A thread running through many fresh expressions is God's call to take risks – to step out of comfort zones. Maybe the Spirit doesn't want us to become too settled or reliant on our own way of doing mission and being church.

Jesus did this when he called his first disciples - pioneers who helped God to build his church. To Simon the fisherman, who had caught nothing all night long, Jesus says, 'Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.' (Luke 5.4) Although he is sceptical, Simon does so and then experiences what it means to trust in the power of God. Perhaps he doesn't really understand why his net is full, but now the way he sees Jesus is changed through taking the risk.

The spirituality of fresh expressions is the spirituality of risk. We can sit on a familiar shoreline and gaze at the shallows where we have grown comfortable with the way things are. But Jesus offers a deeper invitation: to try something different; to see that there may be new ways of reaching people and finding some way to answer the question, 'what might the kingdom of God look like for them?'

As fresh expressions leaders have taken a risk, however, sometimes they find that this didn't work out. But that first step was important. God showed them one path, only for them to find that this leads to something else quite different. Yet, to get there, the first step was vital.

Simon Peter took the risk of 'putting out into deep water'. How might God be asking something similar of you, or your church? Ask him to show you, and to be the power needed for his kingdom come.

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