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I recently spent a very enjoyable day meeting pioneers on new-build developments from the St Alban’s diocese. Both Peterborough and St Alban’s dioceses receive money for pioneer posts from the Church Commissioners and we have a reciprocal arrangement for mutual accountability and encouragement in how the money is being spent. I found it immensely useful to hear from others about what they are doing. It was also clear that although the house designs may look similar, no two new-build developments are the same.

A group of us in Sheffield have got together to develop an idea we’re calling the Soul of Sheffield. The plan involves exploring the stories of the city and how places hold meaning for us, how our lives are shaped by the places we live and work in and how they in turn are shaped by us. From autumn 2011 we will be using an open space in one of the empty shops in the city centre where we will be building a model city based on the plan of Sheffield.

For me, to be called to live as a pioneer means to live without any form of certainty: 'there are no guarantees'. This, I believe, will have an impact on the sorts of communities we see emerging under the leadership of pioneer ministers. These are new Christian communities that don't focus on micro details of seeking answers such as: 'How can we make sure we are always going to exist in this way?', but rather communities that ask questions such as: 'Where are we travelling next on this journey?' and 'What will we look like as we grow?'

I am the URC's first pioneer minister, working in the field of fresh expressions and emerging church. My role is to explore the potential relationship between the reformed tradition and the emerging church, and to facilitate emerging Christian communities in this part of the country.

Two months after the 'official launch' of VOX City Church in Cape Town, and just a few weeks into the start of the Woodstock Missional Community, which I run, I have come to realise a basic mindset shift which most people fail to make concerning biblical community: biblical community is more about choice than affinity.

For the last two years, I have helped to form an intentional, ecumenical community called the Restoration Project. We began as a group of young ministers and social justice activists who wanted to live with more intention and spiritual groundedness.

Graham Cray told General Synod last week that a crucial factor in the spread of fresh expressions has been 'a new imagination about the form or shape of church'. He is right. We have seen over the last half decade an exploration emerge which concerns not just the stylistic aspects of our gatherings - music, dress, structure, location, etc - but concerns the very substance of what it is to be church. The question is, if this is good, how deep are we willing to go?

What if I was to invite every member of my street to join a group set up specifically for them on Facebook? This was the crazy idea I had after discovering that my wife was having Facebook discussions with someone living only a few doors away. I drafted a letter from me to all 60 households in our road explaining that I had set up a group on Facebook that would be restricted to members of the road only, and delivered it by hand - having as many doorstep discussions as time would allow.

Mention the word 'evangelism' to the average person and it will likely conjure up images of the lone evangelist on the street corner handing out tracts, a besuited man on a soapbox spouting forth at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, or the international speaker striding energetically across a stage at an evangelistic rally. But just as God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone', it might also be true to say that 'It is not good for evangelists to be alone'. Indeed, there is a page on Share about this very subject: God works through communities, which urges that 'Communities should be at the heart of mission'.