Encounters on the Edge (no. 42: Across a Threshold)

I was struck by the roles played across the whole Threshold history by doctors. Since Paul White's books in the Jungle Doctor series, we have been used to the pivotal role of the overseas medical missionary.

Up till now, I have also imagined that St Paul made tents because he needed to eat. I now wonder if I have misunderstood all this.

Could it be that Paul made tents because it put him in the market place? He met people in a neutral space but also produced something of value to them.

In today's cross-cultural mission at home, could the tent makers of tomorrow be doctors and nurses, solicitors offering legal aid, hairdressers, coffee-shop staff even plumbers and electricians – anyone who meets people in a neutral environment and offers something of value to them, including a listening ear in an environment of trust?

If they were also church planters and leaders, it would mean the forms of church grown would have to be simple and with the work shared across the people of God because they would not have the time or calling to be full-time pastors.

Is this a possible vision for the new pioneer ministers?

George Lings is the director of The Sheffield Centre, Church Army's Research Unit. He specialises in church planting and fresh expressions, and Anglican ecclesiology. He writes the quarterly publication, Encounters on the Edge, which can be ordered here.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Andrew Wooding.

One cannot deny that most of our congregations are largely made up of older people - that is, people over the age of 55. It is also true that large amounts of resources are invested in maintaining the status quo - time, money and dedicated pastoral care by professional ministers and lay people. The fact that our congregations are mostly made up of older people is often perceived by church leaders and mission strategists as a problem rather than a challenge.

Of course it raises concerns about the future of tomorrow's church. But equally our aged congregations should not cause us to overlook their spiritual needs as they are today's church, not tomorrow's church. What is often not understood or seen is that our aged congregations are an untapped resource for mission in reaching not only their own peer group, but also the younger generation.

In this sense, older churched people feel that they have become invisible, both in terms of their faith-sharing skills and their non-involvement in the decision making processes related to mission strategy. It can often be assumed by younger church leaders that they know what older people want and desire to help their spiritual development. There is a great desire for older people (often returning to church with a Sunday School knowledge of the Christian faith) to want to go deeper and to be disciples.

Reaching older people is often focused on visiting the elderly frail in care homes (who only represent about 4% of our elderly population) and running luncheon clubs mostly catering for women over the age of 75. Although this is highly commendable and provides a much needed service, it does not cater for the thousands of isolated frail and disabled older people living alone at home. What about their spiritual needs?

It does not cater for the invisible sons and daughters of the '60s, now aging, and the up-and-coming boomer generation with no experience of the church. They will not be coming back to church because they were not there in the first place!

What about the many recently retired non-churched men who are bored out their skulls? They are not too keen in joining luncheon clubs for the elderly frail. What can the church offer them? Is this not a challenge for fresh expressions of church?

Mike Collyer CA is a member of The Sheffield Centre team. He explores evangelism, spiritual needs and fresh expressions of church for older people, which has resulted in the publication of a series of papers entitled Discovering Faith in Later Life, and he also produces an information bulletin giving details of courses, books and resources, which is available to people via email distribution (more information here).

Mike Collyer and Claire Dalpra have co-written a page on Share called: Fresh expressions for older people.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Andrew Wooding.

Institutional ageism, whether we like it or not, exists within the church. For instance, look at the disproportionate resources that are poured into ministry and mission for the younger generation compared with the older. Within the climate of pioneering ministries and fresh expressions of church, how often is attention focused towards older people and their interests? In this sense, older people can be described as a mission blind spot.

So, what about a mission-shaped church for older people - a generation that increasingly feels invisible, undervalued, isolated, an object of fun and whose spiritual needs are often overlooked.

Church Army, in partnership with the Leveson Centre, has produced a training resource entitled A Mission-shaped Church for Older People facing this challenge, which was very successfully launched last November at a day conference of the same name for which over 100 people registered.

To celebrate the success of this event, we are running a duplicate one day conference by popular request in London (St Michael's, Chester Square) on 29th October and wish to send people with responsibility for mission and evangelism (trainers/pioneers) a personal invitation to attend. Bishop Graham Cray will be present, and keynote speakers will be CEO of Church Army Mark Russell and Rev Dr James Woodward, former director of the Leveson Centre and now Residentiary Canon of St George's Chapel, Windsor.

