Living God's Future Now

An exceptional time of encouragement and inspiration was had today in the Living God's Future Now HeartEdge event held at St Andrew's Wickford.

There was great input from Sam Wells, HeartEdge, Being With, Andrew Earis and the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields. We explored new approaches to mission, covered a wide range of ideas, and each found something inspiring to take home.

Sam Wells and other inspiring speakers shared insights and explored the 4 C's (Commerce, Compassion, Culture, Congregation). We connected with colleagues, shared ideas and were involved in Being With workshops. We also discussed music in mission and enjoyed live performances.

A panel session with practitioners from the Diocese of Chelmsford/Essex explored initiatives that have used one each of the 4 Cs including: Revd Katie Miller & Bill Miller (St Mary’s Becontree) – Community Drama (Culture); Felix Atkin (Sharesy) - platform for hall hire (Commerce); Revd Andy Griffiths (Lead Adviser for Wellbeing and Formation, Diocese of Chelmsford, & Continuing Ministry Development Adviser, Bradwell Area) – Community Organising (Compassion); Revd Alan Moss (Estates Youth Missional Lead for the Diocese of Chelmsford) – Retro Gaming (Congregation).

We enjoyed Great Sacred Music, a 35-minute sequence of words and music which explores through song and readings the great classical music of our religious heritage.

There were workshops on Being With, a life changing way to help people explore the Christian faith. Being With helps people consider Christian faith in new and refreshing ways, without needing prior knowledge, but a simple willingness to share what you do know or feel. 10 additional courses will be launched later this year. They use the same methodology but cover other topics - Church, Creation, Baptism, End of Life and Being With your Significant Other to name a few.

In the evening we enjoyed music for journeying from the earthly joys found in the English countryside to the celestial splendours of heaven with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields. The Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields sing for services, concerts and events at St Martin’s, covering a huge range of repertoire from the Renaissance to the present day.

Tomorrow, we will take a walk through Wickford Memorial Park opening our hearts to God’s presence in creation, in the local neighbourhood and in one another.

 
Join us for a contemplative prayer walk on Saturday 28 June in Wickford Memorial Park led by Revd Catherine Duce, Assistant Vicar for the Companions of Nazareth, St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The walk will be begin from the main entrance gates to the Park off the Runwell Road at 9.00 am. Join in person or on Facebook Live (https://www.facebook.com/WickfordandRunwellCofE/).

It will be followed by a Quiet Day at St Marys Runwell called 'A Path with a Heart: Seeking inspiration from the Nazareth Community', also with Revd Catherine Duce. The Quiet Day begins at 10.30 am.
Silence and contemplative prayer are at the very heart of the Nazareth rule of life. We are formed by this silence. As we enter into silence, we place ourselves in the presence of Christ. We create the place and space for a deeper listening to God, the longings of our own souls and we grow in a deep compassion for the world. In this session we will delve deeply into silent prayer and carve space to listen to the Spirit at work in our lives.

No experience necessary. Come simply ready to rest in the presence of God.

Our aim has been to explore and experience a range of mission models and approaches advocated by HeartEdge in order to resource existing mission and imagine new missional approaches or initiatives. These two days are about ideas, connections, doing theology and mission. Approaches/initiatives to be shared include: the 4 Cs; Great Sacred Music; Being With; and The Nazareth Community/Companions of Nazareth.

Since its launch in 2017, HeartEdge has grown to become an international ecumenical movement of churches, notable for its energy and diversity. It rests on two theological foundations: that (1) God is giving the church everything it needs, but too often the church is slow to recognise gifts that come in the form of the stranger or the new venture (2) From the exile of 585 BC, God’s people have habitually experienced renewal emerging out of times of setback, hardship and failure.

Its method is to identify the 4Cs – reimagining church and society through commerce, culture, compassion and congregational life. This means to seek congregational renewal and growth through trusting cultural and charitable initiatives to be sources of energy rather than causes of exhaustion, and to transform financial sustainability through commercial ventures.

HeartEdge is a vision and a movement for renewing church. Renewing means reimagining, empowering and growing. https://www.heartedge.org/

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Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields - Morning Song. 

Pearls of Polyphony

In their programme of radiant choral polyphony, St Martin's Voices took us on a musical tour of sixteenth century Europe. This selection of sacred works by the leading composers of the age demonstrates the expressive beauty and dexterity of the polphonic style, bridging the gap from the Late Renaissance to the Early Baroque.

