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Perhaps you are starting out on your own.

The aim is to establish a Jesus-centred community that draws people into the heart of God's love.

You may have been asked to do this on a housing estate or among a specific group of people, such as an ethnic group or young people. You may be working on this full or part time. How might you start?

Getting together with other people would be have to be a priority. God doesn't want individuals to work on their own (Genesis 2.18). Pioneering a fruitful fresh expression can be an enormous challenge, and so gathering the support of others is an especially important task in the early stages.

You might gather four types of support (in addition to any formal accountability arrangements):

• Practical support. This could be provided by the official group representing the church, churches or denomination that appointed you to the post. Maybe, initially, it could come through the group that recommended the post be established.

  The group could be a valuable source of local information and practical wisdom. Who are the key contacts? If the project is receiving financial support, do its accounts have to be audited? Are housing and other arrangements satisfactory? As well as practical support, the group might also hold you to account.

  However, there could be a case for keeping practical support and accountability separate, lest the two roles become confused and one suffers at the expense of the other. Accountability could be through a line manager, or directly through the governing structures of the church, churches or denomination.

• Visionary support. This might comprise a network of friends, who form a prayer support group or prayer chain. They would pray for your vision as it evolves. You might want to meet with them monthly to begin with, and then as often as necessary to keep them in touch.

  In the early meetings, you might explain what you are thinking of doing, and ask the group to brainstorm the opportunities and risks, before praying together.

• Close support. This might consist of a spiritual director (or spiritual guide) and one or two friends whose shoulders you could cry on, and whom you could use to check whether you are seeing things properly. 'The residents association have said this. Do you think they are being unreasonable?'

  A marriage partner might provide this type of support. Or you may prefer to look outside the home. Or the support might come from a mentor or coach. Close support may be especially important if you are single.

• Wider support. This might be a congregation you join, or a gathering of local church leaders as a way of getting to know the wider church and feeling part of it. Might you offer to act as secretary of the church leaders' meeting (or perform some other task) as a way of getting involved?

From these four types of support you might gradually draw together a core team, which would provide active help in reaching and serving the people you are called to work among.

As you get together with these different forms of support, an initial task may be to clarify your own call and make sure that those who provide support are clear too.

Exploring what you mean by 'fresh expressions' may be especially important. Some of the material in the first section of the Guide might be helpful, such as:

• What is a fresh expression of church?
• What Christian principles lie behind fresh expressions?
• How do fresh expressions develop?

Discussing this material with some of those who support you may help you to understand better where each person is coming from, which is an important aspect of 'Getting together'. It may also raise issues that you will want to keep in mind.

You will be helped to grow in your own understanding of your call: 'I feel called by God to start one or more fresh expression on this housing estate or among this group of people. And I understand a fresh expression to involve...'.

As you share your call with the different groups and individuals who support you, they will be in a better position to provide appropriate help.

Getting together → a shared call

This is discussed further in Getting together.

Exploring the possibilities will almost certainly be taking up your time, even before you have finished the 'Getting together' process.

When someone is appointed to pioneer a fresh expression, a great deal of prayer and discussion may have gone on first. Quite a lot of exploring may have already taken place, and a vision for the project may have formed.

The vision may be quite general - 'Plant a church on this estate or among Gen. X.' Or it may be more precise: 'Serve young families on this estate through a variety of activities, because the opportunities are so plentiful.' A priority will be to test whether the vision is realistic and develop it further.

Identifying a specific group (or groups) of people you are called to serve is particularly important. Some fresh expressions are unfruitful because the people they seek to reach are so varied that creating community becomes almost impossible.

To test and develop your vision, we suggest you listen carefully to:

• the people you feel called to work with. What makes them tick? What are their longings and hopes, their disappointments and needs? How might you serve them with love? If you are working on a housing estate, almost certainly you will have to live on the estate or very close to it.

  Listening is very likely to include consulting professionals and voluntary groups working among the people the Spirit may prompt you to serve. What can you learn from their experiences? Might you work together?

