The road rises

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As a youth worker for so many years it always feels like September is a start point of the work year. Although I rarely stuck to the path this September for the first time in maybe over 35 years I don’t have a clear work path for the year ahead. So it seems apt to post this thought I shared via Facebook when I decided it was time to move on.

There’s a line in an old Celtic blessing that lingers in the mind  “May the road rise to meet you.” It’s the kind of phrase you might find on a bookmark pressed between the pages of a book, or spoken at the end of service. It’s gentle, but to let it hum with its real quiet, persistent power demands we recognise that the road rises, you meet it as you step forward. Its solidity is made manifest with each step.
This road is Not the tarmac artery that thrums with the pulse of traffic, but the quieter ones: the footpaths that snake through fields, the cobbles slick with rain, the tracks that vanish into the hush of a morning mist. These are roads that don’t announce themselves. They invite you in, and then, step by step, they reveal themselves as you go.

The trouble with writing is it’s too head oriented, indulge me and stand up and lift your foot to step forward, and imagine as you go to place your foot there is shift and road has physically risen to meet you. I like the embodiment of this exercise, the feeling somehow we step and everything changes, the road is not where you expect it to be, each step feels a little odd but there’s a new oneness to the step.

Most of the time, we don’t really know the road we’re on. The blessing doesn’t say, “May you always know where you’re going.” It doesn’t promise a smooth journey, or even a clear signpost. It simply hopes that the road, whatever road it is will rise to meet you.

So the act of being human is that I will keep walking, and trust that the ground will appear beneath my feet. Sometimes, it’s only in looking back that we see the shape of the road at all. But here’s what I’ve learned: taking each step, especially the ones that lead us away from the familiar, is how we move from what is known into what is possible. The roads we know, the well-trodden lanes of habit and orthodoxy, can be comforting, but they can also become ruts, grooves that keep us circling the same old certainties. There’s a subtle courage in stepping off those paths, in letting go of what we think we know, and trusting that something greater than us is changing the laws of the cosmos so the road can rise to meet me. .

Every journey away from the settled and the safe is a journey towards new practice, new knowledge. It’s how we shed the false skins of received wisdom and find something truer, something deeper, something more alive. The road that rises to meet us is not always the one we expected, but it is always the one that teaches us. It asks us to loosen our grip on the old maps, to trust the compass of curiosity, to let experience be our teacher.
Maybe that’s the gift of the blessing. Not certainty, but discovery. Not a guarantee, but a gentle encouragement to keep moving, even when the way ahead is hidden. It’s a reminder that the road like a mountain is not something we conquer or control, but something we meet, one step, one breath, one heartbeat at a time.

So let’s make a toast to the roads that rise, to the journeys that surprise us, and to the quiet courage it takes to keep walking into the unknown.

Resisting Resolution: Living the Questions of the Way and Along the Way

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I bang on a lot about dualism but how do we practically try and live this out, this post try’s to explore that using the idea of resistance and the need to ask questions OF the way and questions ALONG the way.

Theology, at its most vital, resists the seduction of resolution. It thrives in the fertile soil of paradox, where dualisms dissolve and the sacred reveals itself not as a fixed destination but as a dynamic tension between presence and absence, immanence and transcendence. I’ve played around the edges of some radical theology and wondered what would it look like to reframe theological inquiry through two interwoven strands:

– Questions of the Way, drawing on Peter Rollins’ Church of the Contradiction, Alfred North Whitehead’s process thought, and Thomas Altizer’s death-of-God theology,

– Questions Along the Way, informed by Tripp Fuller’s relational openness, Sophie Strand’s ecological mysticism, and Thomas Jay Oord’s theology of love.

