Mixed Ecology a language of protest since 2011?

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Super nerdy I know but the first time heard the phrase “Mixed Ecology” was sitting with Mark Berry back in May 2011 because it was the day I started Twitter. I had just heard Rowan give a brilliant address on ecclesiology, but around our table we were struggling with the economic metaphor and playing with ecology instead. There was Twitter feed behind Rowan and I wanted to join in.

It’s great that in more recent years Mixed Ecology as a concept has been gaining traction. Over the years the ecology phrase and mindset has become increasingly important to me to root and give shape to type of change I want to see. Back in 2011 at the conference my earliest tweets during the conference as Rowan spoke at were “if change comes the edge not sure I saw enough edge to change the landscape of church as we know it…” and “institutions on catch up”.

I wanted to reflect on these tweets as in reality the rise of the phrase Mixed Ecology shows nothing much changed, the institution is still on catch up. The term Mixed Ecology is great but once again its something developed from the edge, something other that has been colonised by the institution, and in doing so lost meaning, understanding and authenticity.

Notions of Ecology run deep within the emerging church, its about far more than a catch all phrase that seeks to make everyone feel welcome. For example It inhabits notions of an embodied ecological leadership approach that is highly networked, rooted, connected and equal. This is in direct contrast to the more mechanistic, modernist, leadership within the institution.

Heres something we wrote last year at the CMS HUI and perhaps if we are going to talk about a mixed ecology we remember it was a language of protest and contrast to the fiscal language of economy seeking to be faithful to the edge and start here…

often the system works in silos
but the ecosystem connects & works in synergy

systems are heavy with titles, officers & symbols of power;
the ecosystem fosters relationships that are real, authentic & symbolic

the system works behind closed doors where knowledge is power;
the ecosystem is transparent and lets the light in

the system can become self-sustained,interested in sustaining the institution;
the ecosystem starts small where life & growth find a way

the system is stuck in a past reality
the ecosystem reframes, reimagines & adapts to the reality of the now through creative stimulation

THE ECO-SYSTEM IS HERE, IT WAS BROUGHT INTO BEING WHEN THE CURTAIN WAS TORN,
MODELLED BY CHRIST, IT SPEAKS ITS TRUTH TO POWER
WE KNOW IT WHEN WE SEE IT, AND WE UST NEED TO JOIN THE DANCE

the system can tend towards the letter of the law
& ecosystem leans towards the spirit

the system can struggle with new thinking where
the ecosystem embraces the “heretic”

institutional systems fear chaos,
ecosystems thrive from it

systems can be based on control & punishment,
ecosystems find new ways of trust & solidarity

systems produce isolationism & monoculture,
ecosystems live in and by generative & fruitful symbiosis

institutional systems cultivate comfort zones & boundaries.
ecosystems foster growth beyond these boundaries

the institution designates who can be in the space;
the ecosystem simply creates space.

Being Braver, Being Objective, leading from deeper within

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Ive been thinking a lot about the future impact the current situation will have and is having on church and how we as leaders need to respond. There is no doubt that current models of ministry and mission will need to shift as resources become more limited and how local ministry can be effectivly supported will hugely be impacted. I am for the neighbourhood, in many ways 100 years ago I would have been for the parish but most people don’t know what a parish is now. But for me the importance of the local, the rooted, the grounded is paramount, it’s one of the things I like about the local church – it’s about the LOCAL. Our greatest local resource is the people, the local community, and the response about how to allocate resources as they become scarcer will ultimately impact the local. So I am interested in thinking through the decision making processes that help us work out how we release our greatest local resource.

At a basic level decision making is easy and there are several key steps – Identify the decision needed, Gather Info, Identify alternatives, Weigh evidence, Choose among the alternatives, Take action and Review.

HOWEVER there is a whole lot going on under the surface, our bias, our known knowns, our known unknowns, who is in the room, how we shift and filter information (see Nigels post). My hunch is that throughout the process we never really know ourselves as well as we think, we don’t always have the right people in the room, and we always see the context through a particular lense. In Reinventing Organisations Laloux right at the starts talks about humanity evolving through sudden leaps, and he borrows from Wilber’s colours identifying 6 paradigms and the breakthroughs that helps us move through paradigms. You can view a short video here. For Wilber modern western society has a pathological focus on the exterior or objective perspective, and whilst I tend to agree, many of us “think” we are objective but in reality less so.

One of the things that has been encouraging is seeing many leaders become braver and more objective. People who have been questioning stuff for a number of years around the edge of missional approaches are choosing now to step up or out. People are becoming more vocal about personal views that don’t chime with the institutional line. Yesterday in Greenbelts Wild At Home workshop Brian Mclaren spoke about the Institution (institutional religion) being caught in the middle between Progressive and Regressive approaches. So for me as a progressive it encouraging to see people becoming braver in leading out of who they really are. At the same time countless studies show it is almost a universal that in times of stress institutions and people tend to regress from innovation and creativity. SO what might the key for leaders as we move on. We know from hard evidence (see the day of small things etc) the impact FX has on developing local ministry, the value for money it offers, and the way it helps develop a broader innovative and missional culture in the church. So how might we regression that inevitably seems to come with the pressure on resources etc.

