At the heart. On the edge.

 

I wrote the following article on HeartEdge for the latest edition of the CMD Bulletin for the Diocese of Chelmsford:

Churches are closest to the heart of God when they at the heart of their communities and with those on the edge. That is the contention and belief of HeartEdge, an international, ecumenical movement that is about church becoming fully alive as it seeks to transform church and society through commerce, culture, compassion and congregational life.

HeartEdge is about churches developing four Cs:

• Commerce: Generating finance via enterprise, creatively extending mission.
• Culture: Art, music, performance re-imagining the Christian narrative for the present.
• Congregation: Inclusive liturgy, worship and common life.
• Compassion: Empowering congregations to address social need.

The network supports churches in reimagining themselves and society by working with churches moving beyond conventional notions of church, being open to partnership and collaboration with others in the wider world. Fundamentally, HeartEdge is about recognising the activity of the Holy Spirit beyond and outside the church and about a church that flourishes when it seeks to catch up with what the Spirit is already doing in the world.

There was a time when church meant a group that believed it could control access to God – access that only happened in its language on its terms. But God is bigger than that, and the church needs to be humbler than that. Kingdom churches anticipate the way things are with God forever – a culture of creativity, mercy, discovery and grace – and are grateful for the ways God renews the church through those it has despised, rejected, or ignored.

HeartEdge seeks to do all this through:

Transforming Practice

• Encouraging, fostering, training practitioners in imaginative and holistic approaches to mission.
• Through training, education, consultancy, peer support, signposting and examples.

Transforming Discourse

• Coining new language and engaging topical issues through the lens of God’s abundance.
• Through seminars, summer schools, events and conferences live and online.

Transformative Programmes

• Offering tested ‘products’ that practitioners can swiftly implement.
• Through cultivating and promoting specific mission initiatives that can be adapted for local use.

HeartEdge is active in the Diocese and in Essex through two hubs; the Harlow Archdeaconry Learning Hub (see https://www.facebook.com/Learning-Hub-545693942608410) and Shoeburyness and Thorpe Bay Baptist Church (see https://www.stbbc.org.uk/heartedge). A number of excellent awareness events have already been held as a result, that have grown and deepened the network here. 

The next focuses on Congregation and is called ‘Signs of Hope’. This is an evening at Shoeburyness and Thorpe Bay Baptist Church on Wednesday 14 September beginning at 7.30 pm where Rev Erica Wooff, Rev John Goddard and Rev Claire Nicholls will tell stories from their congregations. To book a place email Nicky Snoad at nicky.snoad@stbbc.org.uk. Then, on 8 November, there will be a similar event focusing on Culture.

In between is a further opportunity to explore the relationship between churches and Culture, this time with Revd Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, on whose theology much of HeartEdge’s thinking is based. Sam Wells sees churches as meeting places of human and divine, gospel and culture, timeless truth and embodied experience, word and world. As a result, they are like estuaries.

Estuaries, where salt water mixes with fresh in a confluence of river and tidal waters, are environments of preparation where, for example, young salmon, striped bass, and other fish come downstream after hatching. Churches that regard themselves as meeting places of the human and divine are essentially functioning as estuaries. Creating cultural estuaries in churches happens when the creative capital of an artist, the social capital of a minister or community leader, and the material capital of finance or business, converge.

Explore these ideas further with Sam Wells, Revd Paul Carr (Team Rector, Billericay and Little Burstead Team Ministry), Nicola Ravenscroft (Sculptor), Sarah Rogers (HeartEdge), and myself in ‘Gospel and Culture: Churches as meeting places’ at St Andrew’s Wickford on Tuesday 20 September, 10.30 – 3.30 pm. To register, go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gospel-and-culture-churches-as-meeting-places-tickets-391772731787.

For more information about HeartEdge, see https://www.heartedge.org/, including information about their online learning and support groups.

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Johnny Cash - Where We'll Never Grow Old.