Together I think questions of and along the way, sketch a spirituality that embraces uncertainty as sacred, reimagining wholeness not as a static ideal but as a participatory dance between becoming and letting go.
5 Questions of the Way: Unsettling Dualism Through Paradox
1. What if faith is sustained by doubt, not dissolved by it?
Rollins’ Church of the Contradiction rejects the dualism of belief/unbelief, arguing that faith flourishes when we relinquish certainty. His liturgy of the “Kinder Surprise” (a hollow egg) invites worshippers to confront the absence at Christianity’s core, a God who, in Lacanian terms, is “barred” from full presence. This mirrors Altizer’s claim that the death of God is the event of faith: transcendence collapses into immanence, and the divine is reborn in the act of letting go. Here, faith becomes a practice of holding, not resolving, the tension between God’s absence and presence.
2. Can process theology redeem God from perfection?
Whitehead’s God is not omnipotent but a “fellow sufferer who understands,” evolving through time. This undermines the dualism of Creator/creation, reframing divinity as a persuasive force within, not above, the world’s unfolding. If God is “dipolar”, both eternal and temporal, how does this reshape our vision of holiness? Holiness becomes a collaborative pursuit, not a fixed state.
3. Is divine self-annihilation the heart of Christian love?
Altizer’s radical kenosis, (God’s self-emptying into the world) collapses the transcendent/immanent binary. The cross becomes the ultimate icon of this inversion: God’s death births a sacred world. This provokes a startling question: Does atheism, in its rejection of a detached deity, become Christianity’s fullest expression?
4. How do liturgies of absence heal our addiction to answers?
Rollins’ “pyrotheology” designs rituals to expose the void beneath religious symbols, Such practices disrupt the dualism of sacred/profane, inviting communities to dwell in the anxiety of unresolved questions. Could embracing liturgical instability train us to resist ideological certitude in politics and ethics?
5. Does beauty demand imperfection?
Whitehead’s God lures the world toward harmony, but beauty arises from contrast, order and chaos, novelty and tradition. If God is not a cosmic dictator but a poet coaxing cadence from chaos, how do we reconcile suffering with divine persuasion? The answer lies in releasing the dualism of control/chaos, seeing creativity in constraint.

5 Questions Along the Way: Weaving Immanence and Transcendence
1. Is prayer a collaboration, not a petition?
Tripp Fuller’s open theology reimagines prayer as co-creative dialogue. God, as the “living body of the world,” does not dictate outcomes but participates in the messy improvisation of existence. This erodes the dualism of divine/human agency, framing prayer as a dance of mutual influence.
2. What if decay is sacred?
Sophie Strand’s eco-mysticism finds divinity in decomposition, the mycelium breaking down fallen logs, the carbon cycles of life and death. If God is entangled with ecological processes, how do we ritualize grief for a warming planet? Strand suggests composting despair into activism, seeing rot as resurrection in slow motion.
3. Can love exist without coercion?
Thomas Jay Oord’s kenotic love insists God cannot override free will. This rejects the dualism of power/weakness, proposing that divine strength lies in vulnerability. If love is inherently non-coercive, how does this transform our approach to justice? Perhaps justice becomes less about imposing order and more about nurturing conditions for flourishing.
4. Is uncertainty a spiritual gift?
Fuller and Rollins both frame doubt as a generative force. If the future is truly open, faith becomes a commitment to curiosity. What spiritual practices, silence, communal discernment, paradox meditation might help us embrace “holy not-knowing”?
5. Are churches crucibles for collective becoming?
Rollins’ insurrectionary communities and Fuller’s “Homebrewed Christianity” reimagine church as a lab for experimentation. This resists the dualism of institution/individual, suggesting that spiritual growth happens in the friction of diverse perspectives. How might congregations structure themselves to prioritize questions over answers?

Perhaps the conclusion is that  Wholeness is found in Dynamic Tension, To resist resolution is to participate in the pulsing heart of Christian faith, a tradition rooted in the scandal of a God who is both transcendent and immanent, crucified and risen, fully divine and fully human. The Incarnation, Trinity, and Eucharist all encode this nondual logic: wholeness emerges not from erasing tension but from holding it reverently.
Julian of Norwich’s “All shall be well” is not a naively optimistic slogan but a radical affirmation that wellness resides in the struggle itself. When we release the dualistic urge to resolve the questions of the Way and along the Way, we encounter a God who is neither “up there” nor “down here” but in the relational flow between. This is the dynamic fullness Paul described as “Christ in you, the hope of glory” a hope that thrives precisely where certainty ends.
In the end, resisting resolution is an act of trust: that the tension between transcendence and immanence is not a problem to solve but a mystery to inhabit. As Whitehead wrote, “The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” To live the questions, then, is to participate in the divine art of weaving wholeness from paradox.