There are two the key issues for leaders moving forward. Firstly I think we need to revisit what it means to embrace leading out of who we are (see Simon Walkers The undefended leader). Institutions place in the middle between Progression and Regression means in all likelyhood the key leaders have come through and are shaped by the institution, so leading out of who we are is questionable. To counter this we need to make sure that different voices are in the room and lead in teams with an undefended stance allowing that team to help us take the really hard look at ourselves needed and what is shaping us and the decisions being made.

I have been around the institution long enough to hear Einstein quoted time and time again that “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” but too often this saying is rolled out without any real change happening, precisely because the of the points raised in my first point. So the second issue, is that because of the inevitable predisposition to regress, any regressive decision needs to be seriously wrestled with, it should never be taken at face value, but held to a more serious and rigorous scrutiny. In fact I would go further and suggest that any regressive decision is simply shelved or binned and a process developed to facilitate make sure that more innovative responses are considered. Perhaps a simple process could be an adaptation of De Bonos Thinking Hats. We know from creative thinking our predisposition to travel down well worn paths and these will seem particularly inviting at the moment. But by using the Thinking Hats, perhaps with the Blue Hat (chairing hat) being particularly tasked to spot and stop regressive ideas, we can counter our regressive inherent mindset.

The call of the pioneer and ecclesiastical hypothermia

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A final post from Nigel and it reminded me of a conversation I had with my good friend Mark Berry recently who I hope might write more fully on ecclesiastical hypothermia at some point! When above the death zone on a mountain, we know that to survive we need to be mobile and get off the mountain but our body wants to pool resources to protect what it believes are the vital organs… so it shuts down the very things that could make survival possible… it tells us to sit down and sleep, to pull energy back from the limbs into the centre… in an attempt to keep the core alive as long as possible it shuts down and sleeps itself to death!!!

Nigel writes…

The call of the pioneer: hoisting sails in the storm of crisis, chaos and uncertainty
This is the last of my reflections about what we can learn from fresh expressions of church in the current season. It invites us to draw on the sense of adventure that pioneers and those curating fresh expressions embody; hoisting sails in the current trinitarian storms of crisis, chaos and uncertainty.
As I begin, I want to acknowledge that it’s rough out there. The storms of illness, bereavement, unemployment, fear and anxiety are raging. The waves are big ones and the winds fierce. Whilst this is a sobering and challenging assessment, we would be foolish to pretend that conditions are anything other than turbulent and threatening.
It would be understandable if we looked to the gods of safety and certainty as antidotes to the crisis and chaos threatening to engulf us. Indeed, I argued in a recent session on ‘crisis leadership’ that our very first response needs to be to protect people and try and get an element of stability in the situation. That is the priority. However, once we have done some of that, I believe we need to look to the future, rekindling our purpose, vision and mission. We need to develop where we are going, revitalising where necessary – hoisting sails so we get to where God needs us to get to. To fully catch the winds, we may need to start doing this while the storm is still raging.
There is an Irish proverb that I resonate with – ‘the seas may be rough, but the rocks have no mercy’. Perhaps it is my Irish ancestry that engenders the appeal, or maybe the pioneer in me that wants to recognise the value in seizing the day, taking the risk and venturing into the unknown. Whatever the reason, I like the thinking. I know that if I don’t hoist the sails, I risk perishing on the rocks.
Institutions usually play it safe; especially church institutions. Conformity, regularity, longevity, consistency and certainty are the cultural narratives of many. Thankfully, for those of us committed to hoisting the sails, many fresh expressions of church have broken free from the shackles of inertia typified by these constraining cultural values. Many fresh expressions and pioneer folks are risk takers; they are prepared to take a chance and hoist the sails even in the most stormy of seas.
I’ve been thinking about taking chances quite a bit of late. I’ve been asking myself if our best chance, is to take a chance. Might we be better served taking some risks and exposing ourselves – deliberately – to chance, especially when we don’t know what to do or where to go? Might this be the best chance we have of allowing God to meet us in the sea that is the ambiguity of our uncertainty? I say this in the firm belief that when we have no idea where it is we are supposed to be going or how we are going to get there that it is better to set off on the adventure and allow the voyage to determine what outcome subsequently results.
Perhaps we can learn afresh from those who have pioneered new forms of church and once again create an ecclesiological culture that celebrates, mandates and honours those who hoist the sales for God. Once out on the waves, tasting the salt, and being guided by the sun, moon and stars, we may need those who might be considered more a safe pair of hands and who can steady the ship. However, if we align ourselves with these good folks and allow them to influence our initial thinking too much, we risk never setting sail in the first place.
For the pioneer, the hoisting of the sails is something that may come more easily than for others. For my wife, Sue, and I this is something we are actively doing right now. We have left the church we have been part of for 7 years, Sue has given up her job as a senior school leader, and we are in the process of applying to be foster parents. We don’t know where this journey will take us or what the outcome will be, but we’re hoisting the sails and setting sail.
In doing this, we are not being reckless. Preparations for our journey are meticulous. We are preparing according to our well-defined values, being true to our core purposes and seeking to do the right things in terms of what we believe in. We’re undertaking training, engaging in learning and development and committing everything to God in prayer. We may stumble upon crisis, encounter chaos, and be confronted with uncertainty. To borrow a thought from Richard and Lori Passmore, we may find dragons as we sail into uncharted waters, but I hope we continue to have the courage to hoist those sails.
I also hope those who are thinking about what church might look like beyond the pandemic, might stop looking to the rocks. I hope they look beyond asking questions about when they might re-open buildings, how they can do communion, and when they can sing together again. Such questions betray a lack of adventure and display inertia and malaise. Instead, I hope they look to pioneer, to go where they have not gone before and venture to the vast and wide-open oceans. Hoist the sails and explore uncharted waters. Bon voyage …