  You may want to find ways of doing things that put you in touch with local people - perhaps doing voluntary work in a school or community centre.

• the local church (or churches or denomination) which appointed you. Sharing your thoughts as they develop with the person or group you are accountable to (and perhaps through your 'practical support group') will help your fellow Christians to pray for you, allow you to draw on their wisdom and ensure your conclusions don't come as too much of a shock to them!

• the wider church. How have other churches served similar groups of people? Might you visit one or two fresh expressions to stir your imagination? Are there lessons from the church overseas or from what churches have done in the past? Might you visit other churches in the area to say 'Hello'?

• Scripture. Bible study and prayer, at the heart of your devotional life, will be an important way of listening to God directly.

360 degrees listening

Through this '360 degrees listening', you will become aware of possibilities. The vision you started with will be fleshed out in more detail and perhaps modified.

Maybe your vision will constantly evolve. On a housing estate, for example, perhaps God first gives you a vision for a mums-and-tots group, then for a reading club, then to start a branch of the 'University of the third age' and then to start a group for young teenagers.

Hopefully, sharing your ideas with some of the people you seek to reach will enthuse them and potential helpers will begin to emerge. See How can we work with non-churchgoers to create church?

Might you identify some of the networkers among the people you hope to serve? These will be individuals who know lots of people. What can they tell you about their networks? Might one or two catch the vision and want to help?

You'll pray that your vision is shared by the people you are called to serve, other churches in the area, your sponsoring church (or group of churches or denomination) and, most important, by God himself.

This listening process is crucial. Often fresh expressions are unfruitful because there was no proper listening at the start. So important is listening that we recommend you read Exploring the possibilities for more on how to do it.

Exploring the possibilities → a shared vision

Thinking ahead is vital. As you explore and develop your vision, one or two other Christians may volunteer to help. People you are prompted to serve may be getting excited and want to forge ahead. But this is the moment to lay in some firm foundations so that the venture achieves your hopes.  

Thinking ahead involves imagining how your ideas could become church. It is not planning for every eventuality, but asking: 'Can we picture how the project will grow into church? What would we have to do for it to become a loving, Christ-shaped community?' It is about Godly imagination.

Maybe you could look at How do fresh expressions develop? Might you use the fresh expressions journey to inspire thought?

The fresh expressions journey

This diagram is described more fully in The fresh expressions journey - a fuller version.

You might use the journey to prompt some questions. Perhaps you plan some youth activities. You might ask:

• How are we going to build a real sense of community?

• Which of the three 'evangelistic pathways' to discipleship (discussed in How do fresh expressions develop?) should we aim for:
  1. Build in explicit spirituality from an early stage?
  2. Include an explicitly Christian element from the start?
  3. Hope to form a separate Christian explorers group later on?

• What might church eventually look like in this context?

If you can't see the venture evolving into church, you might want to think again. Or you might suggest to those you are accountable to, 'I'm expecting not a fresh expression of church, but a fresh expression of mission. I pray that what emerges will be a stepping stone into existing church on Sunday.'

A venture that promotes kingdom values would be extremely worthwhile, even if it didn't become church. Not every form of mission has to become a church in its own right.

Your reflections would be unlikely to result in a rigid plan. Fresh expressions tend not to follow a fixed path. They often emerge in surprising ways.

Your thoughts could result in a set of values, however. These will be values that help to create the potential for the venture to become an expression of church. If 'vision' is about what you are going to do, 'values' describe how you intend to do it. They create the ethos of the venture. What ethos will open the venture to God's love?

Say you are thinking about several projects on an estate - a parent support group linked to the local school, perhaps, creative dance for young teenagers, and a father and sons cooking class.

The aim would be that these activities have worth in themselves, but that they will also create opportunities to invite people to events that begin to draw them towards God - a 'create cards for Christmas' evening, for example, with a short piece of input about why Christians celebrate Christmas.

Those who showed an interest in the talk might be invited to a 'just looking' group to explore the Christian faith, these groups (you hope) might evolve into Christian cells via an Alpha course and these cells might then meet all together from time to time - 'church' on the estate.

