Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

Why What Works, Works: Contextual Mission and the Shape of Faithful Innovation

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We know, at least intuitively, that some things work in mission and some don’t. We can point to Bubble Church, Messy Church, particular church plants, fresh expressions that have taken root and borne fruit. The temptation is to move too quickly from that observation to replication: this works, therefore let’s do more of it. But that instinct, while understandable, misses the deeper truth. What works, works because at its heart is contextual mission.

The truth is to be effective it has to be about contextual mission. A basic understanding of systems evens backs this up for Worship First church planting models.  This is something I have reflected on before using the Cynefin framework. In the bottom right-hand corner of Cynefin, the simple domain, we are dealing with contexts where cause and effect can readily understood, so worship first large scale plants can work, because you know the soil (context) they need to be planted in. Ie Resource Churches is areas with high student numbers, where the employees suit the context.  You cannot impose a solution from elsewhere and expect predictable results in the Complicated Zone, here you need contextual adaption eg worship first church plants in a market town may need a families worker instead of a student worker.  Then in the Complex and Chaotic Zones context comes even more to the fore, you probe, sense, and respond. You listen. You pay attention. You act humbly and experimentally and so Listening or Community Church planting, at its best, lives precisely here. 

This all works not because any of it follows a universal template, but because it all begins with a level contextual awareness. The plant knows where it is, who it is among, and what the Spirit might already be doing there. That attentiveness to context is not incidental; it is the very reason fruitfulness becomes possible.

At the heart of the things that work in mission is not a model but a posture: listening to the Missio Dei and the context. 

Take Bubble Church as an example. One could argue quite clearly that Bubble Church works because it is contextual mission. It is not magic, nor is it universally transferable. It works because local vicars and clergy have listened carefully to their context, often noticing young families on the fringes of church life, parents seeking connection, children needing space to be themselves, and have identified Bubble Church as a resource that fits. The model is then brought in not as a franchise, but as a contextual response. The same can be said of Messy Church. Its effectiveness lies not in crayons and craft tables per se, but in the way it emerged from listening: to families, to patterns of time poverty, to the desire for intergenerational belonging that does not rely on cultural fluency with inherited church. Messy Church is context-first mission that happened to crystallise into a recognisable form.

Even in church planting circles that talk about being “worship first,” the same dynamic is at play, whether or not it is always acknowledged. Worship-first plants do not appear randomly (or if they do they tend to fail). They are often planted into areas with high student populations, or significant numbers of young adults, or cultures where music and gathering carry particular social weight. The decision to centre worship is might itself be more the result of contextual listening than many assume. 

This is why fresh expressions remain so important. Fresh expressions are not primarily about novelty, nor about ecclesial experimentation for its own sake. They are about starting with context. They are about taking seriously the conviction that there is no such thing as a generic mission field, and therefore no such thing as a one-size-fits-all church.

I have argued that mission takes place within complex, adaptive systems, that culture is semiotic. Therefore, Churches, neighbourhoods, cultures, and networks are not machines to be engineered but living systems to be engaged. Within that framing, More recently I have suggested that faithful mission involves thinking carefully about how we scale: not just out, but deep and up as well.

Scaling out: replicating a model in new places, can be fruitful, but only when accompanied by contextual discernment. Scaling deep is about embedding practices, values, and theological depth within a particular place, allowing mission to become part of the local ecology rather than an imported programme. Scaling up involves influencing wider systems, structures, and cultures, enabling learning and resources to flow without flattening difference.

The common thread running through all of this is about taking context seriously. The danger comes when we adopt a consumerist logic: identifying a successful model and attempting to roll it out indiscriminately. Scaling Bubble Church simply because Bubble Church “works” risks misunderstanding why it worked in the first place. Without the right context, without listening, without local ownership, the model becomes hollow. It may look right, but it will lack life and longevity. 

At the heart of all good mission is context. Not context as a box to be ticked in a planning document, but context as a theological commitment: the belief that God has taken the particular (be that place or interest) seriously enough to become incarnate, and therefore we must do the same. Contextual mission is not a strategy; it is a way of seeing.