Leadership languages in a multi-coloured, multi-lingual world

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Nigel writes…

Sadly, my team was knocked out the of FA cup last weekend. Despite dominating large parts of the game we were out-thought tactically by a very determined Arsenal team. Their manager, Mikel Arteta is new in the leadership role of Head Coach. To make the matter of the defeat worse, it was the manager of my team that apprenticed him. Arteta’s emerging leadership skills outwitted those of his discipler.
Because there are no crowds in the stadia at the moment, you can hear on the TV coverage what the players and managers are saying and shouting at each other during the game. At one point during this game we were able to hear an example of highly astute leadership practice. Like all of the top football teams, Arteta’s Arsenal team are made up from players from all around the world. They are multi-cultural and speak a variety of languages. What was so poignant was that Arteta could be heard during the game shouting instructions and encouragement to his players in their own languages. Effortlessly and fluently, he switched from English, to French, to his native Spanish so that he most effectively led and engaged the players he was seeking to influence in the manner they best understood.
When it comes to fresh expressions and pioneering, and just about everything else in life, we know that effective leadership is key to what happens. Without effective leadership, it is almost impossible for anything to develop. We know from anecdotal evidence and more formal research (E.g. Encountering the Day of Small Things, George Lings, Methodism’s Hidden Harvest) that when it comes to fresh expressions, new forms of leadership have emerged. These are not about what titles a person has, what qualifications they have, what their ministry status is, or what training they have had. It’s about how effective their leadership is in the moment and season; this is particularly the case in this present moment of crisis and uncertainty when we can see who the players are, and who the pretenders are.
As a pioneer and ecclesiastical adventurer, I too often find I speak a different language to those who are part of inherited and attractional models of church. My conviction – like that of Mikel Arteta – is that if we want to be the best we can, we need to speak the languages of those we are seeking to engage. Of course, this understanding is not new. In the book of Acts 2: 1-21, we read how people heard things in their own language. God’s commitment to communicate in people’s native languages.
I’ve recently discovered the theory of spiral dynamics. Space doesn’t allow a full unpacking of this theory, but you can discover more about it HERE – My newly gained insight has taught me afresh, that we often think differently to each other. Spiral dynamics teaches us that we are wired in different ways and this means we might speak different philosophical languages. Those behind the idea have assigned colours to the different ways we might think. In spiral dynamics terms, I – like many pioneers and those in fresh expressions – am green (promoting community, avoiding dogma, post-modern), yellow (fluid, flexible, open to change), and turquoise (holistic, purpose-driven, integrally transcendent). However, I note that many in more inherited and attractionally orientated churches are either blue (liking authority structures, rules, hierarchy) or orange (competitive, materialistic, success driven). This presents a language and a leadership challenge when we seek to communicate with each other; as we perceive things differently.
But here is the thing – I can speak the languages of blue and orange because I live in the worlds where blue and orange are spoken frequently. I have played to the rules of blue. Operated to the materialistic demands of orange. But now, I aspire to the hope of community and common good green. Flex and flow in the chaordic needs of people, project, planet and purpose yellow. Seek the holistic, intuitive, spiritual, expansive big picture of turquoise. Being what is called a ‘spiral wizard’, I can do a little of what Arteta did and what the spirit enabled in Acts 2: speak in different ways to different people in the hope of best engaging them in ways they will best understand. However, those who come from the worlds of blue and orange don’t yet speak yellow, green, and turquoise.
This becomes a problem for me and for other similarly positioned pioneers. We get misunderstood, side-lined, sometimes maligned, and often unfairly judged for speaking a different ecclesiological language. In reality our predicament can be somewhat worse than I describe. The response from those who don’t speak green, yellow or turquoise can be worse than simply not understanding the linguistics. The very words pioneers use can produce such a negative emotional response within that blues and oranges can end up precluding themselves from even hearing what pioneers are trying to say.
I say this not to invoke sympathy or out of a sense of self-pity. It’s more that we need to help those who come from a different worldview and speak a different language to better understand how we yellow, green and turquoise pioneers think, feel and behave.
My fear is that if we can’t manage to do this we will never be able to share the joys and delights of what we see God doing in our culture and language. Those from a blue and orange culture and language risk missing out on what the founder of spiral dynamics thinking, Clare W. Graves, calls the ‘unfolding, emergent, oscillating spiralling process’ that for many of us is akin to an ongoing Pentecost experience … and I don’t want them to miss out.
Dr Nigel Pimlott
Expressing a personal reflection especially for Sunday Papers