Flags

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Driving back north on Wednesday I saw a lot of flags but one St George’s flag was emblazoned with the words ‘All welcome’.  Which I think captures well the powerful emblem at the heart of England’s story, one capable of both division and unity. Beneath the flag’s simple red cross on white is a turbulent history of meaning: chivalry, resistance, exclusion, revival, appropriation, and hope. For decades, the flag has oscillated between representing inclusive civic pride and marking out territory for exclusionary identity politics.

When identity politics infects symbols like the St George’s flag, balance collapses into threat. Time and again, the flag has been seized by particular movements or parties, often the far right, and weaponised against ‘outsiders’. Suddenly, the flag’s presence can signal anxiety, hostility, and political confrontation, a coded message of unwelcome. Recent rallies and protests, especially those challenging immigration, have made the red cross synonymous in some communities with division and fear, rather than broad belonging. This is not unique: anywhere a symbol is monopolised, it stops representing a collective story and starts policing boundaries.

Such capture is especially corrosive in Britain, where identity has never been one-dimensional; when the flag is wielded as an exclusive badge, it hardens the oscillating debate into antagonistic camps. It provokes reactive opposition, deepens divides, and risks turning patriotism into nationalism.

Yet behind the flag lies a deeper narrative. St George’s cross first entered English heraldry amid crusades, then evolved through centuries as a sign of bravery, sacrifice, and national aspiration. It has flown in the context of sporting triumph, commemoration, regeneration, and even in multicultural solidarity, when British Pakistani communities decorated their homes with the flag during the World Cup as a mark of shared pride, not division.

Restoring balance means anchoring the symbol not in ownership but in story, recognising that the flag only becomes inclusive when its meaning is held in trust by all, and when its display resists the urge to exclude. The phrase ‘All welcome’ challenges us to claim the flag for the many stories of Englishness: the Windrush generation, football fans reclaiming the flag from the BNP, and new citizens asking to belong.

British identity has never been a fixed point but a rhythm, oscillating around the core values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance. Sometimes leaning inward, sometimes outward, always negotiating plural meanings. The St George’s flag, when balanced by an inclusive story, becomes a mirror for this oscillation: both pride and humility, belonging and questioning, celebration and critique.

Identity politics, at its worst, corrupts this balance by locking the flag’s meaning to one group’s fear or resentment. But when the entire story of the flag replete with change, struggle, and inclusion is reinserted by the words “all welcome” the flag becomes a space, a canvas for every citizen’s tale and this dynamic, not static, understanding of identity is the true heartbeat of Britain.

the violence of endless growth

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Pretty much every year since moving Cumbria we have had snow in winter and noticeable season (albeit with a lot of rain), its a place where the rhythms of the land and the needs of our communities are so present. One thing that troubles me is how easily we absorb the logic of the systems of world around us, especially the relentless drive for endless growth, rather than the logic rootedness of place. In so we are complict in a kind of violence to ourselves, to others, to creation, and to the very systems we are part of.

Endless growth is not neutral, yet the capitalist system is built on the myth that endless economic growth is both necessary and beneficial. But when you look closely, this drive for perpetual expansion is about profit, not people or planet. It’s about extracting more, consuming more, and externalising the costs whether that’s pollution, exploitation, or the destruction of habitats and communities. The result is a world where the rich get richer, the poor and the planet suffers, and everyone is trapped on a treadmill, running faster but never really getting anywhere.

When we stop looking up and out, internalise the logic of growth, we start to measure our worth by productivity, by accumulation, by what we can consume or achieve. We become exhausted, anxious, and disconnected from the deeper rhythms of life. We sacrifice rest, relationships, and even our health on the altar of “more.” We do violence to ourselves, a slow erosion of joy, meaning, and peace.

Capitalism’s endless growth depends on exploitation. It treats workers, communities, and even whole nations as resources to be used up and discarded. The pursuit of profit means that people are paid less than they deserve, forced into precarious work, or displaced from their homes and land. The system is set up so that a few benefit at the expense of the many. As we buy into this we do violence to others; structural, systemic, and often invisible, but no less real.

The environmental cost of endless growth is devastating and it is plain to see in the wether patterns and ecology. Forests are cleared, rivers poisoned, species driven to extinction, and the climate disrupted. Capitalism’s need for continuous expansion leads to resource depletion and ecological collapse. We are literally killing the world that sustains us and calling it “progress.” we are complicit in violence to creation.