If we want to be faithful rather than fashionable, fruitful rather than frantic, then the task before us is not to find the next thing that works and copy it. It is to cultivate communities that know how to listen to God, to place, to people and have the courage to respond in ways that may look very different from one context to another. That, ultimately, is why what works, works.

A pause in poetry

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For the last few years some friends have invited us to Burns Night and to bring a poem. I came across some words of a friend of friend of mime who was speaking to a women’s group and said “poetry is not an inspiration we have enough pressure around us without adding to that”. That poetry was more distillation of noise which made me think about pauses.

So I thought I’d try something more aligned with that rather than my usual style but aas seems usual hope still creeps in at the end.

Exhalation for Burns Night

Tonight we raise the glass, not in grandeur,

but in gratitude for breath itself.

The poet’s gift is not the torrent of words

but the pause after

that quiet reckoning

when the room shimmers in a moments silence

Robert knew it,

The yeast of life fermenting knows it,

The plough of soil turned to the light knows it

The mouse in winters nest knows it

Tonight we stand in that same field,

For a moment distilled from noise….

steeped in the grace of a pause.

Perhaps even a holy pause reflected in the whisky’s surface,

a quiet tremor in the chest as the warm Spirit flows into our soul.

An inhalation that silences the world’s chatter,

And breathes back a quiet hope that things will change for the better.

Holy reverence and the Christmas gap

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I love reading about the planting of the sycamore gap saplings. A picture from one planted locally caught my eye as there seemed such a holy reverence in the images. It inspired this which I thought might be apt to post in the randomness of the space between Christmas and new year.

They felled the tree,
and for a moment the gap grew wider
a space by an ancient wall,
an ache in the air.
Yet even in absence,
something holy lingered.
The earth itself began to hum
with all the waiting things.

Now across the land people kneel in winter rain,
hands muddy with faith,
pressing small roots into cold earth.
Each sapling a testament
that what is lost is not forgotten,
that gaps can cradle more than grief.

God is not afraid of empty spaces.
The womb,
the manger,
the gap between promise and fulfilment,
all tremble with the same possibility.
So we wait, we dig
and plant, with hope
breathing reverence into the soil,
trusting light will find a way again.
So places one laid bare with winters frosty hue,
Will teem with laughter, swings and shade for summer’s glow.

Pioneer Breath Prayers

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I really like Cole Arthur Riley’s writing and in particular the Inhale and Exhale breath prayers.  This one stuck me for this current time. I think her work is great but understand it’s an approach to prayer that has been around a long time. In the fx advent series we used the breath prayer approach but it also made me wonder what pioneer breath prayers might look like as I particularly like the balance so played with these as some possibilities.

inhale – possibility is within you

exhale – another world is possible

inhale – the kindom is now

exhale – the kindom is not yet

inhale – we journey to the edge spaces

exhale – we find kinship along the way

inhale – from dust we came

exhale – we call the walls to dust

 

 

 

The death of ideas

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Walking the dog a while back I was taken with the amazing seed heads around and make me think about the scripture “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24). It caught me not just as a verse of hope, but as a pattern that runs deep in how ideas grow.
Since Wallas, described a four-stage model of creativity in his 1926 book The Art of Thought, when we talk about ideas, there are stages that repeat. I particularly like Shannon Hopkins idea of “junk the brain” get all the ideas out fast and furiously to make space for some real out of the box thinking.

One pattern could read along the lines of First is the spark, that flash when the idea is born. Second comes the shaping, when we test and sketch, throw things out to see what sticks, gathering others to work it up. But I think the third stage is stranger, harder and looks suspiciously like death, either in terms of Shannon’s junking all the other ideas or as the third stage of ideation, when the idea no longer belongs to you. When you stop clutching it tightly as your possession and allow it to be buried, entrusted to soil that something new grows. The grain of wheat image is not about efficiency or productivity, it’s about release. It suggests that if we refuse to let go either of the initial ideas or if we insulate and protect our bright spark from change, criticism, or collaboration, it remains alone in its own sterility.