Please let Mrs Claire Dalpra know if you or your colleagues would like to receive a personal invitation from The Sheffield Centre - Church Army's research unit - by email to c.dalpra@sheffieldcentre.org.uk.

This is a unique opportunity to engage with the issues and to take mission with older people seriously.

Mike Collyer CA is a member of The Sheffield Centre team. He explores evangelism, spiritual needs and fresh expressions of church for older people, which has resulted in the publication of a series of papers entitled Discovering Faith in Later Life, and he also produces an information bulletin giving details of courses, books and resources, which is available to people via email distribution (more information here).

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Andrew Wooding.

Maybe that's why some Christians are getting creative about fresh expressions of church for young families. It's a sad thing to see new families come to church and spend the duration of the service trying to keep their young children quiet. At a time of life when parents are exhausted, I'm not surprised people are looking ways in which children can explore spirituality at their level, while providing a short, safe, guilt-free environment for parents where little ones aren't demanding to take dolly and pushchair up to the rail for communion, or running helter-skelter round a hall during a 30-minute preach in a 'supposed' all-age worship service.

However, this type of fresh expression comes with a health warning. The spiritual needs of both children and adults need to be considered in the long-term. If these fresh expressions really are church and not just services, the discipleship of all is crucial. At the same time, we mustn't fall back into the trap of believing one gathering can do all that is needed, especially when such gatherings often happen only monthly.

As the new Share page on fresh expressions of church with children describes, creative responses to this discipleship issue are beginning to emerge. Some fresh expressions are using crèche facilities to enable part of their time together to be more focused on adult discipleship. Others are finding an evening meeting for parents' spiritual exploration over a glass of wine works well. Lastly, there are some fantastic 'faith at home' resources to encourage families to explore discipleship together on an ongoing basis between the large, occasional gatherings.

Faith at home resources: Posada, Families First magazine, Home is a Holy Place, Creative Ideas for Quiet Corners, The Godmother, The Faith 5 (Faith Acts In The Home) and Sleeping with Bread (practising the prayer of examen as families).

Claire Dalpra has worked in Church Army's research team The Sheffield Centre for ten years. Her role as assistant researcher involves writing, editing, consultancy and conferencing in the area of fresh expressions of church. Read Encounters on the Edge 31: Small Beginnings for a summary of her findings regarding church for under 5s and their families.

Claire is starting up an online discussion group on Share for those involved or interested in church for children. If you would like to join, email Claire here for details.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Beth Keith.

Another issue of ecclesial identity is provoked because the lay-led church is unhelpfully dependent on outside provision of clergy to give them communion. At worst, this is a return to Mass Priests. At best, it is a ceaseless reminder that such a congregation is in permanent dependency on those outside its life and is thereby somehow second class.

If Anglicans deem having a sacramental life essential to ecclesial life through dominical warrant, it is then tiresome, and probably damaging, that such communities are denied the fullness of this dimension. By this, they are made more fragile. Such scenarios have similarities to the nineteenth century overseas problems that bedevilled those works that were 'missions' but denied the status of 'churches'. They had problems of dependence on the professional missionary and on finally becoming designated churches promptly lost most missional desire or impact. Such patterns are not to be repeated.

In practice, members of both network churches in Deal and Sandwich spoke with restrained frustration at how difficult getting suitable 'cover' was and how it made them feel like 'the poor relation'. Understandably, those of a free church persuasion found this doubly irksome. They had no conviction that this priestly requirement was necessary and served only to demonstrate to them the ecclesial imperialism of Anglicanism.

Eucharistic Presidency is an irenic and scholarly read of the Anglican Bishops' last published view of the topic and makes a good case that what is at issue is the catholicity of the church. However, this now exists in tension with the bottom up creation of churches who seek a fullness (or second century Ignatian catholicity) of their life and rightly sense their local oneness is impaired by this arrangement of a near stranger heading up the family meal.

There is also the vexing issue of whether the church is better defined by its overall ministerial arrangements or its localised congregational life. If the number of lay-led fresh expressions grows, the issue will grow sharper.

George Lings is the director of The Sheffield Centre, Church Army's Research Unit. He specialises in church planting and fresh expressions, and Anglican ecclesiology. He writes the quarterly publication, Encounters on the Edge, which can be ordered here.

There is a Share blog on a similar theme here. Share has offered some practical tips on the subject here - go to the brown heading, about halfway down the page, called 'What about the sacraments?'

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Beth Keith.