We are not separate from the systems we live in and these do not need to be violent. When we participate in the logic of endless growth, we perpetuate cycles and systems of harm. Our churches, our communities, and our institutions can become complicit prioritising numbers, budgets, and buildings over people, relationships, and the common good. This is violence to the systems we are part of, a corruption of what was designed and ordained  good and so it distorts our values and undermines our mission.

What if, instead of chasing endless growth, we embraced a different rhythm? What if we valued sustainability, justice, and care for one another and the earth? What if our churches became places of rest, resistance, and renewal, where we learn to live differently, to share what we have, and to challenge the violence of the status quo?

At its best in Cumbria the new ways of being church, gathering around campfires, sharing meals, listening deeply, and learning to trust something beyond ourselves, offer an alternative. We’re trying to let go of the need to fix everything, to control outcomes, or to measure our worth by what we produce. Instead, they’re learning to be present, to accompany one another, and to let our gifts emerge organically.

As we gather around the table, the campfire, or the Sunday papers, let’s flex the muscle of hope dare to imagine and live into that different future.

Why Bums on seats might really matter

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I keep asking myself: is the spiritual weather shifting out there or is it just me noticing new clouds? Years of following Jesus have taught me that what seems solid, settled, and “done” often isn’t. The tangled roots of faith are always wriggling, refusing the simplicity of census boxes.

We are pretty familiar with the idea of the Spiritual but not religious people but I have been following the Nones Project research from America that Toby Jones is involved in. If you squint sideways at it, there’s something of our own messy British spiritual landscape there. Especially when we dig into the Dones, those completely finished, and then the NiNos, the “Nones in Name Only” who are still whispering secret prayers, holding onto invisible strings, or turning up at a candlelit church despite claiming no religion at all.

But what does this really mean for us in the UK, trying to read the culture and context and wondering if the so-called “quiet revival” is just one more weather front that will drift off by Thursday?

The Dones sound like people I’ve met around the campfire, feet up, story shared. They’re not staging a protest; they’re just done. The chapter closes quietly. But if you ask where their roots go on a hard night, there’s often a thread leading somewhere, a family ritual, memory, old hopes still warm somewhere inside.
The NiNos I meet everywhere, The “I’m not religious but…” crowd. The ones who  can’t stand the boxes but show up for something real, a blessing in my garden, a  chat on a sofa in a high street, the kind activist or volunteer engaged but not sure why, often looking to belong. Linda Woodhead’s research says our own British “nones” are full of patchwork belief, doubt, ritual, history all looping round like strands of bramble and honeysuckle. Got to love an ecological metaphor!

Against this backdrop we have The Quiet Revival, where church attendance is quietly up. Are these young people supposedly filling our pews the NiNos nosing around the edge, curious and awkward, or are we witnessing a quiet boomerang, a returning of people who never truly left in spirit?

I wonder if we’ve got the whole thing upside down. Maybe the “revival” was always growing beneath our feet, wild, resistant, unplanned, like those pop-up spaces and listening benches I’ve found so beautiful in the mixed ecology. Maybe the really radical thing is learning to notice the gentle stuff instead of chasing the fireworks.

When I look back, I see it again and again: community is rarely tidy; the best spiritual wisdom comes from the edges, the in-between places, the unpolished questions. Perhaps we’re “human becomings,” as Pip Wilson said, meant to unfold in all our messy, glorious, uncontainable uniqueness. The language of faith is always more experiment than doctrine, more bless and release than possess and control, so we need great care for those now turning up.

Maybe we are not living through a spiritual comeback but people are opening their eyes to the quiet revival that’s been running, barefoot, in our midst all along, and only noticing it now there is some bums on seats. So maybe bums on matter if helps the church wake up to what’s been happening all along, and attune itself the gift these people are bringing. 

Beyond Blueprints: How Systems Thinking Can Transform Mission

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We are intertwined systems, they shape us and  we, in turn, shape them. In the years I been blogging here I have  long explored the tangled roots of mission, church, and community, resisting the urge to slip into tidy dualisms or easy binaries. Instead, I’ve tried to inhabit that compost-rich space where culture and nature, activism and contemplation, all intermingle. As I look to the next chapter I want to reflect on that  learning particularly from the “Crafting Mission in Systems” journey and see how they are resonating with the work of Alchemy At The Edge. Skip to the bottom of the post if you want to see 3 services that people are finding particularly helpful at the moment.

