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Twilight @ Costa is the name given to a fresh expression of church that has been running for 13 months. It is a monthly gathering with music, DVDs, quizzes, conversation, speakers and copious amount of coffee.

The aim of Twilight, which meets from 7pm, is to try and be a church community outside of the traditional thoughts of church, ie, day, time and building. Over the year we have attracted people from various churches, de-churched people and people who just wander in because they fancy a coffee at Costa. Interestingly, many people with little or no inherited church connection return regularly. That is where the 'problem' is now beginning for us.

Of course, that is what we wanted when we set out on the good ship Twilight. We realised that you can have the best services, welcome, refreshments, buildings, and flower rotas in traditional church but there will still be great swathes of the community who will not darken our doors.

Our desire was not to invite them in to our current set ups but to go out and meet people where they are. We haven`t always got it right and have made changes along the way but at least we are seeing the development of a new kind of church community.

Now that we have made those connections, the challenge really begins. What do we do with them? The temptation to go down the inherited church route is great but one that we are resisting, in favour of a genuine desire to be a new church community. It is at this point that we have to exercise our faith as, if we are honest; we have no idea where this new church will be in 12, 18 or 24 months' time.

I am really excited by that approach as I believe that, in our desire to understand and operate our beloved mixed economy of church, we are discovering the need to exercise our faith in a real 'Help, we don't know where this is going' sort of way. Surely that is a good thing.

As we sit and strategise over our mission opportunities, there has to be room for the element of: 'That's a good idea, but I`ve got no concept of how it will work or end up.' To me, that feels the right thing (and also the brave thing) to do with any new expressions of church we feel led to pioneer. Sometimes we have to just get on with it, and it is within the journey that we find God at work, not necessarily in the arrival.

Revd Jeff Reynolds, Superintendent Methodist Minister (Stafford).

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Karen Carter. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Church Army, Fresh Expressions or any of its partners.

However, I continue to reflect on my experience of Sanctus1 and one area that I've been thinking about is provisionality. I was recently told that the city centre residential community of Manchester has an annual people turnover of 30% - almost the entire community changes in a three year period. This was something that I observed during my time with Sanctus1 - approximately every two years 50% of the community would change. People who had been part of the community for more than four years were a rarity.

This transience created a fragility as people moved in and moved out. New people bring new energy and new life, but losing more established people all the time is draining on established people within the community. It is hard when you build community with one group and then that community disappears around you and a new one forms. Comparisons are always made with what the previous community was like and memory can be rather utopian.

A further reflection is how draining it can be for people who have been part of the community for a number of years, when they are dealing with the same questions that they have dealt with a few years earlier. Questions of identity, faith, purpose, belonging, etc, that they wrestled with before are revisited. This is an important process for the current community, but slightly frustrating for those who have been part of the community for a number of years.

It is also often the case that those who have been established for a number of years carry a lot of the responsibility of the community. When they do not see this level of commitment being shared by others, who are relatively new to the community, frustration can occur.

These are some of the challenges of church in a transient culture. I think that one answer is to develop a corporate patterning of spiritual life - patterns that allow for the instability of a transient context and church. I don't think that we got this right in Sanctus1. It's the tension of catering to the new people, the mission field, whilst nurturing patterns of spirituality that sustain those who are more established.

Ben Edson is the Diocese of Manchester's Fresh Expressions Missioner. He blogs here.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Karen Carter. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Church Army, Fresh Expressions or any of its partners.

Where more urban environments are equipped and ready for the challenge that instigating new fresh expressions brings, in our experience, many rural areas are somewhat lagging behind. The reasons for this are many. It may be with limited resources it is right to focus on large populous areas. After all, didn't Jesus draw large crowds together to hear God's word? On the other hand, how precious were his moments spent one on one with the people he met outside the city walls.

Perhaps on the surface there appears more need in the city - where homelessness, alcoholism and drugs are clearly apparent - than in the quiet, quaint and often well-heeled villages of the British countryside. Jesus knew, however, that human need isn't restricted to boundaries of poverty and circumstance and in many cases it is where people seem to have the least material need that God is needed most.

Klynn says: 'I know from personal experience just how effective efforts to bridge the gap to the unchurched can be. Back in the nineties I fell comfortably into that group and, it was through involvement in an early suburban fresh expression of church that I came to have a meaningful relationship with God.

'A recent news article highlighted the record number of people that are leaving cities to relocate in rural areas. This week our own fresh expression, Food for Thought in Winterslow near Salisbury, celebrates its third birthday – and we continue to face the challenge to serve everyone in our community, no matter how long they have lived here.'

