which involves a careful noticing: where are we? It also requires an openness to not avoid or overstay the place/circumstances in which we find ourselves.

God has much to show us. We miss what God has for us when we avoid the challenging and when we dwell too long in a place of comfort.
Where do you and your parish find yourselves this autumn? What are you noticing? Is there something you might be avoiding? Is it time to set comfort aside and break camp for the next stage of the adventure?
It is the awareness of where we are and moving with God’s Spirit that transforms church life and ministry into a sense of pilgrimage.

May your autumn season be full of grace and discovery.

Discover the next adventure that God is calling your parish to through a Pioneering Parishes course.

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