Share

It's lovely to read remarks like this. Don't stop – keep them coming. All these warm wishes are good for the soul!

But as I've said to a number of people, if all we've produced is a nice-looking website with a few pretty pictures, then we've failed. The purpose of Share is to connect people so that they can share with each other – lessons learned, and mistakes made – both highs and lows in their work for God.

With this in mind, I have created two new pages – which you should see on the right-hand side of your screen: COMMENT – Things that went well and COMMENT – Things to learn from.

It would be great if you could use these pages to share one or two lessons from your experience. Just click the yellow 'Comment' link on the page, and type your gems of wisdom – even if it's just one sentence. Remember - that nugget of knowledge you take for granted might be exactly what someone needs to read right now.

Check these pages regularly – someone might have replied to your comment, or left useful comments of their own.

And if you enjoyed leaving a comment, please let us know what you think of the rest of the site. Each page has a 'Comment' link near the bottom. We want to know what we've got right, what we've got wrong, what we've missed out, or anything else you want to share with other Share readers.

Keep those comments coming!

In January 2006, a church in north London created a Sunday morning schedule which allows people to stay for as long or as short a time as they like. Services start at eight o'clock in the morning and conclude at one o'clock, in half-hour blocks. While some people stay for five minutes, others stay for the whole five hours, experiencing the differing approaches to worship throughout the morning. These half-hour blocks have also been designed with discipleship in mind, as well as building a sense of community.

Sunday begins with a more formal style of worship and moves to a more contemporary style, with time in between for conversation and prayer. Eating together is central to each section, following the practice of the early church where eating together was commonplace.

A sceptic might ask: 'Surely three services on a Sunday morning provides enough challenge and diversity; why change it to ten half-hour sessions?'

Vicar, Rob Harrison, answers: 'The Come & Go programme is designed so that you will get a fairly well-balanced spiritual diet if you stay for about one and a half hours. On one level it gives the previously separate congregations more of a sense of belonging to one another. The overlapping of worshippers among the different sections adds to this sense of continuity.'

Explaining why he chose to focus on Come & Go for the latest Encounters on the Edge, George Lings comments that 'it is a good example of spotting changes in background culture and shaping church around the needs of those who find its patterns don't fit. Deeper than that, what happens when existing churches are serious about discipleship, creating community and enabling lay ministry to the point that clergy cannot provide all that is needed?

'Come & Go is far more than a search for relevance and is turning this church inside out. We wanted to find out how it worked.'

Encounters on the Edge 35, Changing Sunday ('Come and go': beyond attractional church), is now available and is priced £4.00. To order copies, contact the Sheffield Centre on 0114 272 7451, or email ask@sheffieldcentre.org.uk