Church on the Edge - Recently Updated Pages

Church on the Edge - Group Project

paulmtilley — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:24:46 CDT

Church on the Edge - Our Collaboration Wiki

We want to learn from one another and get others feedback and expertise or just random comments as we explore growing church from scratch.

This site is a central point to keep track of the process, the evolving project and our work in progress.

The About Church on the edge describes the project

Most of the conversation and learning from the project is on the questions page and this is where we add the learning from the practice areas andwant others to share their stories.

The Project Schedule is where we chart the history of the project and how local projects were set up and when others joined etc

Add pages as necessary, brainstorm on the wiki "whiteboard" page, and use the person-to-person messaging feature to keep in touch with team members.

About	Project History	Brainstorming
Drafts	What have we learnt so far?	Team Members

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Church on the Edge History

paulmtilley — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:23:54 CDT

Progress tracker:

Progress:	Date Started:	Notes:
1. Initial idea formed from reflections on the lack of mission impetus in Emerging church	early 2004	Richard Passmore
2. Conversations with Steve Jones, DYO and Steve Bedford on Tiverton as posible pilot	Oct 2005
3. Project formed as a FYT Flagship with CMS and Diocese		To explore what mission based youth work and emerging church can learn from one another
4. Three pilots arranged Chard, Chagford, Tiverton
5. Chagford OTE with FYT
6. Chard Detached project started	Feb 2005
7. Tiverton		Initated but not developed
8.Paul Tilley joins Chagford On the Edge Project.	Aug 2006
9.

See also: The Assignment | Research | Rough Draft | Team Members

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Growing Church

paulmtilley — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:18:40 CDT

The project takes into account that ways of being church are moving/have moved in recent years. The definition of church is more fluid, more relational, more wholstic, yet the link between these new concepts of church and mission is still being explored and developed. It is in this context that Church on the edge operates. Two of the critical words/concepts for church on the edge are:

Growing/Grown
Intentional/ Intentionality

These are drawn from the detached work experience[1] of many years, that in effect saw new forms of church being grown, but were operating at a time when defining these forms as church was not possible as peoples view of church was narrower. The concept of intentionality builds on this and is expanded in Off the beaten track[2] (OTBT), which sought to examine the links between newer concepts of church and mission with young people. OTBT introduces the idea of Tacking[3] with young people and argues that we should not disconnect church from mission. OTBT summarises the arguments for Tacking as:

Holistic mission is about changing society, ourselves and individuals.
Mission should happen in-front of Church not out-fromChurch, and the danger is the latter holds back real change and reinforces control.
An acceptance of the regnocentric position means that Tacking is about helping society and individuals become fully human which is also being and growing Church.
Church is a broad concept that is about process and outcome; Tacking is Church.
All of this is framed by the ethics of Christ with Orthopraxis being a key concept.[4]

The concept of tacking with young people provides a theological and practical framework that collapses the gaps between mission and church. It suggests that working intentionally within a tacking framework provides an authentic way of being and growing church. It holds the tension of being future focused and present thinking, of process and outcome. It is about attitude and course of action; it is about being and growing Church. Tacking with young people is being Church and becoming Church; it is youth work as Church and growing Church[5]. Therefore in terms of Church on the Edge in some ways we are not looking to prove that the work we are doing is church but to apply the concepts of intentionality and grow and see what can be learnt from young people and the process to support work in other settings, to name the elephant in the room and to give permission for other to do so.

Also see the attachment "beyond outside in and inside out" at the bottom of this page.

[1] See Detached work Stages below

[2] Off the Beaten Track A fresh Approach to Youth work and Church by Richard Passmore 2004 Christian Education Publishing

[3] Tacking - helping young people and society become more fully human, by a process of purposeful, deliberate and informal interactions

[4] ibid page 28

[5] ibid page 30

Detached Work Stages[1]

1. SURVELLENCE -Working out which geographical areas or groups of young people to engage

2 COLD CONTACT. Visual stage where we acknowledge the groups

3 COLD CONTACT. Introductions where we introduce ourselves and the project (could be interesting for Church on the edge project as it is one time I have had more of an agenda)

4. AREA BASED WORK This is when starting in an area or patch and a wide variety of contacts are being made.

5. PEER GROUP WORK This happens as the work becomes more defined and consists of natural groupings of young people. This stage is often where larger groups are identified usually around a shared interest. e.g. football or hanging out and may be too many work with or inconsistent attendance.