What values would help your work on the estate to evolve in this way?

It is worth remembering that whatever happens, these different activities would have values. These values would reflect the values ('What do we value?') of the people who played a leading role. They would shape how these activities evolved. They would either be implicit (no one thinks about them) or they could be encouraged deliberately.

Being deliberate will enable you to identify values that would lead the activities towards the kingdom of God and help you to create an expression of church. That is why thinking ahead is so important.

You might ask: 'What do I want this mission to the estate (or among young people, or whoever) to look like in one year, three years and in five years' time? What values would steer the venture in the direction I pray for?'

What sort of values might you develop? Maybe if you are working on an estate, you would decide on a set of values similar to those described in Are you part of a church planting team? If you were working among teenagers, you might develop values such as these (given only as examples):

• 'Unconditional love will be a priority. However often someone gets into trouble or makes life difficult for the group (even if we have to exclude them from the group), there will always be a way back.'

• 'We'll work hard to create community. We'll look for games and activities that help people to feel that they belong and are valued. We'll teach the benefits of forgiveness and mutual acceptance. The team I'll gather to help me will learn listening skills, so that we can model them in our relationships with the young people.'

• 'We'll encourage the young people to think for themselves. We'll present the Christian faith in a way that makes it easy for the young people to agree or disagree. We'll encourage debate and respect different points of view.'

• 'We'll keep our own spiritual lives fresh by worshipping as a team, holding each other to account and remaining well connected to the wider church.'

How these (or other) values are put into practice will almost certainly change as the venture develops, and the values might need to be revised later on. (The same applies to the vision.) But come what may, these values will be at the heart of the venture in its initial stages.

Thinking ahead → shared values

This is discussed further in Thinking ahead.

Organising support for the venture will be an obvious task. It may be worth thinking about:

Prayer partners, who provide the 'visionary support' referred to above. How will they be kept informed?

Permission givers:

• You may want to review arrangements for holding the venture to account. Is accountability two-way? As well as you being held to account, is there provision for you to hold the church (or local churches or denomination) to account for delivering the support it's promised? How can these arrangements be both effective and easy to put into practice?

• Is the church leadership aware of how your thinking has developed? Might any of your ideas cause the leadership difficulty?

• If you hope that a venture among young people will evolve into church, for example, what sort of relationship would it have with the sponsoring church (or local churches or denomination)? How would communion be celebrated? Where would baptisms be held?

  You wouldn't have to answer all these questions at the beginning, but it might be helpful to raise them with those you are accountable to and agree the sort of process you might use to answer them, if and when the need arises. 

• Does the budget for the venture need reviewing? Might you need additional sources of funding? (Providing money is a very active form of permission giving.) Or might a larger budget make you too dependent on outside funding, so that it becomes much harder for the venture to become financially self-sustaining in due course?
• Does anyone else need to give permission?
• How will permission givers be kept informed as the venture develops?

People you are called to serve:

• Do 'opinion formers' among them share your vision? How enthusiastic are they?
• Do you need a meeting to share ideas and get reactions?
• Can you imagine who will volunteer to help – from opening up each time you meet to looking after the money?
• Do you need a clear identity - a name, logo and perhaps strap line that identifies you, can be used on all your publicity and will help to build recognition and trust - 'Oh, it's that lot who are behind the Easter party'?

  Near Oxford is the Discovery Days community project, which has the strapline: 'Discover your neighbour, discover your community and discover God'.

  Sensitively making clear that yours is a Christian venture will allow you to develop the spiritual aspect of your work without anyone saying, 'But you never said.'

• What publicity will you need? On a housing estate, for instance, a regular newsletter would enable you to publicise events and consult residents about a new project - 'We're thinking of refurbishing the community hall, and there's a meeting to discuss it...'.

  If you don't go for a newsletter, what other form(s) of communication might you use?