Polyphony is defined as a musical texture with two or more melodic lines and, when applied to vocal writing, means that the text is performed independently by each voice apart, according to the rhythm and phrasing of their individual melodic line. Stylistically, this results in waves of sound with soaring peaks, ever-shifting harmonies, and powerful moments of unity when the voices come together.

The programme tonight at St Andrew's Wickford included Orlande de Lassus, Peter Phillips, Francisco Guerrero, Richard Dering, Jan Pieterszoon Sweenlinck, Heinrich Schutz and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. The texts explored in their programme spanned the liturgical year, from All Saints to Ascension, in settings by composers from across Europe.

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St Martin's Voices - Love Divine.

humbler church Bigger God

It was a real joy to be at St Edmund's Roundhay last week for the HeartEdge Humbler Church Bigger God conference. The conference included the launch of the Being With Course and the Course books. Here's some of who and what I saw and heard from the full and fascinating programme:

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Great Sacred Music - Vivaldi Gloria.

Renewal from the edge

Here are the remarks I made today in the Annual Parochial Church Meeting for the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry:

As I’ve only just begun my ministry here, I thought it would be helpful to say a few words about my background and experience to highlight some of the things I’ll be looking at and sharing with you in the course of my first year with you.

The first thing to say is that I haven’t always been a priest. I worked for 18 years in the Employment Service before sensing a call to ordination and retain a strong interest in the world of work as a result. Throughout my ministry I looked to make connections for others between faith and work, something that looks to me to be important here as so many who live in Wickford are commuters working in Central London.

Initially, that fact seems to be a deficit for the church, as that’s a large group of people who aren’t around to attend church during the week and who are looking to rest and relax at the weekend meaning that going to church isn’t top of their agenda. One of the lessons I’ve learnt in my time at St Martin-in-the-Fields is that beginning with deficits is never the place to start. If we begin with the problems or issues we are facing then we end up overwhelmed by those issues and can’t see a way forward. Instead, we need to begin with assets or opportunities, as those always exist, even in the most difficult of circumstances. In fact, the Bible teaches us that God seems closest to us and is encountered most deeply in time of adversity than is the case in times of comfort. The Israelites discovered that when they went into Exile. Initially, they thought they had lost everything but Exile became the place where they learnt that God was everywhere, not just in Israel, and where they drew together and returned to their scriptures.

So, we need to look at the different groups of people who make up the community in Wickford and Runwell – including children, young people, parent, elderly people and others - assume that they are, in various ways open to encountering God, and work out how, when and where such encounters might take place. Different groups of people will be able to be engaged in different ways and at different times – in other words they won’t necessarily connect with our existing services and service patterns, maybe not initially, maybe not ever. So, in order to grow, as well as maintaining and developing our existing services and congregations, we will also need to grow new congregations by drawing on the riches of our traditions, history and heritage in the Team while representing those riches in new ways and at different times. 

As one example, Great Sacred Music at St Martin-in-the-Fields is a weekday lunchtime concert that engages with people who enjoy choral music but who don’t feel comfortable in a church service. As a result, it is a concert rather than a service but one in which the underlying spirituality of the music performed is explored and explained in ways that enable to encounter something of God despite not being in a service. This is an effective bridging event drawing on the riches of Church choral music while sharing those riches in ways that enable people who wouldn’t otherwise come to church to engage.

I’m not saying that we need to replicate Great Sacred Music here. Instead, I’m saying that we will need to find our equivalents for the community here that provide a bridge to God in the way that Great Sacred Music does in central London.

Understanding and engaging with culture is also key to enabling others to encounter God. This has been another significant interest for me, particularly with the visual arts and music, but also with the Arts as a whole. Engaging with creatives locally and further afield and encouraging the creativity inherent in each of us enables the church to engage with another segment of the local community which often feels disconnected from church and enables us to create a culture of creativity that is a reflection of God, who is the most creative being in existence.

I’ve talked already about three elements of the model of mission with which I have worked throughout by ministry. It’s called the 4Cs, with the Cs being Commerce, Culture, Compassion and Congregation. We began with work, which is based on commerce and where we need to make deep connections between faith and work in order that people see how faith is lived out in the working week, not just on Sundays. Commerce is also needed as an additional source of income for churches that can’t be fully funded by benefactors or stewardship alone. I’ve already said a lot about culture, so won’t say more about that now. Compassion is a part of the 4Cs with which the churches in Wickford and Runwell already engage through support for the Foodbank and Women’s Refuge. I wonder whether there might be compassionate projects that we could, in time, initiate; remembering that care for the environment and support for families, young people and elderly folk are all also compassionate initiatives.

