Last week at Inhabit Conference I was asked to do a six minute talk inhabit handout of 20 slides with just 20 seconds per slide. I was tasked with trying to convey the StreetSpace story in the local setting. I have not blogged consistently for quite a while, So I thought I would try and discipline myself to posting a little something on each slide over the next few weeks.

The first slide was the formula – (People+Place) x Relationship = Space

The previous evening the fabulous Alan Roxburgh had spoken, on God being found in the local and much of the missio dei missiology. This was great stuff to be reminded of, but in the UK and particularly the UK youth mission context seemed pretty dated. Like many others I had been doing had been working in that sort of way for over 20 years and certainly it was embedded into our practice by the time I first wrote Meet Them Where They’re at 15 years ago. StreetSpace had been pushing the thinking for the last 8 or so years, whilst our practice in the liminal (land of dragons) space has driven our thinking far beyond these early conversations, and I hoped the slides would convey something of this.

In the first slide I wanted the formula to convey the connection between presence and place, but more than this, to give weight to the importance of relationships in the process. For me it is important to create the space for the young people to flourish and become fully human. Creating Space is an interplay of people, place and relationship. A place is somewhere you arrive, a space is somewhere to explore and grow. I used the retort We call the Walls to Dust (hat tip to Gavin Mart and Martin Dawes) as so often what we do is about removing the practical and conceptual barriers that get in the way of this flourishing. It is also why (I think) our practice seems innovative and edgy to many. As a path finder project of FYT, StreetSpace is not just exploring the How to do you DO mission differently but also the why. We are experimenting with new models both conceptually and practically of church and mission that build the kingdom and help life flourish, and the interplay of relationship is critical to this.