Eyes wide open: the value of participation

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I read recently that if one of a kitten’s eyes is kept closed during the first few weeks of life it will be blind in that eye, even though the eye is perfectly normal. That got me thinking about which of my ‘eyes’ have been opened and which have remained closed, resulting in blindness. It also got me thinking about which of our ‘eyes’ have been opened regarding the things we are currently discussing in this series of blogs about fresh expressions. What has been learned – particularly in my case from youth work practice – in our fast moving culture? My thoughts quickly focused on the matter of ‘participation’.

Around 25 years ago a group of us in Frontier Youth Trust began to focus and take seriously what youth work might look like if young people’s participation was elevated to the place of paramountcy. When talking of participation I mean that, ‘affirmative value, focused on creating settings that enable people —whatever their identities, backgrounds, or institutional positions—to thrive, realise their capabilities, engage meaningfully in … life, and enable others to do the same.’ We consulted young people, changed our practice, wrote books, spoke at conferences, ran workshops, and most importantly, looked to enable young people to participate in the things, decisions, and initiatives that were about them.

We endeavoured to stop doing things to young people, and focused on doing things with them. Whilst others journeyed with us, it was initially an uphill struggle. The ‘adults know best’ sacred cow was a big idol to compete with. I am pleased to say, that young people’s participation has come a long way since those early days. In the church it is now thankfully mainstream practice in many places; albeit an ongoing work in progress. Eyes have opened and the blindness of ‘youth worker knows best’ amended.

Perhaps because some of the early ‘participation’ pioneers went on to start fresh expressions of church or perhaps because many were simply convicted that effective participation was essential for the future of the church it has become important in fresh expression thinking. It’s considered a better, more humane way of communally existing. Stuart and Sian Murray-Williams note that many churches promote passivity as the norm. However, multi-voice approaches enable a more liberating, empowering and dynamic participative approach. The fresh expressions web site encourages people to move from ‘audience to participation’. It encourages participants to experience and engage with others and join in with what God is doing. It advocates listening and finding out what needs are; connecting heads, hearts and hands.

Whilst lots of progress has been made regarding participation, there is still some way to go across the church before we can truly claim to be a fully functioning, including community and priesthood of believers.

British-Indian poet Bhanu Kapil writes about colonialism and race and how exhausting it is to always be an outsider in a culture:

“It’s exhausting to be a guest, In somebody else’s house, Forever.”

In his introduction to this series, Richard talks about how for the last 20 years it has felt as though championing things like participation has caused many pioneers to feel as though they are swimming in a different sea to most in the church. Many times it has felt like we are guests at the mercy of the hospitality, and in the clutches, of the institutional church. Whilst I am sure it has not been as crushing as how white privilege and exceptionalism has crushed people of colour, it has been exhausting and wearying. Quite why some would want to resist involving people so – as our definition above states – they can thrive, realise their capabilities, engage meaningfully in life, and enable others to do the same, is a mystery.

The challenges we still face are aptly illustrated in the current debates about online communion that are taking place in some of our mainline denominations. Those with power are preventing the participation of those with no power. How the sacraments are made available has always been a challenge in those fresh expressions where the sponsoring denomination has particular theology and rules about ‘presence’ and the function of the priesthood. Many people have been denied communion because a powerful priesthood has prevented participation in something Jesus indicated should be a daily reminder over a meal. Quite how something so accessible and so simple has become something so controlled and complex is a mystery. Many of us just get on with it and share ‘bread and wine’ as and when. We eat our contemporary contextualized and cultural equivalents of whatever bread and wine might be. My prayer is that eyes will be opened.

If we don’t manage to keep increasing participation so that all eyes are opened then I am less hopeful for the future. In my own setting I have seen very painfully what happens when people are systemically not encouraged to participate.

Another church group recently decided to join something I was facilitating. After they had come along a few times, I deployed my participation values and asked the leader of this group if somebody from their cohort would like to contribute something; share something, tell a story, or offer a reflection. Their leader went away to ask the group. Despite most of this group being in church for decades (some 50+ years), the reply came back that ‘they weren’t quite ready for that sort of thing yet’. I went away (muttering some very bad language) wondering when if they would ever be ready. Decades of non-participation had rendered them voiceless; eyes were closed.

On the positive side, anecdotal experience suggests the current use of online platforms has increased participation in church settings. Conversations seem to have flowed more easily and people have felt more at ease to participate more fully. So long as we don’t embed broadcast power in the hands of a few, then I am hopeful for the future. I have noticed how those of us who championed participation in face-to-face settings have continued to do so via online platforms. Whilst the future has arrived, we need to be mindful that all are not yet quite equally participating in this moment, but platforms like zoom can help with this.

