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Exploring the possibilities is about discovering God's vision. It is about discerning opportunities to serve other people and asking whether you have the gifts and resources to respond. Listening is at the heart of the process.

Quite a few fresh expressions might have been more fruitful if greater listening had occurred at the beginning. Others have found that as they listened, people have gathered round and a fresh expression has emerged almost from nowhere. Listening is far more than preparing for mission: it is in itself the start of mission.

If we could offer one piece of advice above all others, it would be: 'Don't short-change the listening process!'

Exploring and listening involve five elements, which can be done in sequence but are more likely to overlap:

• understanding the principles;
• identifying key contacts and others whom you should listen to;
• discerning whom you are called to serve;
• listening to those people in depth;
• discerning and testing God's call.

The process takes varying lengths of time - sometimes a few weeks, sometimes a year or more. Being patient is well worthwhile. Through listening you will strengthen your relationships with people you may be called to serve.

The principles for listening can be seen in the incarnation - God becoming a human. What did it mean for God to come to earth as Jesus?

It is striking that the first decision we read Jesus taking was to listen. As a twelve-year-old, he deliberately stayed behind in the temple and listened (Luke 2.41-52). It is as if we are being told that listening was the starting point for Jesus' earthly ministry. We become like Jesus when we make listening our starting point too.

The story of Jesus in the temple illustrates some principles of listening:

• He entered another culture – an adult culture, a temple culture (he'd been brought up in the synagogue) and the Jerusalem culture (in contrast to Nazareth).

  Listening will almost always take you into a different culture – even when listening to friends. You may have swimming in common, but not your friend's choice of novel. Listening may involve understanding aspects of your friends' lives that you never knew existed. 

  Listening to the wider church (to see what lessons you can learn) may take you into very different Christian cultures. Likewise, listening to secular agencies working among people you feel called to serve may lead you into professional worlds that seem strange and unfamiliar.

• Jesus established a relationship. He sat among the religious leaders, meeting them face-to-face, and dialogued with them.

  Various tools for understanding a culture exist – surveys, reading the magazines that sell well locally and collecting demographic statistics, for example. But these are no substitute for meeting people, getting to know them and increasingly sharing your life with them.

  As you do this, you may receive offers of help, or you may even find that you spark a hive of activity. A venture is born before you know it!

• He asked questions. Good listeners ask good questions, and part of exploring involves coming up with helpful questions to ask.

  If you want to know what would make people in a network or neighbourhood become interested in Christianity, why not stop guessing and ask them? They are in the best position to know! 

  This is another reason why relationships are so important. The better you know people, the easier it is to ask the difficult questions – and the more likely you are to get an honest answer.

• Jesus took time – he was in the temple courts for at least three days. Listening can be a slow process, but it is always time well spent. As well as increasing your understanding, it establishes and builds relationships – 'They actually took the trouble to listen!'

  If you are tempted to hurry through the listening process, you may want to think of your time as a gift. You are giving your time to people you might be called to serve.

  How often do people stop and listen to you? Taking time to listen is a massive gift in today's 'rush, rush' society. It is a profound act of love.

• He ran a risk. We are not told, but Jesus must have felt it was quite risky to stay behind in Jerusalem. Wouldn't he incur his parents' anger? How would he get home? How would the temple 'heavies' receive him?

  Listening always involves some risk. Might you be rebuffed? Might you spend time going up a blind alley? Might you ask the wrong questions?

  But listening is also the biggest compliment you can pay someone - 'You matter so much to me that I want to listen to you.' Listening is so close to love as to be inseparable.

In particular, listening starts you off on the right foot. Instead of starting with something to offer people, you start by letting them give to you. You get used to receiving as well as giving, making it less likely that loving service will create relationships of dependency.

Thinking further about method...

A key early step is to identify whom you should listen to. Whom are your key contacts and whom else should you listen to?

You would be wise to listen to four groups of people:

• to the people you may be called to serve, including - where appropriate - professional agencies and others working among them;

• to the wider church, including churches who have worked with similar people, or done something comparable to what you are thinking about, or who are currently involved with the people you may be called to serve. Might there be lessons from the church overseas or from church history?

• to your local church or your circle of Christian friends, who may have wisdom to share, or be praying for you or whose support and help you may eventually need. Will they bless what you are thinking of doing?