From Compost to Craft: Mission as Alchemy

Mission is not a static program to be rolled out, an ABC or a rock-solid truth to be defended. It’s a living, breathing system, a field of relationships, stories, and experiments. We are not outside the system, tinkering with its gears; we are the system. As Bayo Akomolafe says, “we are not stuck in traffic, we are the traffic”.

Alchemy At The Edge, in its very name, hopes to evoke the ancient art of transformation. Alchemy was always more than a quest to turn lead into gold; it was a way of seeing, a practice of attending to the hidden processes that bring about change, both in matter and in the soul. The alchemist’s work was slow, patient, and deeply attentive to the interplay of elements. In the same way, I hope my services are about facilitating transformation within organisations, teams, and individuals, not by imposing a blueprint, but by cultivating the conditions for emergence and growth.

Letting Go of Control: Embracing the Unknown

One of the persistent themes in Sunday Papers is the tension between epistemology (knowing, controlling, securing) and ontology (being, becoming, risking). In the “Crafting Mission in Systems” post, we are reminded that real change rarely comes from clinging to certainty. Instead, it emerges when we risk stepping into the unknown, when we allow “grace spaces” to disrupt our routines and invite us into new patterns of relationship.

Alchemy At The Edge’s approach will mirror this and are be not about delivering off-the-shelf solutions or quick fixes. Recently I worked with a diocese and the planning and preparation sessions with the leadership team were so key in making sure what was delivered was not just properly contextual but also spoke to the deeper issues being faced. I want to work alongside people and systems to co-create processes that honour the complexity and uniqueness of every context. To help organisations raise their head beyond the pulpit and step into new possibilities, trusting that something richer and more generative can emerge.

Systems, Stories, and Soul Work

At the heart of both the Sunday Papers ethos and Alchemy At The Edge’s practice is a commitment to deep listening and story. Systems are not just structures; they are made up of people, histories, and hopes. Transformation happens when we pay attention to the stories we tell, the rituals we practice, and the ways we show up for one another.

Alchemy At The Edge will facilitate this kind of soul work within organisations not just individuals. Creating spaces where teams can surface hidden assumptions, name what matters most, and imagine new ways of working together. Like the alchemist, they know that true change is both an art and a science,  that it unfolds in stages, often requiring us to sit with uncertainty and paradox.

The Edge of Becoming

To craft mission in systems is to embrace the messy, generative work of transformation. All models are wrong but some are helpful. As I have started having conversations and work with dioceses and other clients a few key assets/models/processes have emerged that people are finding helpful and I can build sessions around. These include

1. Scale – Scaling Out is pretty straight forward as good ideas spread but Scaling Up or Deep is more challenging. I have been working on processes that help identify what and blocks and opportunities for Scaling Up and Deep which  will embed and accelerate change.

2.Mixed Ecology Trellis – lots of dioceses have found the Trellis helpful to describe and value the whole Mixed Ecology of church, but don’t realise that it can be operationalised as a diagnostic tool both for leadership development and to Scale Out at local and regional levels.

3 Theory of change development – if you aim at nothing you hit it. Recent sessions helping people explore the why behind what they do have been helpful in designing better processes. This not only ensures that what they value is front and centre but that these values inform and drive real change. Too often organisations talk about being values driven without a real understanding or process to ensure they translate in action and lasting change.

In the end, perhaps the greatest gift we can offer is to hold space and to trust that in the compost something beautiful and unexpected can take root.

“We are all in the system. The truth is at hand and it’s held with an open palm… the kin-dom is so much more than we can imagine.”

For a conversation on what I can offer your organisation or diocese please GET IN TOUCH

 

Re-enchantment

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This post has been sparked by a post from Andrew Jones (TSK) asking a question about the place and space enchantment may have now there are 3.5 billion online gamers, inhabiting mystical worlds. Yet when I questioned some younger people about the possible impact their response was they could see little connection as they inhabit many of these spaces and still compartmentalise life. But perhaps they underestimate the pervasive nature of culture because a quick glance around their rooms will often reveal that the icons of the virtual space make it into the physical one.