A while ago, I wrote about some tools to help our participation. I noted that God – despite many reasons why she might not – has continually trusted people to fully participate and be his agents, ambassadors, co-creators, and advancers of the Kingdom. I still hold to that view and hope God will continually open our eyes to the delights of participation.

Dr Nigel Pimlott
Expressing a personal reflection especially for Sunday Papers
S. Sturm (2012) https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/full-participation-and-arts-culture-and-humanities
S and S Murray-Williams (2012) Multi-Voiced Church
https://freshexpressions.org.uk/get-started/vision-days/
B. Kapil (2020) How To Wash A Heart
N. Pimlott (2009) Participative Processes

The gift of the edge and bias as a virtue

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Nigel Pimlott and I spent well over a decade at FYT and we have both moved from there to what I would call the edge of the inside. Nigel now works with the Methodist Church as Regional Learning and Development Officer (4 days a week) and church-wide Evangelism and Growth Officer (1 day a week), and I work as the Director of Mission Innovation and Fresh Expressions in Cumbria. So, in the next few posts Nigel and I will explore some of the early and more recent pioneer learning and explore why the church can seem reluctant to draw on this resource.

To set the scene I want to revisit some of the cultural backdrop and responses to the story we now find ourselves in. The pace of cultural change has been accelerating over the last 70 years. Where previously we talked about longer term generational change, more recently significant cultural shifts have been noted at least every ten years. The Face Magazine back in the noughties was talking about significant shifts every decade: 1960’s The Decade of Optimism, 1970’s The Decade of Decline, 1980’s The Decade of the Individual, 1990’s Caring and Sharing, 2000s The Digital Decade. Although the Face article only went up to the noughties, several commentators suggest 2010’s as The Decade of Participation. This with the larger overarching constructs of Post-Modernism and Post-Christendom was the culture I swam in when I started in ministry back in the late 80s. For at least two decades I felt I was swimming in a completely different sea to everyone else. During that time I was grateful to link with Frontier Youth Trust who grew in response to the challenging culture of the 1960s seeking to respond to these new entities called “teenagers”. With FYT I started to recognise, thanks to the brilliant work of Jim Punton and Terry Dunnell, that as well as finding new ways to do things we also had to find new ways to think about things. I learnt that practice and reflection went hand in hand and as early as 1993 with others we started thinking through the need for a new type of ecclesiology. We had critical conversation partners such as Jim Punton, whose work on shalom was key, and several early pioneer workers and thinkers with decades of experience, like David Watson (and Graham Cray), Jeanne Hinton, Pip Wilson, and David Sheppard. It is interesting to reflect on how well these people were listened to at the time and how this helped prepare the way for some radical change, and later Nigel picks up why we may struggle to listen as well to edge now.

The two Loops of Change theory talks about the need for innovators to network and this was key to the survival of what was being birthed throughout the 90s and 00s. Towards the turn of the century a clear emerging church movement was building (often with youth workers getting older and trying to work out how to connect to their culture) and slowly we met others who were in the same ocean. Eventually the structures also started to recognise what was happening on the edge, and that they were perhaps not as well equipped as they thought to swim well in these fast moving currents, so Fresh Expressions was bought into being. Someone once said that Fresh Expressions was the “Research and Development wing” of the church. For the past 20 years several key denominations have been investing in Fresh Expressions, this generosity is a gift to pioneers and now maybe this wealth of learning could be a gift to the church.

With the two loops in mind churches have innovated well in the lockdown, either in the online space or in other ways, so it maybe worth asking, how are you networking with others to build knowledge and support yourselves? Many churches have been brilliantly creative, but innovators need to network not just for new ideas but more importantly to build the resilience needed to resource continuation. Someone once asked me when I was speaking at Greenbelt to say in three words what is needed in today’s missionary context and my answer was Courage, Courage, Courage. As churches reopen the pressure to restart the old will be on, but we can’t do everything, and you will need courage to say no, to not restart some things, courage to stand with what the spirit has been doing for the last weeks and courage to go to new places theologically. Networking will help you build the knowledge and story base to hold the innovative space you have found, and the friendships you build through networking will sustain and nourish your innovation, but alongside this maybe invite a local pioneer to walk with you through the processes, they will probably have more questions than answers but that is important right at the top of change curve.

Richard

Appreciating the hidden harvest: bias as virtue – Nigel writes…..

I’ve recently done some Unconscious Bias training. I’ve worked hard over the years and hopefully become more fully aware of my biases. As a white middle aged man, I think I have reasonably successfully endeavored to raise consciousness-levels regarding any gender, sexuality and race bias I may have had and I have sought to change my thinking and behaviour accordingly. However, I have recently become very aware of a whole set of biases that I embrace which I didn’t really know were there. I am pondering if these biases are a problem, or if they should not be called biases at all, but rather aspirations, virtues and/or essentials. Let me explain …

I am biased towards the ‘new’ and innovation – I think that’s an aspiration. I am committed to working in diverse and creative ways – I think this bias is a virtue. I remain passionate about involving younger people (participation) in the life of the church and I am biased to hearing all the voices in as many ways as possible, and on their terms – I think that’s an essential. Bias on the basis of gender, sexuality, or race is, I believe, a big problem, but the biases I refer to here I consider virtues, not problems. My challenge is, I note other people don’t see things this way. For them, my ‘new’, ‘creative’, ‘younger’ biases are a threat.

