Don't get me wrong. I can appreciate beautiful architecture and churches as much as the next person. But is the 'house of God' a building? Can God be kept in a box? We who encourage fresh expressions of church don't think so.

We know that Jesus attended synagogue, but we also read that the majority of his work was done outside the synagogue. He walked amongst the people: Jew and Gentile, men and women. He often kept company with those who the Pharisees considered 'sinful' people, prostitutes and tax collectors.

It was Jesus who said: 'Why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? ... Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.'

For myself, nothing in my life has been more humbling and gratifying than working with homeless and impoverished women at the Cameron House shelter in Peterborough, Ontario. We meet weekly to talk about God, life recovery skills, individual problems and hope. We study the Life Recovery Bible and work on a 12 step programme for victims of abuse and addictions. We pray. We pray because prayer brings us closer to God and can teach us perseverance.

Many of the adult women in the group have suffered at the hands of dysfunctional, even abusive, parents and life partners who often gave them 'stones' and 'snakes'. As a group we are encouraged to rethink our negative concept of God, to one as a father who gives good gifts to his children. For these women who have been hurt so badly by life circumstance it is a revelation to discover there is a God who truly loves them. They did not find this God in a church building. They find him in the people who through God can offer them unconditional love.

They discover him in Scripture and prayer and discussion in a 'safe' place with people who love them unconditionally. Remember the hymn: 'They will know we are Christians by our love.' It doesn't say they will know we are Christians by our buildings. Finally, God did not say: 'Go and build a church and worship me!' God said: 'Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit...'

In our woman's group we have baptised three women, had one apartment blessing, and every Sunday we offer transport to anyone who would like to attend a service. Will this type of fresh expression see the church into the future? I don't know. All I know is that it is reflective of the work of Christ and he is our teacher, mentor and friend.

Revd Cathy Stone is a deacon in the Diocese of Toronto and executive director of its Rural Outreach Committee (ROC).

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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.

Those attending Vital Church Planting East 2010 were from many parts of Canada, from Winnipeg to Newfoundland. Western Canada will have its own conference - sponsored by the Diocese of Edmonton and the Institute - next month. In 2007, 60 people came to conference; this year there were 180. Most of these were Anglicans, though a contingent of interested United Church pastors was there too. Six bishops - the five Toronto bishops plus Don Philips of Rupert's Land - also attended.

A wide range of workshops included Wycliffe graduate Rob Hurkmans talking of his Church on Tap in a Port Colbourne pub, and Judy Paulsen on Messy Church in Oshawa. Tay Moss (Church of the Messiah) and Ryan Sim (St Paul's) explained how to use new and social media in evangelism. Ann Crosthwaite also led a session on Contemplative Fire.

As with all good conferences, some of the best things often happen in the cracks - over coffee and lunch, and between sessions. Relationships begin, emails are exchanged, ideas are swopped, and problems are debated and sometimes even solved. This has been one of the advantages of holding this conference each year: Not only has it gained numerical momentum, but people come back year after year, and lasting networks of encouragement and wisdom begin to emerge. It's difficult to be a pioneer in isolation.

Were there any low points? For me, the most depressing moment was when one person asked: 'I am finding a conflict between, on the one hand, the fact that we're wanting to do this for the sake of self-preservation and, on the other, the fact that we're talking about authenticity. How can we do both these things?'

Pernell Goodyear, a Salvation Army church planter in Hamilton, was one of our conference speakers. He dealt with the question far more graciously than I would have done, and explained that following Jesus was never a matter of 'self-preservation', and that following God's mission always involves laying down our lives. You'd think it was obvious, but apparently not.

So does this conference achieve anything? Frankly, I am too old to have any patience for conferences that leave you with a set of notes you never look at again, and warm feelings that evaporate within a week. So I am glad to report that the answer is yes. For example, one priest, Chris Snow from St John's Newfoundland, came the first year. As he told us later, he wanted to check out whether there was any theological substance to this thing and to see if it was just an evangelical clique.

He decided we were OK on both counts, went back home and hired a young curate to start a Messy Church. The next year they both came, and reported on what they had done. During the year that followed, the Messy Church grew into a Eucharistic community. Once again, Chris and Sam came back to the conference and inspired us with their story. And the number of such first-person stories increases year by year.

So I pray, and invite you to pray too, that the seeds sown at this conference will be nurtured and bear fruit across the country for years to come. I believe it may take 20 years for significant change to come - not for the survival of the Anglican Church (it's about mission, not survival, remember), but for the furtherance of the Good News of Jesus among those who have never heard it.

John Bowen has been associated with the Institute of Evangelism since 1997, and has been the Director since 1999. Fresh Expressions Canada.

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.