6. BASIC SMALL GROUP WORK As key young people are identified the work should be forward to this stage. This group is made up from the groups that exist within the larger peer group.

7. RISKY SMALL GROUP WORK This is about taking calculated risks to move the work and relationships forward such as 1-1 work, a relaxing , perhaps having a meal with the young people etc. However this is not about putting yourself or the young people at risk. This will be the key stage for Church on The edge project

8. EXPOSURE AND EXPLORATION OF SPIRITUALITY Young people should be introduced to aspects of Christianity in practical supportive ways. It can range from events to raise their consciousness of Bigger things, e.g. watching the sunrise, exploring creation, to going to an event. The worker should explain some of the things that may happen at events and translate what is happening at the event and use the opportunity to explore spiritual issues in a supportive way. This stage will centre around definition for the Church on the edge process and will be part of the action research stage

9. PEER EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT or CHURCH ON THE EDGE Enabling young people to become active participants in their community or to choose to take part in the action research
Between each stage there are tools or mechanisms that enable work to progress from stage to stage. These are varied and depend on the interests of the young people you are working with it could be kite flying, sports, hobbies, issues explored, trips etc Anything you do as group together that helps the relationships deepen.
It is possible to identify the groups you are working with and guesstimate where you are on the development plan. From there decide where you wish the group to be in six months time and how you propose to get there, e.g. explore doing a residential. This enables you to gauge your progress in some way.

[1] Adapted from Meet Them where they’re At published by SU in 2003

About Church on the Edge

paulmtilley — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:18:02 CDT

Project description:

The Church on the Edge project is a UK based partnership between Frontier Youth Trust, Church Missionary Society, the Anglican Diocese of Exeter, and local churches. It was initiated to research what mission shaped youth work and emerging church can learn from one another, and explore this through practice. The project has at its’ heart the intentionality of growing church with young people on the edge as a missionary endeavour and to develop a framework that can facilitate locally grounded and “resource light”, expressions of church.

Process:

A Contacting Community
A Growing Community
A Connecting Community
An Exploring Community
An Practicing Community

A contacting community – is about the initial approaches made towards the young people, the idea of going to them (incarnation), but also includes the management committee or structure that enables the process to happen.

Critical Questions may include: What structures work and release this sort of project to happen? What initial approaches to young people work? What shape does the project need, balancing needs of young people in the community with ethos of growing church, are the two compatible? How/when do you introduce the concept?

*Ideas on this stage in practice settings (see stages 1-3)*
Detached Work	Youth Club	Toddler Group
Cold contact	Developing the drop in	Establishing the group
Regular Contact and presence
Basic relationship building
Offering to walk away if yp don’t want you around	Using physical barriers to enable yp to enable secure contacts eg Tuck shop	Developing the ownership of the group through purchase of equipment etc

A growing community – is about the growing relationship between the young people and the workers, and between the young people themselves. It is about spending time with young people, building relationships and securing trust.

Critical Questions may include: What helps or hinders the relationship process? How/when do you introduce the concept? Where does ambiguity[1] fit into the process? The role of groups and risk?

*Ideas on this stage in practice settings (see stages 4-7)*
Detached Work	Youth Club	Toddler Group
Area Work and group stages	Beginning activities day Trips	Social meetings outside of group
Continuing relationship building
Start meeting as leaders ready to receive groups
Use metaphor of journey in activities, trips etc Introduce Story of Brendan if appropriate
Responding to needs and interests	Working with existing groups freeing leaders to build on these	Responding to needs and interests, eg healthy eating course
Look for Flow (eg skaters) and introduce concept	Develop a residential to provoke Flow/raise issues of Spiritual awareness	Discuss flow moments with the parents

A connected community – This stage is not about the young people committing to Christ but about being willing to commit to one another to go on a journey of discovery together as to what church may mean. There is a sense in which in part we are looking for young people to become action researchers and ask if this process in itself is transformative, in a similar way to the disciples being prepared to journey with Jesus before they knew who he was.

Critical Questions may include: What might resources might help build a sense of commitment? How we continue to work if young people do not want to? Can we mirror a rite of passage pre commitment to Christ what might this look like?