In 2015-16 The Methodist Church carried out research into 15 years of involvement with fresh expressions and in 2019 produced a report of the findings – Methodism’s Hidden Harvest. The research concluded that fresh expressions have been extremely successful in welcoming previously unaffiliated people into Christian faith exploration and participation, certainly much more successful than the vast majority of inherited Methodist churches. So why isn’t everybody who wants to reach unaffiliated people drawing on these research findings and deploying them?

• Why isn’t everybody looking to start something new rather than simply maintain ‘what is’? The research notes that fresh expressions are evangelistically fruitful, with an estimated 65% of those attending having no previous involvement in church.

• Why isn’t everybody looking to grow the church working in diverse and creative ways – the research notes that fresh expressions work in multiple and creative ways to make disciples and asks if this is an important factor inherited church needs to embrace if it is to similarly attract unaffiliated people.

• If the church wants to engage and disciple younger people, why does it not embrace how fresh expressions go about doing this as they appear much more successful at it?

Could it be that the reluctance to embrace the new, creativity and younger people’s participation is the unconscious bias, perhaps conscious bias, of some people against such things? If so, this bias is putting them in danger of disregarding things which don’t fit their own templates, paradigms and worldviews, at the expense of making disciples and growing the church. In other words, the problem isn’t my bias for these things, but the bias of those who will not embrace such things.

Of course, it’s not as simple as this, nor a binary choice, and hopefully not a case of inherited church vs fresh expressions; ‘them and us’. Having said that it sometimes feels like it is! Drawing on a bit of political bias thinking, I will explain what I mean.
There is what is known as Confirmation bias – in our context this is when someone favours information about church that affirms their existing paradigms and worldviews. People who like inherited models of church and who don’t want to change might, for example, draw exclusively on narratives that value tradition and predictability of output. They might use information that espouses the familiar, embeds and promotes an ‘it’s what we know’ paradigm. In my experience, whenever I draw on research findings like the Hidden Harvest? report, endeavor to facilitate debate, and/or offer suggestions to those in declining churches facing uncertain futures, there is more often than not push back and a negative response to counteracting information – like the value of new approaches, creativity, and aiming younger – which conflicts with favoured information.
Then there is what is called Coverage bias – this is when, for example, someone happily tells (covers) stories that relate to the ‘good old days’, when the church was full, overseas mission adventures from yesteryear, what happened in 1970, but rarely, if ever, tells stories or allows space for others to tell stories, about what is happening now in new forms of church and the changed lives of those becoming disciples.

Thirdly, I would highlight Concision bias – where people selectively focus on information, ignoring nuance and context, in ways that crowd out different views that take longer to explain. For example, someone will often counteract my encouragement for the new, creative and younger with a tale of when a fresh expression closed, a project failed or a young person left. The detail, reasons, learning and legacy are never portrayed, just the (perceived) negative outcome.

A couple of years back I had surgery for cancer. It was radical, impacting and has meant things will forever be different. If I had not had it, my future was uncertain, and I probably would have died many years prematurely. I needed to set aside my bias against someone chopping bits out of me, having lots of injections, not to mention several other deeply personal things that might not be appropriate to mention in a public blog. It was challenging but necessary.

If we are to set aside our biases and embrace the virtuous findings of research and development from fresh expressions of church, the consequent changes we need to make will be challenging and necessary. If we don’t make them, we may discover our end is also more premature than it might have otherwise been.

You can access the full results of the Hidden Harvest? research here

Dr Nigel Pimlott
Expressing a personal reflection especially for Sunday Papers

Why reopen, what and when?

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So it has been announced that church buildings can reopen in July, without singing and in smaller groups. This is good news for some but as Shane L Bishop a pastor in the States pointed out “If your church was ineffective and in decline before the COVID shut down; the last thing you want to be thinking about is “returning to normal.”
So I have taken the liberty of adding the previous post on Deeper Magic and and maybe if you’re not into magic before you read it check this out from the RSA.

