Our Methodist colleagues in the Fresh Expressions initiative have nearly 1,000 fresh expressions of church. This means that almost one in five Methodist churches is involved in encouraging new forms of church for those who are not already members of any church.
When the Dartford Bridge area became ripe for redevelopment the local Methodist Church appointed Bart Woodhouse as lay leader of a new church plant team... the result is The Beacon.
Bart says,
I moved on to the Bridge development in north Dartford with my family while the bulldozers were still in evidence. In early 2008 so we were among the first five or six people to be here! At first we simply started meeting whoever was around, so we'd take our children out and about walking, bump into our neighbours and get some conversations going.
As more and more people began to move on site, I was very keen to start a Residents' Association. We put letters through people’s doors and organised an informal meeting in one of the new buildings; about 40 or 50 people came along. We made it very clear that we were a church and that we wanted to work to try and build community here, firstly by getting residents together in that Association and giving them a voice. That was a really effective way of getting the community together and being able to listen to what was going on. In new developments there are always issues with houses and how well the windows keep out water and so on - I was able to get some movement on those issues. We saw that as part of our role of building Kingdom. Part of our witness here as Christians was to consider how we could make this place a strong, vibrant and healthy place to be - so very early on we did things like holding a community carol service.
We stumbled on the national Big Lunch initiative, which encourages communities to get together for food and activities. We had a very popular tug of war, a bouncy castle and a barbecue. We got local people to bring along some home-made food that expressed something of their background - a kind of signature dish. As a result we had goat curry and many other wonderful things! About 60 or 70 people came which was quite a big proportion of the people here. In our desire to help shape community we'll also be working to help create a community garden on a small plot of land on site, that couldn't be built on. The youth club will be involved by creating a piece of art or sculpture for the centre of the garden.
There is a core team of about 12, with a real sense of call to be doing this kind of work, but we are learning again what it means to be community and what it means to be church together. We've also got quite a large and growing fringe group and we are using things like the Y Course to encourage that fringe to explore the Christian faith and then hopefully transition into the cell life of the church. It has been very much about winning trust, listening, forming real relationships and friendships with people and trying to demonstrate something of God’s love to them in a practical and real way.
We meet on a Tuesday evening in cell groups - or Beacon groups - and then on one Sunday in the month we all have a big meal together, maybe with some sort of interactive prayer time. The Dartford Bridge Learning and Community Campus has been built on site and we have a room there which is just the right size for us. We also launched a celebration service at the new school on the Bridge Development in January.
We are a worshipping community together. We are also about God's mission, demonstrating the Kingdom in this place. We certainly are creating disciples in what we're doing and encouraging others as to what it might mean to explore being disciples of Christ in this place.
We aim to:
- Build a strong church that is rooted in the fullness of God's grace and demonstrates the 'Jesus life' to our community and our world;
- Always strive to foster a strong and real sense of community, one that isn't invasive but supportive;
- Discover a pattern of Christian life that is 24/7, not limited or detached from the rest of our lives;
- Follow Jesus, and by his Spirit, demonstrate his message to others.
Our long term vision here is to create a kind of pattern of church that is so integrally part of this new community and yet is authentically a church expressing all the Kingdom values and living out the message of Christ, seeing people discover faith in Jesus and having their lives changed as a result.’
What is the best way to plant church into a new housing development? Get there early, but commit to stay long term.
RSS
Podcast feed