Many psychologists and philosophers argue that modern life is increasingly defined by fragmentation and compartmentalisation. Our days are still split into work, leisure, family, and digital selves, each with its own codes, expectations, and emotional boundaries but this is somewhat weakening with the rise of side hustles, and a rejection of unfulfilling work. Division allows us to manage stress or trauma by separating conflicting experiences and identities, but the same process can lead to a sense of internal discord, draining energy and making it difficult to pursue a coherent sense of self or purpose. Alasdair MacIntyre argues that this compartmentalised existence is not just a personal phenomenon but a cultural one, where society struggles to articulate a unified vision of the good life. Instead, we float between roles and obligations, rarely integrating them into a meaningful whole.

Against this backdrop, a hunger for re-enchantment has emerged. As our lives become more mediated by screens and routines, many seek a renewed sense of wonder and belonging through nature, which accelerated through the pandemic, and saw a surge in people rediscovering wild spaces, gardening, and outdoor rituals. This movement is not just about environmentalism; it’s about reconnecting with something larger than ourselves, finding awe in the living world, and feeling rooted in a cosmos that is alive and mysterious. But whilst it offers a counterpoint to fragmentation and invites us to experience wholeness, presence, and meaning will compartmentalised routines still be the norm.?

As mentioned by TSK nature is not the only realm where re-enchantment is unfolding. Online games, especially role-playing and massively multiplayer worlds, have become fertile ground for the growth of alternative mystic narratives. These digital spaces often blend myth, prophecy, and magical systems, creating modern mythologies that echo ancient spiritual quests. Games like Skyrim and Mass Effect draw on the hero’s journey, offering players a sense of agency, transformation, and connection to the transcendent. Perhaps such games are acting as the unconscious wells of religion that Mircea Eliade alludes to in The Sacred and the Profane.

Perhaps the dual movement towards nature and towards digital myth reflects a deeper shift in how people approach spirituality and here’s a few things worth noting if we are seeking to understand how this may shape our missiology:

  1. it’s a spirituality that often is increasingly individualised, shaped by personal quests for meaning rather than institutional doctrines.
  2. nature-based practices and online mystic narratives offer opportunities to integrate fragmented parts of the self, whether through mindful presence or immersive storytelling but only often temporarily or still in a compartmentalised way
  3. maybe community can form in digital and real-world communities form around nature practices
  4. providing belonging and shared purpose outside traditional religious structures remains important to people despite rumours of the quiet revival (3.5 billion is a big number!)
  5. The search for spiritual practices, whether rooted in nature or narrative, can offer a sense of coherence and say a lot about the chaos so many face.

The bible speaks pretty directly to the tension between fragmentation and wholeness. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 calls for wholehearted love, echoed by Jesus as the greatest commandment, urging integration, and reiterated by Paul reiterates this vision in Colossians 1. Where fragmentation divides, the biblical narrative points to a God who unites.

So whilst we will only be able to read the impact of these culture shifts retrospectively the juxtaposition of fragmentation and re-enchantment is shaping a new spiritual landscape. Where compartmentalisation divides, re-enchantment, through nature or mythic play, offers the promise of wholeness. In seeking out the enchanted, whether under open skies or in digital realms, people are crafting new ways to be spiritual: ways that are imaginative, inclusive, and deeply attuned to both the wounds and wonders of modern life. And If this is the work of the spirit how do we join in?

Believe less and be more?

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Alastair Macintyres death in May, made me revisit some his writings, many would say After Virtue is one of the most important books around ethics but tbh it’s a heavy tome. A few years back I started wondering if there questions to be asked OF the way and questions to be asked ALONG the way. Macintyre raises great questions of the way, the how, the who, and how we inhabit the story, that are really important for the mixed ecology of church. He would particularly challenge and resist its reduction to a managerial and technological mechanistic solution. Probably arguing that the goal is not to balance liberal and conservative forms, but to recover the narrative unity and purpose of the church’s life.

“We can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if we can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” (After Virtue, p. 216) In a world where church structures often feel like they’re either fossilizing or fragmenting, the tension between what/how we know and what we are becomes stark. For decades, ecclesial debates have circled epistemological questions: How do we define church? What doctrines must we uphold? But what if we’ve been asking the wrong questions? What if, instead of fixating on knowledge, we grounded our understanding in being, in an ontological telos that shapes our purpose from the core of our relational existence?