A friend who is a political theologian in Germany recently highlighted how one symptom of the loss of power and hold of Christendom was the rush of many to reopen church buildings. Prayers are no more special or effective because they are said in a particular place, and yet, it is equally true that holy places (hills, buildings, beaches, pilgrimage sites) can bring solace, connection. The nature of corona has been apocalyptic as true to the meaning of the word apocalypse it is uncovering a lot of different stuff. Whilst the church has done some amazing things locally in it’s communities with acts of love, bravery and service, some great examples of online services, for many who have honestly asked there has been an increasing uncovering that despite this their church is no longer at the centre of the community and that’s ok. At the same time it’s clear that many have had Christendom blinkers on, evidenced by the conversations (and their tone) about getting back into church buildings, not holding Eucharist online, ‘harvesting’ the rise of people praying for the first time, a lack of critical engagement with those already in online spaces, judgements about what is or isn’t church in the online space, etc. This is uncovering that many are still oblivious to the culture shift that has happened over the last 50 years and living to a greater or lesser extent in a Christendom bubble and whilst I would like to say that’s ok too, because it can be hard to see the systems we are caught up in, but I’m not sure it is. I love the part in the Narnia story where Aslan tells the children of a “deeper magic” and I wonder with all the anxieties around if we are still trusting enough to help push deeper. I saw Ian Paul had used a quote from Alan Hirsch who suggested “If you want to learn to play chess, then take away the queen—then you see what the other pieces can do!’ For many churches, Sunday services have been the ‘queen’ that we have lost. Which I thought was a great commentary on the situation, but as a friend pointed there is an assumption you know how to play chess the first place, and we may be playing chess whilst the rest the world has moved onto Ludo or more likely in the west Monopoly.
BUT despite this once again I want to shout out and congratulate those churches who have served so well without services, wether you have been dog walking for your community, organising food, doing prescription runs, organising sunflower competitions, supporting parents home schooling, and say don’t automatically drop these things because you want to refocus on sunday gatherings. Ask yourselves how can we keep these connections going, so we can keep building on what God has been doing through lockdown, perhaps God has even been showing you, you can improvise, you can change and do things differently. So if services aren’t what’s next, what might be? How can we continue to journey with people in a new way? What about those with dogs in the church arranging mini meet ups with those who can now walk their dogs again, what might a socially distanced homework club look like with a few adults on hand to help any children who have been struggling catch up. The church has learnt to do things differently and proved to itself and many skeptics that change can be done quickly when needed but as Blanchard warns in the seven dynamics of change “If you take the pressure off, people will revert back to their old behavior.” and perhaps the best way to avoid this is to recognise the sacredness of the spaces and relationships created in lockdown. Seeing God where you have creatively and effective served and changed your actions and communities and that this may well have been about you following the missionary impetus of the Holy Spirit into the new. So let go of some things and don’t rush to pick back up other things, even if that is your queen, give yourself the time and space to keep following the missio dei to places you nor I have been before and where the deeper magic happens.
If you need resources or support to do things differently it’s ouT there, but maybe in not in the places you expect. For decades the church has been in investing in Fresh Expressions and for decades before a wealth of mission nouse has been building so maybe those pesky pioneers and prophets who have been a pain in your arse might be worth taking for a socially distanced coffee. Or if you’re in Cumbria sign up for the new pioneer mission certificate here or book on our taster day here

A deeper magic

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A friend who is a political theologian in Germany recently highlighted how one symptom of the loss of power and hold of Christendom was the rush of many to reopen church buildings. Prayers are no more special or effective because they are said in a particular place, and yet, it is equally true that holy places (hills, buildings, beaches, pilgrimage sites) can bring solace, connection. The nature of corona has been apocalyptic as true to the meaning of the word apocalypse it is uncovering a lot of different stuff. Whilst the church has done some amazing things locally in it’s communities with acts of love, bravery and service, some great examples of online services, for many who have honestly asked there has been an increasing uncovering that despite this their church is no longer at the centre of the community and that’s ok. At the same time it’s clear that many have had Christendom blinkers on, evidenced by the conversations (and their tone) about getting back into church buildings, not holding Eucharist online, ‘harvesting’ the rise of people praying for the first time, a lack of critical engagement with those already in online spaces, judgements about what is or isn’t church in the online space, etc. This is uncovering that many are still oblivious to the culture shift that has happened over the last 50 years and living to a greater or lesser extent in a Christendom bubble and whilst I would like to say that’s ok too, because it can be hard to see the systems we are caught up in, but I’m not sure it is. I love the part in the Narnia story where Aslan tells the children of a “deeper magic” and I wonder with all the anxieties around if we are still trusting enough to help push deeper. I saw Ian Paul had used a quote from Alan Hirsch who suggested “If you want to learn to play chess, then take away the queen—then you see what the other pieces can do!’ For many churches, Sunday services have been the ‘queen’ that we have lost. Which I thought was a great commentary on the situation, but as a friend pointed there is an assumption you know how to play chess the first place, and we may be playing chess whilst the rest the world has moved onto Ludo or more likely in the west Monopoly.
BUT despite this once again I want to shout out and congratulate those churches who have served so well without services, wether you have been dog walking for your community, organising food, doing prescription runs, organising sunflower competitions, supporting parents home schooling, and say don’t automatically drop these things because you want to refocus on sunday gatherings. Ask yourselves how can we keep these connections going, so we can keep building on what God has been doing through lockdown, perhaps God has even been showing you, you can improvise, you can change and do things differently. So if services aren’t what’s next, what might be? How can we continue to journey with people in a new way? What about those with dogs in the church arranging mini meet ups with those who can now walk their dogs again, what might a socially distanced homework club look like with a few adults on hand to help any children who have been struggling catch up. The church has learnt to do things differently and proved to itself and many skeptics that change can be done quickly when needed but as Blanchard warns in the seven dynamics of change “If you take the pressure off, people will revert back to their old behavior.” and perhaps the best way to avoid this is to recognise the sacredness of the spaces and relationships created in lockdown. Seeing God where you have creatively and effective served and changed your actions and communities and that this may well have been about you following the missionary impetus of the Holy Spirit into the new. So let go of some things and don’t rush to pick back up other things, even if that is your queen, give yourself the time and space to keep following the missio dei to places you nor I have been before and where the deeper magic happens.