*Ideas on this stage in practice settings (see stages 7-8)*
Detached Work	Youth Club	Toddler Group
Exploration - COE stages 7-8	Develop	Social meetings outside of group
Develop Rite of Passage residential provoking Flow and concluding with activity that gives yp space to continue exploration on return (see below)		Similar but adults so Rite of Passage experience questionable
Develop a symbol to give to those who want to continue
Use the image of Finding Nemo to describe the flow through the ages and ask if they are wiling to connect with you to explore this on a regular basis when we return home

An exploring community – is the process of navigating and journeying together, exploring what Christ might mean to them, what concepts of church are relevant to them, work on the sacraments etc and an exploration of what church might look like in their context. It is about joining our story, Gods story and their story together.

Critical Questions may include: Is the exploration transformative, what does this look like? What are the young peoples takes on issues like the sacraments? How would they communicate the story?

*Ideas on this stage in practice settings (see stages 7-9)*
Detached Work	Youth Club	Toddler Group
We are planning to meet on a Sunday to connect into the historic flow/help the yp identify that it is Christian but in Youth Clubs and Toddler Group you may be able to meet as part of this session
Eat together, meet regularly, experiment, call it church / church on the edge?
Find the right parables to tell, but retell in a modern way and do not interpret them for the group
Be creative

An ecclesial community – (perhaps this should be changed to a practicing community) where the group begins to practice what they have discovered over the previous stages.

Critical Questions may include: Has this approach collapsed gaps between mission and church? Is this relevant to young people not involved in the other stages of the process? How is it connected to tradition? How can it be replicated – is it temporary or group specific? Is it a cycle or a closed process?

*Ideas on this stage in practice settings (see stages 7-9)*
Detached Work	Youth Club	Toddler Group
Evaluate with the group where you are and if you want to continue.
Ask them who else do they thinks flows and how can they bring them into the group is it by invitation or do they need to revisit the residential stage
Visit other expressions of church and evaluate
Base church role play

See also: Brainstorming | Team Members | Project Schedule

What have we learnt so far, can you add to the conversation?

paulmtilley — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:15:45 CDT

What have we learnt so far? This page includes learning from those involved in the pilot areas and is divided into a general area for questions and the five stages identified to try and keep the content coherent. Please get involved in the conversations by starting thread discussions. (for information and background please ensure you have read the About Church on the edge page).

General Learning and Questions:

Initial questions have been raise about the process and where the concept of church/ecclesial community starts. We have found in Chard pilot area that due to the intentionality of the approach we could already be an ecclesial community. The level of relationship and openness because of the intentional nature does make the whole process feel like church. The issue of pace is important. In some ways having the stages predicts a pace and movement/progress which is important. However within the stages it is important to go with what God is doing not trying to force the pace because of the strategy.

I have learned that the process from building relationships to 'asking the question', "do you want to 'form' church", is a very difficult and scary one.

How do you form 'church' with non-churched/christian volunteers?

Learning and Questions about contacting community –

Critical Questions may include: What structures work and release this sort of project to happen? What initial approaches to young people work? What shape does the project need, balancing needs of young people in the community with ethos of growing church, are the two compatible? How/when do you introduce the concept?

Learning from Chard and reflections on missiology mean that we feel it is important to approach the groups of young people as communities, working with them as a whole as well as individuals. The detached work process holds up well and can continue to be used.

Learning and Questions about growing community –
Critical Questions may include: What helps or hinders the relationship process? How/when do you introduce the concept? Where does ambiguity[1] fit into the process? The role of groups and risk?

Could introduce as research into spirituality, these questions and phrases may help. Church does not connect with people but there are those moments in life when we are aware that there could be something bigger. We would say this is God, but perhaps you don’t have a language to describe it? Would you be willing to help us discover what these flow moments are about? I think God is more/as present in the (skate park/toddler group) than in the church. Basically we need you to be willing to be guinea pigs? The next stage/residential is about provoking flow and we could tell you some stories and see if these make sense to you or help you describe your experience. It is not about church with singing and all that but if we were to do (skate)church with you guys what would it look like, I don’t have clue and e need you to help us define it. We are not asking for you to commit to something you don’t believe in (ie become a Christian) but asking if you would be willing to commit to helping us explore what church is and how this connects to flow?