Epistemology vs. Ontology:
• Epistemology asks, “How do we know what we know?” It’s concerned with beliefs, justification, and the mechanics of knowledge. This translates into doctrinal checklists and boundary-setting.
• Ontology asks, “What is the nature of existence?” It’s about being, the essence of a thing or community which for the church is ultimately a person Jesus. Our exsistence is to be found in Christ and our telos (purpose) stems from these roots, shaping our growth and  fruit.

The problem arises when churches prioritize epistemological gatekeeping (Do you believe X?) over ontological formation (Who are we becoming?). When our primary question shifts from identity to ideology, we risk reducing the Body of Christ to a set of propositions rather than a living, breathing participation in God’s mission. The Cost of this when churches fixate on epistemological certainty, can be to
1. Split over boundaries: Endless debates about who’s “in” or “out” based on doctrinal nuance. 2. Stifle emergence: Prioritize preservation of existing structures over adaptive innovation. 3. Lose relational depth: Reduce discipleship to an assent to particular ideas rather than transformation into Christlikeness. 4 Reach for simple solutions and think there’s a silver bullet answer.

This is why I would argue in part why the church always was and will be a mixed ecology and therefore any expression of mixed ecology requires an ontological foundation. A tree cannot thrive if its energy goes into policing its leaves rather than deepening its roots. So the ontological roots of the mixed ecology approach starts with being, not knowing and would include,
• Telos as trajectory: The church exists to become the Bride of Christ (Eph. 5:27) to be a body of many parts, a people shaped by love, justice, and kenotic service.
• Essence comes before expression: Forms of church (inherited, emerging, etc.) are secondary to the imago Dei etched into our collective DNA.
• Relational ontology: As the Trinity exists in perichoretic communion, the church’s being is fundamentally interdependent, the vine and other biblical metaphors.

So what does this mean in practice if we take this ontological approach seriously.
1. A shift from “What do we believe?” to “Whose are we?”
Ground identity in belonging to the open handed welcoming Christ rather than ideological alignment.
2. A shift from preserving structures to nurturing life
Just as ecosystems adapt to environmental shifts, churches must prioritise vitality over validity. The rise of FXs and Save the Parish at its best reflects this organic impulse.
3. A shift from outsider status to living incarnation
An ontological telos frees communities to experiment, fail, and iterate. The focus shifts from “Are we right?” to “Are we alive?”

Perhaps  the church’s crisis is not a lack of answers but a forgetfulness around our sense of being. When i advocate for a mixed ecology, i hope I’m pointing to a deeper truth and that our forms must flow from our ontology. We are not called to be curators of dogma but cultivators of divine life rooted in Christ, branching into the world’s fractures, and bearing fruit that whispers of a Kingdom not yet fully seen.

Scaling Deep: Measures of Possibility, Personhood and Story

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In the previous post I wrote about the importance of scaling deep; that elusive, essential work of transforming the cultural values, relationships, and everyday practices at the heart of our systems.  Scaling deep, I argued, is about more than numbers or institutional reach; it is about changing hearts and minds, shifting the stories we tell, and nurturing the kind of belonging that can weather storms. Today, I want to expand on that theme, drawing in the wisdom of Rowan Williams and the concept of sobornost, and exploring how we might measure engagement by more than attendance or output, to include by our collective openness to possibility, creative reimagining, and the space we make for different voices.

Beyond Numbers: The Limits of Shallow Metrics
It’s a familiar refrain in church life: “How many came?” “How many stayed?” “How many gave?” These questions, while not unimportant, often reflect what I’ve come to see as institutional anxiety, our capitalist captivity, a need for reassurance that we’re growing, that we’re succeeding. But as I’ve reflected on the journey of Fresh Expressions and broader systems change, I’ve become convinced that these are shallow waters. Real, lasting change, the kind that endures beyond a single project, leader, or season requires a shift in the very soil of our communal life. This is the work of scaling deep.