Signs of Hope, Gospel and Culture

 

HeartEdge is active in Essex and in the Diocese of Chelmsford through two hubs; the Harlow Archdeaconry Learning Hub (see https://www.facebook.com/Learning-Hub-545693942608410) and Shoeburyness and Thorpe Bay Baptist Church (see https://www.stbbc.org.uk/heartedge). A number of excellent awareness events have already been held as a result, that have grown and deepened the network here. 

The next focuses on Congregation and is called ‘Signs of Hope’. This is an evening at Shoeburyness and Thorpe Bay Baptist Church on Wednesday 14 September beginning at 7.30 pm where Rev Erica Wooff, Rev John Goddard and Rev Claire Nicholls will tell stories from their congregations. To book a place email Nicky Snoad at nicky.snoad@stbbc.org.uk. Then, on 8 November, there will be a similar event focusing on Culture.

In between is a further opportunity to explore the relationship between churches and Culture, this time with Revd Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, on whose theology much of HeartEdge’s thinking is based. Sam Wells sees churches as meeting places of human and divine, gospel and culture, timeless truth and embodied experience, word and world. As a result, they are like estuaries.

Estuaries, where salt water mixes with fresh in a confluence of river and tidal waters, are environments of preparation where, for example, young salmon, striped bass, and other fish come downstream after hatching. Churches that regard themselves as meeting places of the human and divine are essentially functioning as estuaries. Creating cultural estuaries in churches happens when the creative capital of an artist, the social capital of a minister or community leader, and the material capital of finance or business, converge.

Explore these ideas further with Sam Wells, Revd Paul Carr (Team Rector, Billericay and Little Burstead Team Ministry), Nicola Ravenscroft (Sculptor), and myself in ‘Gospel and Culture: Churches as meeting places’ at St Andrew’s Wickford on Tuesday 20 September, 10.30 – 3.30 pm. To register, go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gospel-and-culture-churches-as-meeting-places-tickets-391772731787.

For more information about HeartEdge, see https://www.heartedge.org/, including information about their online learning and support groups.

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Raphael Ravenscroft - and a little child shall lead.

Exhibitions: The Connection's artists and Quaker artists

There are currently two interesting and engaging exhibitions at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Artwork 2015 is a vibrant exhibition displaying a wide range of talented artwork and photographs by people who use The Connection’s creative groups. The workshops unlock people’s potential and are therapeutic, increasing people’s confidence and well being. Some of the art is available for sale and proceeds will support The Connection’s artists.

Margaret, who uses the art room says: “I was suffering from depression because I lost several members of my family all in the same month, and art is a leeway. Instead of taking tablets, I thought find something to work on, and then my mind is not focused on that fact. It’s focused on what I’m doing. I don’t take any tablets because of art.”

Inside Out / Outside in is a thought-provoking exhibition by three Quaker female artists (Anne McNeill-Pulati, Isa Lousie Levy and Caroline Jariwala). Featuring human landscapes, the exhibition provides an opportunity to depict, show and open dialogue around shared spiritual journeys.

Isa Louise Levy says: "Our creative practice uses the figure as a vehicle both metaphorically and pictorially, and as reflections of human experience and spirituality. The figure is the bridge where inner and outer worlds connect the physical and metaphysical landscapes. Our collaborative exhibition celebrates human integrity and diversity as we come from multi-faith backgrounds namely Jewish, Hindu and Christian. Our faith journeys also share a common ground as we are all Quakers."

Friends House in Euston is also currently hosting an exhibition by Quaker artists. Climb up to the moor is an exhibition of works by Judith Bromley Nicholls and Robert Nicholls which focuses on "moorland, its importance for carbon-capture, the fragility of this amazing landscape, and our relationship with the natural world." The exhibition is a collection of paintings, texts and an ever expanding installation 'Groundcover'. It runs 11 – 16:00 each day until Saturday 29 August and is free.

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Jon Watts - The Kabarak Call.

Unveiling of new local mural

Rev. Ken Nicholls and Cllr Stuart Bellwood unveiled the new mural at Goodmayes Methodist Church on Sunday. A farewell service for Ken Nicholls, who is retiring, will be held on Sunday at 5.00pm and Goodmayes Methodist Chuch.