The idea of working with the young people as community is further reinforced, and to think of the small group stages in the detached plan as community groups may be helpful. One of the issues is that as you approach different groups (see detached plan) as mini communities. The process then naturally brought these together because of the growing spiritual awareness of individuals*. However some of the initial group/mini communities identity is resilient, which can cause issues in the new joined community. This also ties into the ideas of working with and identifying the people of peace but doing so as a community approach.

Learning and Questions about connected community –
Critical Questions may include: What might resources might help build a sense of commitment? How we continue to work if young people do not want to? Can we mirror a rite of passage pre commitment to Christ what might this look like?

Learning from chard would suggest that the community element remains important and the need to reform community around those willing to connect (also see above*). The idea that the connection has to reflective of their culture is questionable, the skate pilgrimage was an important step but equally important was using film and conversation as a medium to facilitate connectivity particularly when used in unexpected ways. The young people carried some expectations that when we were talking/doing group work that it would be traditionally Christian in nature, and keeping the mediums for communication away from these traditional Christian approaches was important. Maintaining a clear space from any traditional trappings of church/Christianity was important in creating the space we now have to explore in the new stage, so take care here. The pilgrimage provided an element of liminality and communitas for the group, that should not be underrated, and the idea of additional steps being required may not be needed.
Learning and Questions exploring community – Critical Questions may include: Is the exploration transformative, what does this look like? What are the young peoples takes on issues like the sacraments? How would they communicate the story?

The previous stage gave us permission to push ahead with this without the need for formally asking people to commit as a group. (however they have committed individually {in a group setting} to explore God/Flow with us). The communitas engendered by the process holds throughout giving us space to move into this area as we see fit. What this does mean is that the role of the worker as priest/facilitator for exploration remains. Bearing in mind the questions raised in general about the intentionality of growing church and that it is present from the outset, it could be what will differentiate this stage from the next will be the role the community takes in actively leading the exploration together.

Learning and Questions about practicing/ecclesial community – (perhaps this should be changed to a practicing community) where the group begins to practice what they have discovered over the previous stages.

Critical Questions may include: Has this approach collapsed gaps between mission and church? Is this relevant to young people not involved in the other stages of the process? How is it connected to tradition? How can it be replicated – is it temporary or group specific? Is it a cycle or a closed process?

It could be that using sociological definition of church will help here, ie is the group self governing. In the previous stage we are still in some ways the bringer of the story, so the exploration could lack some mutuality in generating resources for reflection/being perhaps a greater equality in this is what defines this stage.

Chagford - On the Edge

paulmtilley — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:11:23 CDT

Trip to Mount Harwk with a group of boys from Chagford

Chard - Church on the edge

passmorer — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 08:24:04 CST

Most of the story from Chard is found here

But is a story we reworked for the skate pilgrimage.

In a town not so far from here there was man known as Abs. The town was a pretty desolate place, with not much going on, so Abs grew up to skate and ride, as soon as he put his foot on his first board he knew he was born to ride. As he rode he experienced life and energy in a way he had never known before. The more he rode the more he flowed with ths life and energy. Slowly Abs began to understand the life and energy was beyond him, it was not created by him, or generated by himself, but as he forgot himself in the ride he would experience it more and more. Abs began to call this life and energy Flow, he started to recognise when he was about ride with Flow and when Flow was not present. The more he understood and experienced Flow the more he wanted to be in Flow all the time. Slowly Abs felt Flow beginning to communicate with him, it was strange unnerving and Abs was not sure at first if he was imagining things, but Abs knew Flow. Unsure he uttered to himself as much to the Flow that he wanted to experience Flow all the time. Whether it was a voice, an internal impression of a voice, or just something in his mind Abs was unsure, but he knew it was Flow. It seemed a strange contradiction, This voice was saying to Abs if he wanted to really know Flow then he would have to break his skateboard. Abs was confused “wasn’t it through riding that he first really began to experience Flow, wasn’t it through those moments of laughter and relief after pulling the best hand plant, or kick flip that Flow was most present” Yet Abs longed for more and had grown to trust Flow and so reluctantly, he agreed. He made his way to the Skatepark Quarter the highest ramp around, to smash his board on the concrete edge of the ramp.

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