  In particular, throughout the exploring process you may want to keep asking: 'What have we got to offer?' There will be scores of opportunities you can't respond to because God has not equipped you to do so. But what has he given you? How can these gifts be a blessing to other people?

• to God directly in prayer. Of course God can speak to you as you listen in the other three directions, but spending time in prayer and Bible study will be vital.

We call this '360 degrees listening', set out in the diagram below. Other people speak of 'double listening' – to the culture and to the living tradition of the church. But this glides over the different 'voices' within the Christian tradition through whom God may speak – for example Scripture, people you worship with and the wider church.

'360 degrees listening' is more explicit about these other voices, making it less likely that they will be forgotten. God may speak to you as you prayerfully listen in each direction. This listening can be done in any sequence, with several directions being heard at once.

360 degrees listening

These four directions of listening equate roughly to the four dimensions of church – UP, IN, OUT and OF - that are described in Are fresh expressions proper church? You will be expressing some of the fullness of church as you listen in these four directions.

You will be unlikely to start from scratch. Between you, you will probably know a great deal about the people you are called to serve and others whom it would be sensible to consult. This knowledge will be the foundation for further listening.

Helpful questions to ask initially might include:

• 'What draws us to be part of this venture?'
• 'Which particular groups or networks do we think we are called to serve?'
• 'Whom should we consult?'
• 'Who else might we work with - churches, government agencies or individuals?'
• 'What has God blessed us with that we can share with others?'
• 'What would make us shout "Hallelujah" in one year and five years?'

Thinking further about 360 degrees listening...

Discerning whom you are called to serve is another vital early step. Some fresh expressions have suffered from a scatter-gun approach. They have tried to reach too wide a variety of people.

Too much diversity can be a hindrance. Different ages, backgrounds and interests can make it hard to form community. People have too little in common to travel the journey from loving service, to community, to discipleship, to church.

There is no one approach. Sometimes it will be very clear whom you are called to serve - people within the church group you lead, your friends, users of a leisure centre or people for whom you have a particular love or concern.

In other cases, a little thought may be required - fresh expressions in the workplace, for instance. In many organisations, networks can be quite fragmented and individuals may be in and out of the office at different times.

Perhaps two or three of you are wondering if you might invite people from each of your networks. But would they 'gel' together? Would you be mixing up different seniorities, so that participants feel inhibited?

In still other cases, you may feel that you have a blank sheet of paper. You've been asked to start a fresh expression on a specific housing estate or among young people in the area, but where do you start? Which groups initially should you focus on?

Sometimes the answer will come easily. A 'chance' conversation may open a door. You bump into a young mother pushing her pram. As you chat, you find that she is going to look for a mums and tots group - there isn't one on the estate. Is this where you begin?

One starting point might be to talk with individuals who are well connected to other people. They have lots of friends and contacts. You could ask them to tell you about the people they know. Are there opportunities for you to serve them?

Or else you might ask these sorts of questions:

• 'What groups are we already in touch with?'
• 'What other networks and groups exist - what are they into?'
• 'What groups are other churches and secular agencies working with?'
• 'Are there any forgotten groups? Jesus said, "you always have the poor with you" (Mark 14.7). Who are our poor?'
• 'What gifts and resources could we offer?'

Are the people you are called to serve in a similar or different culture? When you have identified whom to serve, it may be worth asking: are they very similar to us or do they belong to a different culture?

If they are in a similar culture, you will need to pool what you know about them, fill in the gaps and perhaps extend your knowledge by listening to them in some depth.

If they are in a different culture, listening in depth will be especially important. It may take considerable time to get to know them.You will need to recognise that their values and instincts could well be very different to yours.  You would be wise constantly to stay humble and be open to new insights.

Listening in depth, therefore, will be the next step, and can be done in a variety of ways. Maybe you are feeling drawn to serve one or two neighbourhoods or networks, but you are not sure and want to get to know the people better.

Or perhaps an unexpected opening has appeared. 'It's obvious that we should start a mums and tots group...' - or a luncheon club for older people.

As you explore the possibilities, you may want to listen carefully to what makes this particular group of people tick, for signs of the Spirit being at work among them, and for indications of what is important in their lives and what they think is missing.

You could collect information about their physical environment (eg what facilities are missing?), their social relationships (eg who connects with whom?) and their spiritual outlook (eg what spiritual experiences have they had?).