The heart of the Anglican faith has always beaten strongly in rural villages; perhaps it's time we put that commitment to good use and reach out not only to long-term residents but also to those who move to the countryside at any time.

Klynn and Susan Alibocus are leaders of Food for Thought, Winterslow, Salisbury.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Karen Carter. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Church Army, Fresh Expressions or any of its partners.

Two hundred and thirty three variations of the word 'remember' appear in Old and New Testaments. As poet and philosopher George Santayana has it: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' So as we immerse ourselves in talk of being sensitive to the multiplicity of different contexts and cultures around us, and of the need to connect appropriately with those contexts and cultures, it is salutary to be reminded that we haven't always thought, much less acted, in this way.

History is replete with examples of a dominant group misguidedly imposing its own cultural perspectives on another, while being ignorant or simply dismissive of those of the other.

A notable exception to this is Robert McDonald, the nineteenth century missionary, and translator, of the Yukon.

Born of mixed parentage - his maternal grandmother was Ojibway (Gerald H Anderson ed, Biographical dictionary of Christian missions, Grand Rapids, 1999, p.447) - McDonald travelled extensively, visiting native camps throughout the area. He had a natural empathy and respect for their culture and concerned himself with teaching them to read in their own language so they would have access to the teachings of the Bible during his absences. Two years after his arrival at Fort Yukon, he baptised the first Gwitch'in converts. Over the course of his 42 years in the North, he baptised 2,000 adults and children (more here).

In North America, the confluence of First Nations people with the Christian faith has produced some distinctively First Nations expressions of the faith. One example is the continuing American Indian hymn sing tradition, in which people gather towards dusk for a communal meal, followed by storytelling and hymn singing which could continue far into the night.

Bishop Mark McDonald tells us these have often been looked at by some white Christian leaders as being inferior or inappropriate expressions. This propensity to judge one cultural expression of Christianity by the standards and through the lens of another is a danger that will need to be avoided if fresh expressions of church in all cultures and contexts are to flourish and to receive the respect which they deserve.

The apostle Paul offers us this model for a different way of proceeding:

'Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process.' (Philippians 2.5-17, The Message)

We are being offered the exciting opportunity of engaging with God's mission in a post-Christendom context, but this will only be realised fully if we have the courage to face the mistakes of the past, taking appropriate responsibility for them, and taking great care not to repeat them.

Nick Brotherwood is Team Leader of Fresh Expressions Canada. Nick lives in Montreal where he is Bishop's Missioner to Young Adults and pastor of a fresh expression of church: Emerge.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Karen Carter. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Church Army, Fresh Expressions or any of its partners.

Now I know we have eco congregations, although they are still largely about lightbulbs and churchyard gardens. You might fondly think that using a bit less electricity is doing your bit for turning the tide of global warming. It isn't – not even close. And it's great if Christians can get involved in the Transition agenda, not least because it calls for significant personal change in local communities, and the Christian faith has a lot of wisdom and power to bring to that.

But don't our churches themselves need a Transition agenda? Just as oil is running out, isn't Christendom running out too? Our churches have long been dependent on the power of Christendom, making all kinds of things possible that local Christian communities could not have done on their own. Christendom made church a very comfortable place to be. As Christendom runs out, many of the ways we are used to 'being church' are becoming unsustainable. We can improve our welcoming processes, we can take out the pews, we can use PowerPoint in the sermons, but these are lightbulb measures. We need to help our churches become resilient and sustainable Christian communities, not dependent on the structures and support of Christendom for their future.

The danger with the 'mixed economy' is that our existing church communities are being assured that they will continue to have a parallel existence much as they are. But if Christendom runs out, most of them won't; and they will run into the coming era ill-equipped to be resilient and sustainable church. In the present battle over resources within the mixed economy, fresh expressions are already beginning to feel the heat. Here in the Diocese of Exeter, out of the 40 or so 'mission posts' promised in our restructuring five years ago, only a handful have seen the light of day and now there is a moratorium on them because of lack of resources. The future of the church could fall between two stools.

David Muir is an Ordained Pioneer Minister in the Okehampton Deanery of Exeter Diocese. With a long background in adult Christian education, he is now supporting 24 largely rural parishes to create fresh expressions of church that will resonate with the increasingly diverse population of Devon. He is also course leader of The Pioneer Disciple, an Anglican/Methodist Devon adaptation of the mission shaped ministry course (see www.exeter.anglican.org/pioneer), and he writes a regular column on how to do church in a 'pioneer' way (see www.exeter.anglican.org/pioneerprimer).

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Karen Carter. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Church Army, Fresh Expressions or any of its partners.