What counts?

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How many people came to church on Sunday?  How many baptisms?  How many weddings?  How many came to the Fresh Expression gathering?  Are the numbers going up?  Are our churches growing?  These were our questions three months ago.  Then we left our buildings and we had a whole new set of questions.

How many logged into church on zoom?  How many watched the video on youtube?  Hurrah, more people are connecting remotely than ever came to church in the building!  Then more recently: How many of our online viewers will join us when we are back in the building?

But what if these are the wrong questions?  What if we are not supposed to be concerning ourselves with church growth at all, at least not in the numerical sense?  Dare I say that we should concern ourselves with other priorities than church growth?

Forty-six years ago Lesslie Newbigin returned from India and in 1989 wrote a book: ‘The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.’   It has become a classic, much read and quoted but the point often missed, because his point is that committed faithful believers will always be a minority.  It is how it always is.  It happened to Jesus so who on earth are we to think it will be different for us – he had crowds in the beginning but numbers dwindled.

Newbigin argues that the church has a key and important role to play in wider society, that our presence within society bringing challenge and change is critical.  We are to be confident in what we learn from Jesus, to live out and communicate faith.  But we are to bear in mind that our individualistic society has blinded us to communal aspects of salvation, meaning counting numbers is missing the point.  We’re to focus on changed society as the outcome rather than church growth.  Newbigin writes: ‘We get a picture of the Christian life as one in which we live in the biblical story as part of the community whose story it is… from within that indwelling try to understand and cope with the events of our time and the world about us and so carry the story forward.’ (p.99.)

What if we take seriously the calling to be salt and light, yeast in the dough, at times visible and other times invisible, a small ingredient that changes the whole?  What are our questions now?  How many people turn up on Sunday morning is no longer the priority, unless we have fallen into the trap of caring more about the institutional structures than the heart of what God is doing.

The questions then become about what the world need us to be and do, right now, as we face this crisis and wider societal challenges.  What is God working on?  What needs to be said and done in order to support society to re-engage well, to move forwards into something more connected, more earthed, more real, kinder?  Who are our partners in this work for the Common Good?

I find it hard to care as much as the church thinks I ought to about numbers coming to church.  I understand that people gathering to share together in the story of God is a good thing.  We need refreshing in what renews our vision, we need one another, we need God.

But turning up isn’t the point – the point is whole lives lived in God.  Right now, there are bigger questions at stake than numbers at church, whether in a building or online.  We have a unique moment as society, we have choices to make.  Right now, that is what I care about, that is what matters, and that is where my energy is going.

Cate Williams 1st June 2020

An open Letter to the church

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Dear Church
I thought quite hard before writing this but I have been re reading a Bonhoeffer biography and last time I read it I was focussing on Bonhoeffers theology. This time I found myself constantly drawn to the political situation in th early 1930s right at the start of Hitlers rise and the churches failure to speak out, the internal politics of the more moderate voices (and the church) and how the Nazis used the social situation of unrest and unknown futures deliberately often using tactics of chaos, polarision, statements about recovery, moving on etc to manipulate and consolidate power. I have to say I see too many parallels with what is happening in the UK, (and the US) through the demonisation of socialism (ie how Corbyn was treated) preparing the way for a rise of right leaning politics, and the masquerading of elite political classes as being of/for the people and since Boris came to power how he and Cummings have access to even greater resources of the state for even greater manipulation. The whole contempt with which the public have been treated, blatant lies, then gaslightling concerned voices that we need to move on, the removal of Emily Matiliss from Newsnight for speaking truth to power, and the abuse of power through strategic ambiguity, is just too familiar after what I read in Bonhoeffers book, my spirit is ill at ease and I need to speak out.
The light in all this has been the bishops who have gone public, but the church is in danger of being complicit as the voices are still to few and internal wrangles have already started. Yes we need to pray for our leaders but we also need to stand up for integrity, and truth. Many of us will have seen the words of Niemöller “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” And it is important to note many like Bonhoeffer warned Pastor Niemöller what was going on as far back as mid 1930s. So we need our Bishops and church leaders of all denominations to speak louder, speak now, and SPEAK TOGETHER, and we need to do our part in encouraging them to do, whilst ourselves standing up and speaking truth to lies and power where we can and we need to so now.
Faithfully
Richard