In-depth listening could involve:

• Research by. This would be undertaken by a person who belongs to the neighbourhood or network - a health visitor or someone with many contacts. He or she would know the people well, and describe their culture and the opportunities to you. It is 'research by' because the research has already been done implicitly by someone who lives in the culture.
• Research with would involve listening with the people concerned, perhaps relying on contacts you already have. You would listen as you develop relationships with the people you may be called to serve, rather than relying on a 'representative' to interpret the neighbourhood or network to you.
• Research in takes 'research with' a step further. You might leaflet a neighbourhood promising a free BBQ, and see who turns up. This could get you right into the neighbourhood, and be a key step to you becoming part of it. Might a team member move on to the estate? 'Research in' can be especially useful if you have few contacts and is vital in some contexts (such as a paid pioneer on a housing estate). It's about getting to know people by serving them.
• Research on would entail gathering general information to fill out the background. You might look at census data and the local plan, or conduct a questionnaire, or watch the group's favourite TV programmes or walk the streets, praying and watching as you go.

These approaches and some methods are described in more detail in Thinking further about listening in depth. Might a combination of approaches be helpful?

Useful questions to ask might be:

• 'What are the hardships and difficulties, joys and pleasures in people's lives?'
• 'Are there needs that can be met by offering loving service? How?'
• 'What do people most value, and what do they put a low value on?'
• 'What do people think about church and about God? Do they pray?'
• 'What works and what doesn't work round here?'
• 'What is God already doing?'
• 'How would the gospel connect with these people?'
• 'How would the gospel challenge them?'
• 'Are major developments planned, such as a new housing estate or school?'

As you listen carefully, you may want to involve some of those whom you are called to serve in developing the venture. Perhaps you wonder, 'How can we do this without diluting our Christian thrust?' If so, you may want to read How can we work with non-churchgoers to create church?

A good test of whether you have listened carefully is to ask, 'How have we been affected by what we have heard?' As listeners gain new understanding and see things from a different perspective, they will be changed by the whole experience.

Discerning and testing God's call is the final stage. You might bring together all that you have learnt so far, and see what vision for a fresh expression has emerged or whether your initial tentative vision has been confirmed. Might you focus this part of your listening in a quiet day or retreat?

And at some stage might you involve people from outside your group - a wise Christian friend or minister, perhaps? You might share with them your provisional conclusions and invite them to ask some hard questions. Constructive feedback could be useful.

These four questions might help you turn the fruits of listening into a vision (they are based on Martin Robinson, Planting Mission-Shaped Churches Today, Monarch, 2006, p. 98):

• 'What's going on here?'
• 'What shall we do in response?'
• 'How can we make it happen?'
• 'What will be the result?'

'How can we be sure this represents God's call?' may be natural to ask, as a vision starts to form. These questions may help you discern God's will:

• 'Is the vision consistent with the call we identified as part of "Getting together"?'
• 'Do we have a sense of something being given to us – "We didn't think this up"?' (This is not always the test of a godly call, but it is sometimes.)
• 'Is there a sense of inner peace and gentle encouragement from God?'
• 'Does the plan make sense to us and to others – does everything fit together?'
• 'Will going forward increase faith in others and ourselves, even if it is tough?'
• 'Is the glory for God or ourselves?'
• 'Have other people confirmed that this may be right?'
• 'Have any Scriptures come to life for us, and does our emerging vision fit with them?'
• 'As we have brought our findings to God in prayer and waiting, do we sense that we have heard anything? Is our vision consistent with what we heard?'
• 'Have we counted the cost of beginning this and seeing it through?'

Hopefully, God will have now given you a clear vision for the task you are being called to undertake. 

You may want to share that vision with:

• your parent church, churches or denomination on whose behalf you are working (if that fits your context);
• Christians who have been praying for you;
• other churches, Christian groups, secular bodies and individuals you have consulted (an email to them would be courteous). 

Reactions could be a way of testing further whether this really is God's vision.

Exploring the possibilities → a shared vision

It is important to realise that this is not the end of the listening process. You will want to keep listening as the venture develops. Have you read Thinking further about method?

There is also a crucial next stage, which often gets missed out. It involves thinking ahead to how the vision might grow into a fuller expression of church. Thinking ahead may help you to fill out your vision in ways that will allow people involved to travel towards God, if they want.

The Terminus Café illustrates some of the principles described on this page.

 

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