Congregation is the fourth element of this mission model. Supporting, sustaining and growing existing congregations is fundamental but is not an end in and of itself. If inwardly focused, existing congregations dwindle. If outwardly focused, seeking to support and grow new congregations using the other 3Cs, that’s when congregations grow. When congregations do this, it puts church at the heart of the community whilst also being with those who are on the edge. The edge may be the edge of church or the edge of society or the creative cutting edge (which might be found in commerce or culture).

Renewal comes from the edge. Those who are currently outside our congregations are those who have the greatest potential to renew us. That is because the Holy Spirit is always at work in the world and our wider community. We often don’t recognize what God is already doing in and through others because we think God is with us and we are those who have to share God with others. It’s freeing to turn that thinking on its head and realise that our calling is often to recognize and name what God is already doing in and through others, while getting involved to support those initiatives and help others see that what they are doing is of God.

This is a brief summary of some of what I have learnt about mission and ministry from nineteen years of ordained ministry. I hope it gives some ideas and frameworks that we can explore more fully over the months ahead. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas as we seek to learn from each other and share together in being God’s people engaged in God’s mission here in Wickford and Runwell.

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It Is A Thing Most Wonderful.

Great Sacred Music in Manchester

 

From 25 September onwards, every Saturday at 3.00pm, we present Great Sacred Music, our afternoon service led by the HeartEdge Manchester Clergy and the newly appointed Choral Scholars. Join us each week as we explore a new theme through readings, reflections and songs from the great classical music of our religious heritage.

Upcoming Great Sacred Music dates

• Saturday 25th September, 3:00pm – Seasons of Creation & St Francis, led by the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker. Including music by Cecilia McDowall, Grayston Ives, Francis Jackson, Paul Mealor and congregational hymns.
• Saturday 2nd October, 3:00pm – Making peace with nature
• Saturday 9th October, 3:00pm (at Sacred Trinity) – Lament
• Saturday 16th October, 3:00pm – Comfort
• Saturday 23rd October, 3:00pm – Hope
• Saturday 30th October, 3:00pm – Earth – Gift – Home
• Saturday 6th November, 3:00pm – Air – Breath – Wind
• Saturday 13th November, 3:00pm – Ocean
• Saturday 20th November, 3:00pm (at Ascension Church) – Co-operation
• Saturday 27th November, 3:00pm – Eve of Advent

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An Evening with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields

Resourcing Innovative Mission in Brussels

Today's North West Europe Mission Working Party Day at Holy Trinity Brussels featured HeartEdge.

'Resourcing Innovative Mission' was a day which explored key HeartEdge concepts including the 4Cs – commerce, culture, compassion and congregation – as a model for mission. We experienced Great Sacred Music - a 35-minute sequence of words and music speaking to heart, head and soul - with St Martin's Voices Fellows and myself, while reflecting on the use of culture to share faith insights with secular audiences. In addition to Great Sacred Music, we also heard about Humanitarian Corridors at St John's Anglican Church in Ghent and the Community Kitchen at Holy Trinity Brussels. The day also provided opportunities to share ideas, identify key challenges and assets for future initiatives. The day ended with 'Sing Joyfully', an evening concert by St Martin's Voice Fellows. 

In the GSM on the theme of HeartEdge I said:

'Overflowing joy, gratitude and thankfulness have been the threads running through this performance. We bring this Great Sacred Music towards its end by thanking God with all we have; heart and hands and voices. The 4Cs of HeartEdge bring together the essential ingredients to human flourishing – culture, commerce, compassion, congregation - in ‘a vision of a civil economy, of what work and play, friendship and worship, social concern and evangelism, diversity and identity might look like’ when we live God’s future now. This holistic vision means that the 4Cs are not there solely for you or me. They are not instrumental and God is not encountered through them as an instrument to use to solve problems or gain security. Instead, we encounter God as a mystery to be entered and in so doing find true life.'

Tomorrow I will preach at the 9.00am and 10.30am service at Holy Trinity Brussels. St Martin's Voices will sing at the 10.30am service before giving a second concert at Église Notre-Dame des Victoires au Sablon (Rue des Sablons, 1000 Bruxelles) at 3.30pm.

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Moses Hogan - God's Gonna Set This World On Fire.