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Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris - Return of the Grievous Angel.

Becoming places of deep exchange

The churches of the Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches (SKFC) signed a new covenant tonight during our Unity Service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The new covenant was discussed and agreed by the church committees of Seven Kings Methodist Church, Seven Kings United Free Church, St John's Seven Kings, St Peter's Aldborough Hatch and St Teresa's Newbury Park during 2010. The covenant, which was originally the idea of Methodist minister Rev. Ken Nicholls, was signed by clergy and lay members of the five churches.

The Unity Service was hosted by St John's Seven Kings and attended by members of each of the five SKFC churches. The service was led by Revd. Geoff Eze and used materials prepared for this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity on the theme of All Things In Common. I preached using an excellent sermon prepared by Revd. Bob Fyffe, General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, in which he said:

"The starting point for our Christian witness is for the Church to become that expression of unity, that model of acceptance and welcome and hospitality that is rooted in God. Where these hopes and dreams are bound together, communities become places of deep exchange, where together we become all that God intends for us. To BE the whole people of God."

It is our hope that this new covenant will provide a foundation for our shared activity in future and will also take us further in our church communities becoming places of deep exchange, where together we become all that God intends for us. Our covenant reads as follows:

We, the Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches (SKFC), give thanks to God for the unity we experience among us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We acknowledge our common heritage in the faith and profess together our belief in the one God, the Father, Creator of heaven and earth; the Son who dwelt among us, was crucified for us, and was raised from the dead for our salvation and the Holy Spirit who leads his church into all truth.

We regret past misunderstandings between Church denominations and traditions, and recognise that each of our churches has its own distinctive witness and tradition. We honour these traditions standing before one another in charity and praying for a deeper understanding and reconciliation

We undertake to explore together our doctrinal differences and our understanding of the church in the light of existing dialogues at national and international level, so that we may understand one another better and make a contribution to the reconciliation of the churches at those levels

On the basis of our existing unity in Christ, we commit ourselves to one another in love and charity to promote common worship, fellowship, witness and service to the community of which we are a part

In particular we commit ourselves to:

1. To declare our unity as the people of God in this community in whatever practical ways possible.

2. To maintain our common practices of worshipping together, and to seek to develop them further

3. To begin a process of co-ordinating our individual activities, as far as possible.

4. To seek to grow in understanding of the grace and love of God, and of each others traditions. To develop joint prayer and study of each other’s traditions, as well as of our Christian faith and its applications in daily life.

5. To listen to the local community, to become aware of its needs and aspirations and to develop a co-ordinated programme of service and outreach to it.

6. Thoroughly to review our Christian resources of buildings, people, money and ministry, and to develop proposals for sharing them to the best advantage for the church and the community.

We, as SKFC members, undertake to review this covenant at an annual service and then to renew and review it in five years time

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Iona ~ Edge of the World.

Word 4 Weapons knife bin launch

This evening saw the launch of the Word 4 Weapons knife bin located at Seven Kings Methodist Church and made available through the sponsorship of the Lions Club Seven Kings. The launch featured speeches from the President of the Lions Club Seven Kings, the Deputy Mayor of Redbridge, Cllr Mrs Ruth Clark, Rev. Ken Nicholls, Minister of Seven Kings Methodist Church, and a Word 4 Weapons volunteer.

Word 4 Weapons is a Christian based organisation started by Michael Smith in 2007, after several years of seeing too many young lives being lost to gun and knife crime. There are several strands to their programme: providing guidance to young people, their parents and guardians; working in partnership with organisations who share their aim; and providing secure bins where weapons can be deposited.

Knives can be deposited anonymously but can also be exchanged for an "All I Need" pack. These come in blue, red or black and can contain: a Bible; comic; book of help; and specially selected gifts such as dvds or PC games. To exchange a knife for a bag; it has to take place face-to-face but no questions are asked when the knife is handed over to be put into the knife bin and those giving out the "All I Need" bags are available to answer questions.

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M. Ward - Fuel For Fire.