Scaling Deep and the Wisdom of Sobornost
Here, Rowan Williams offers a profound lens. Drawing on the Russian Orthodox tradition and the theologians Losskey,  Khomiakov Williams describes sobornost as a gathering of free persons into one organic body, not simply the sum of its parts but an active, living wholeness. Sobornost is not about headcount or institutional uniformity. It is about the quality of our togetherness: the depth of our relationships, the space we make for difference, and the organic unity that emerges when people are truly seen and heard.
Williams writes that the church, at its best, is a community whose boundaries have been decisively altered by the Resurrection, a place where the barriers of class, race, and loyalty are overcome, and a new social pattern of forgiveness, patience, and truth-telling emerges. This is not utopia, but a real, flesh and blood community marked as much by failure as by success. The point is not perfection, but the ongoing work of living into a new, unbounded world, a world where every face is one God has already looked at with love. When we take this as a base I think we can use the principles of Scaling Deep and develop at different set of measures, but we will need greater attention to process to make this sort of measurement possible.

Measuring Engagement with Possibility
If we take sobornost seriously, then engagement is not just about participation in programmes or committees. It’s about how we engage with possibility, how open we are to new ways of being, to creative thinking, to the reimagining of spaces and relationships. Here are some ways I see this playing out:
• Reimagining Spaces: Our physical and symbolic spaces shape our communal life. Too often they reinforce old hierarchies and exclusion. But what if we saw our spaces as canvases for possibility? What if we designed them to be more inclusive, more hospitable, more reflective of the diversity of God’s people? This isn’t just about architecture, it’s about the stories our spaces tell and the possibilities they invite. It’s as much about medium as message.
• Creative Thinking: Scaling deep is inherently creative. It asks us to imagine new forms of community, new patterns of discipleship, new ways of relating to one another and to God. This creativity is not a luxury; it’s a necessity for communities seeking to embody the gospel in a changing world.
• Personal Development Spaces: True engagement honours the personhood of each member. Are we creating spaces for personal growth, for the sharing of stories, for the honest wrestling with faith and doubt? Are we nurturing resilience, vulnerability, and the gifts that come from lived experience, especially from those on the margins?
• The Place and Space of Different Voices: Sobornost insists that unity is not uniformity. Are we making space for voices that have been silenced, for perspectives that challenge our assumptions, for the kind of dialogue that Rowan Williams describes as essential to the church’s witness? Are we willing to be disturbed, to be changed by the encounter with the other?

All of the above provide real opportunities to measure scale both in terms of Scaling Up and Out and importantly Scaling Deep but we will need an accompanying shift to valuing story and gathering Narrative-Based Evidence that stories allude to.

So how do we measure this kind of engagement? I think if we get the principles right the organisation can use spreadsheets or dashboards, and numbers but the process or lens is through the gathering of stories, narrative-based evidence that honours context and personhood. There’s all sorts of participatory, narrative techniques like Community Narration invite members to share their experiences and to shape the collective story of the community. These stories reveal not just what we’ve done, but who we are becoming. They help us see where we have truly scaled deep, where hearts and minds have been changed, where new possibilities have emerged, where the quality of our togetherness has grown.
“Narrative methods have great potential to avoid hierarchical and unidirectional forms of evaluation, encouraging the group’s collective psychology and identity-based constructs to emerge… The community’s participants were able to use the technique successfully, found it enriching, and the constructs obtained have led to many discussions and member-guided research related to the organization.” See here

Mapping Scale: Out, Up, and Deep
Once we begin to gather this narrative evidence, we can more easily categorise where we have scaled out (replicating innovations), scaled up (influencing systems and structures), and scaled deep (transforming culture and relationships). Scaling out and up are often visible and quantifiable. Scaling deep, by contrast, is subtle, slow, and sometimes invisible yet it is what makes all other change sustainable.

Honouring Context and Personhood
At the heart of this approach is a commitment to honouring both context and personhood. Every community is unique, shaped by its history, its challenges, and its gifts. Every person brings their own story, their own wounds and hopes. Scaling deep means attending to these realities, refusing one-size-fits-all solutions or predetermined outcomes and opening ourselves to the possibility that God is at work in the very particularities of our lives.

So, through Alchemy at the edge I invite you to join me in measuring engagement not by what is easy or obvious, but by what is deep and lasting. Let us reimagine our spaces, nurture creative thinking, make room for every voice, and gather the stories that tell the truth about who we are and who we are called to become. In so doing, we honour the spirit of sobornost, a unity that is organic, dynamic, and always open to the possibilities of grace.
And perhaps, in the end, this is the most faithful measure of all: not how many we have gathered, but how deeply we have learned to belong to one another, and to the God who calls us into ever-widening circles of possibility.