The public. What will you have to do to enjoy 'the goodwill of all the people' (Acts 2.47)? For example:

• How will you satisfy legal requirements, such as health and safety, child protection (if appropriate) and third party insurance? Have you thought about charity status so that you can claim back the tax on donations?
• Have you sought the support, where appropriate, of other churches, voluntary groups and government agencies? Might this include exploring forms of active co-operation?
• Who will need to be kept informed as the venture develops?
• Have you thanked individuals you have consulted and let them know what you plan to do? Courtesies are important - the reputation of the project (and of God) is at stake.

Organising support → a shared venture

This is discussed further in Organising support.

Nurturing your team will be essential. As you explore the possibilities, volunteers will emerge to help you. You will need to beware of people with heavy pastoral needs or agendas that don't mesh with yours. They may sap your energy and prove more a hindrance than a help.

Taking time to get to know potential volunteers and praying for wisdom in selecting them will be important. We can't emphasise enough the value of patience, wisdom and spending time in prayer.

In due course you may form a core team of Christians who will work with you on the venture. Around them may be a looser team of volunteers, a number of whom may not be believers but may be open to the faith.

Nurturing the core team and the volunteers will include all the obvious elements, such as pastoral care and spiritual nourishment. Three aspects will be especially important:

The first will be training, support and accountability. You might ask:

What training will the core team and volunteers need? For example:

• In practical things like health and safety, and child protection (if relevant)?
• Should some of the team go on the Fresh Expressions short course (mission shaped intro) or the part-time one year course (mission shaped ministry)?
• Might the core team and one or two volunteers benefit from some training in personal evangelism?

What additional outside support might be required? For instance:

• Will you as the leader need a mentor or coach (if you haven't already got one)?
• Might the core team also use a mentor or coach for a while? On-the-job coaching can be a most effective form of training, though - sadly - it is not always available.
• Might someone in the  team join a learning network and bring lessons back to the team?
• Might someone in the team keep in touch with practical advice from the Guide?

How will volunteers be supported? 

• Might they value a short written statement of what is expected of them and what the boundaries are?
• When and how will you review with each volunteer how they are getting on?

Team relationships. Building community in the core team, as it gathers round you, will be worthwhile in itself of course. But it will also set the tone for the whole venture. The team's life together will give a special flavour to its 'loving service', which will help community to form among those who come.

In turn, this wider community - in which participants feel comfortable with each other, trust the core team and experience Christian love - may provide a safe context for individuals to explore the faith if they wish.

This means that building community in the team will be a vital part of the 'starting out' phase. It will certainly include eating together and having fun with one another. But it will go beyond that as individuals share their lives, like Jesus did with his disciples.

Might some form of sharing be built into the team's regular meetings? This might be low key to start with, using ice-breakers such as, 'What was your best holiday?', 'What was the best meal you've ever eaten?' and 'What was your happiest memory as a child?'

As individuals become comfortable with each other, you might introduce more challenging ice-breakers: 'Can you describe a time when God failed to answer an important prayer?', 'What aspects of the team's task do you most struggle with?' and 'What have you found most life-giving as we have worked together?' Ice-breakers might be followed by prayer at the start of a planning meeting.

Avoiding overload. Members of the team may well live busy lives. In which case, burnout will be a constant danger. One way of avoiding this may be to keep things as simple and time-efficient as possible.

For example, if a couple of Christians were running a group for the third age, might you encourage them to pray and worship together before the group meets, perhaps including a short recorded sermon?

Seeing this as part their regular worship might free them to worship on Sunday twice a month rather than every week. They would have extra space in their lives. Their worship would also be more directly connected to their Christian service.

The same might be true for members of the core team, if worship was included each time the team met to plan.

Nurturing the team → shared leadership

This is discussed further in Nurturing the team.

In summary:

• Getting together → a shared call
• Exploring the possibilities → a shared vision
• Thinking ahead → shared values
• Organising support → a shared venture
• Nurturing the team → shared leadership

Sometimes these stages will flow logically from one to the next. More often, perhaps, they will overlap or be taken out of sequence. GETON is not a rigid, step-by-step framework. It is more of a checklist to avoid forgetting things and to spark ideas.

West Bromwich Network Church and Discovery Days illustrates some of the themes discussed above.

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