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The BIGBible Project | Belonging to an emerging church by @vfxhanley

I came across this and thought it was worth a post as it got me thinking. The BIGBible Project | Belonging to an emerging church by @vfxhanley

As someone involved in a few projects both virtual and in the digital community, many of the folk that i meet and that 'come along' to the things myself and others create, also 'belong' to other types of communities like a 'church' or 'cell group'. There is a sense that some folk identify or belong to a whole range of things. So can we say that people own it in the its 'MY' Church sense? or are people saying i dip in here and i dip in there to get what i want? Do we need to have a more flexible and lose understanding of what the phrase 'belong' means? New technology offers us more scope and problems to create things that people can engage with and that they belong to. 


One of the problems with the digital world is that you can find yourself only being exposed to like minded blogs or websites where you come into contact with things that you agree with rather than on things that may stretch or challenge your perceptions. So whatever Digital communities we engage with they need to find a balance... and that's a tough call.

I'm also involved in a project that hasn't 'gone live' yet on Facebook, we are calling it FacebookNE (NE - North East) - watch this space! One of the conversations we are having about this is - is it enough to just 'meet on line' or as a digital community? Our thinking on this is in its early stages, but we feel there is a few small physical groups that meet (Sunday@thepub) and others, that are doing some things around the themes that Simon raises in the behave, belong believe idea that he poses in his post. Maybe there is an opportunity to not just create a digital place for folk to meet, so they sign up and become a follower or they join a Facebook group or whatever. But maybe there will be opportunities for a face to face meeting. So a digital community decide every now and again to meet up and 'do' something. There needs to be more reflection on this, but the kind of idea we had was to meet around a campaign and worship. 

So do Digital communities need to still be based around geographical areas to allow for potential face to face gatherings?

Wow... two posts in a week... whats happening!

I'm not good at this!

So after saying that its been a while since i last posted... its happened again. I have every intention to blog and then it vanishes out of my head, its strange really since i seem to spend a lot of time looking at blogs and websites that are very interesting.

Anyway, lets get on to the real reason for blogging today. I had not really seen the point of using twitter as i thought it was enough to just use Facebook, but i decided to have a go... and i love it! I have found it really useful to keep up to speed with what folk are doing up and down the country in the whole fresh expressions thing and also what a few of my friends are doing in pioneering new communities in places where the Church has pulled out or has never been.

I have also been chatting to friends, who are doing some creative things to reach communities that are far from the walls of the Church; and as such i have been invigorated to think about what kind of faith community i want to belong to, and what kind of faith community i would like to create in Sunday@thepub the project that we are doing as part of my work.

It seems to me that in the communities we are developing and creating in the various pioneering initiatives that there needs to be a sense of openness and honesty that under pins the relationships. The problem we have is that this takes a lot of time and energy, and many folk don't have the capacity to spend time in the settings and spaces that would foster this openness and honesty. Alongside this we have the Church that also wants to see results now!

So what then does this mean? Well i think we need to persist and help the Church to see that we need to be in this for the long hall, i'm encouraged by some of the noises that are coming out of the corridors of power in the Methodist Church that they seem to be committed to this kind of work, i just hope this translates into the Circuits and the Churches around the country.

Its been a while!

I realise its been a while since I posted anything on here, and so I thought it was about time I got to it again, although it could be another few months before Ipost again! So what's going on? Well, work is becoming very interesting with a wide range of projects, course and challenges to be dealt with.

We are in the process of getting the Street Pastors initiative http://www.streetpastors.co.uk/ off the ground which is going to be great for our local area and will help the Police deal with anti social behaviour and the many stag and hen parties that come into Whitley Bay in the summer, as well as dealing with the regular night time economy throughout the year.

Another venture which has proved to be challenging and equipping is the msi course http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/missionshapedintro which come out of Fresh Expressions. This 6 week course is there to help churches get their heads around fresh expressions and it also helps churches to think think about mission in its broadest sense.

I have also been working over the last couple of years with one of our churches in one of the villages surrounding Whitley Bay, it has been great to get to know the folk and to make connections with other people in the village as we work on events together. This is also a challenge as many of the folk in the church are elderly and are happy to just keep the show on the road, and maybe aren't so keen to get involved in new ideas and projects. What is clear though, is that many churches are beginning to see that things can't go on as they are and some thing will need to change otherwise over the next few years we will see an awful lot of small churches closing.

The next few weeks, months and years are going to be interesting!

YouTube - Crosby Beach - Dream Labyrinth

I have been thinking recently about what faith communities can do to interact with the world around them, in doing so i stumbled across something on Facebook that one of my friends is doing in Scarborough that got me thinking. She is a minister and created a sacred space on the beach for people to light lanterns to remember those who they have lost through illness and also to think about those who are ill.

Then after looking on the Fresh Expressions web site

http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/ recently i found something on their about a fresh expression called 'dream' that does Guerilla worship - that is tuning up in public spaces and doing forms of worship, one of these guerilla worship events took place on Crosby beach where they created a labyrinth in the sand - YouTube - Crosby Beach - Dream Labyrinth

Since I am near the coast I'm wondering about doing something similar here, so if you have any thoughts or ideas, why not share them. I'm also looking for other creative ways to do things like this so if you have any ideas then post them on here, or put something on facebook

Hope and Action

Looks like some good stuff on here, comes out of the United Methodist Church Hope and Action

Its been a long time

Sorry its been a while since i posted anything, there has been a lot going on over these last few months. The early part of this year was pretty tough as we lost one of our best friends to Cancer, she had been battling with it for a while and in the end she passed away peacefully one night, although we thought this time would come we had hoped to have a little longer before she left us. Its never easy to lose someone you love and care for and watching those who loved her the most has been hard.

Also this year my cousins wife has been diagnosed with cancer as well and she is in the throws of treatment, which is dreadful to watch. In the last few years i have watched many people fight this dreadful disease and it really is remarkable how people cope with such devastating news.

If i'm honest one of the reasons i struggled in the early days i was in pastoral work was because of the amount of illness i saw, it just seemed to impact me in ways i never thought possible.

So what else has been going on? Well, Karen and i have just returned from visiting friends in the States, if you want to see what we got up to then have a look at our travel bloghttp://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Wandering-Wylies/Trips/8454 We had a great time and certainly come back relaxed.

Over these last few months as well as dealing with all these various issues i have also been thinking through various issues in relation to my own faith. I have to say that i don't find bible study, prayer to be easy... apart from to say that its easier NOT to do it! I realise that a 'relationship' with God is vital if my faith is to have meaning and purpose and so i have been trying (not to purposefully) to recognise God in the everyday things of life... the good and the bad. When you do this, i think it alters our perception of who God is and what God does, you begin to see Gods fingerprint or handy-work in the strangest places.

I suppose though my attention falls on to issues of the church, and i hope to ponder some of these questions over the next few blogs, so watch this space!