But when we release it, even bury it, something else happens. It may disintegrate in its original form, but in that decomposition potential multiplies. Fruit emerges. The community reshapes it, God breathes on it, and what was once “mine” becomes “ours.” What was a single thought or series dies and seeds a space where movements emerge that belongs to something bigger than we imagined.
In organisational innovation, this feels risky. It is tempting to hold to control structures, to keep ownership, to patent and protect. But ideation as faith practice teaches a different rhythm: hold lightly and let the seed fall. Trust the soil of community and Spirit. The third stage is less about control more about surrender.

I wonder if this is why so many pioneering ideas falter, they never move beyond the hand of the founder. We tend to want the harvest without the letting-go. Yet John’s image is uncompromising: the fruit only comes after the seed dies to its own form.
So perhaps the invitation today is simple but costly. What idea are you still clutching in your hand, afraid to plant? What seed needs releasing into the ground of community, risking loss in order to multiply life? Ideation is not complete until we dare to embrace the third stage, trusting death as the doorway to a new future.

The changing face of trickster in systems change

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Sunday Papers turned 21 last month and so I thought I would look back through some of the themes that have emerged over the years and the 950 or so blogposts. The figure of the trickster has been a restless but pretty constant companion, sometimes provocateur, sometimes guide, sometimes the shadow in the corner when certainty threatens to harden. Journeying back through the archive, I notice how my use of “trickster” has itself been tricky: adapting, morphing, much as the trickster does, to the movements and moods of the times and the evolving questions of church, systems, and cultural renewal. Gathering these together we can see her different guises and learn a few lessons along the way. 

Trickster as Disruption: Stirring the Comfortable

In the early days, trickster arrived in my writing as disturbance. Rooted in the stories of Hyde and the many mythic mischief makers, trickster embodied the kind of holy mischief needed to unsettle our ecclesial complacency. I wrote about the discomfort, border-walking, question-posing, edge-dwelling that trickster brings to stagnant communities. Trickster was the strange guest, misunderstood and sometimes unwelcome, who moved the conversation from comfort to confrontation (which probably also reflects my life stage at the time).

There is a necessary place for this sort of energy in organisations and systems facing calcification, when the status quo is defended with greater force than the call of the gospel or the pulse of life. In this stage, trickster is a mirror to stuckness and a living question mark for institutional “wisdom.” Trickster’s value here is not so much in having answers, but in disrupting, and simply tearing open space for something unexpected to begin.

Trickster as Emergence: The Playful Edge of Creativity

As time went on, my engagement with emergence deepened. Trickster moved from being merely an irritant to something generative, a figure not only to challenge boundaries, but to create new ones, or dissolve them long enough for new forms to emerge. The conversations about “emergent church” and “grace spaces” that led to Here Be Dragons revealed the need to dwell not just at the border, but also in the middle, where the boundaries blur and creation teems.

Here, trickster’s play becomes vital. The themes shifted: less about simply sabotaging structure, more about risking improvisation, learning from ambiguity, and allowing the uncomfortable laughter that comes when certainty recedes. Surprisingly, trickster’s lessons in play, parody, and improvisation offered a source of hope and resilience, essential for organisations learning to let go of the need for control and to make space for emergence.

Trickster as Companion: Deep Listening and Systemic Renewal

In more recent years, a subtler, deeper trickster has come to the fore. No longer relegated only to the borders or eruptions of crisis, this trickster appears as a companion in the slow, ongoing renewals of system and spirit. I found myself drawing on trickster stories not just for their disruptive potential, but as a wisdom tradition for co-creative leadership, deep listening, and navigating unpredictable terrain.

Now, trickster is invoked to remind leaders and communities that true transformation happens in liminal space, between the old and not-yet, in stories shared, questions asked, and boundaries re-imagined. The work is less about subversion for its own sake and more about fostering an adaptive, generative ecology where fresh forms of church and meaning can be discovered. Trickster joins the circle as both risk and companion: an invitation to stay open, responsive, and alive to the wild grace of emergence.

Using Trickster in Organisational Change: Practical Insights

Looking back, I see that the trickster’s role shifts with the system’s need:

• When a community is stuck or stagnant, trickster shakes the ground, challenging, exposing, disrupting.

• In seasons of uncertainty or growth, trickster invites play, risk, and improvisational imagination needed for the new to emerge.

• As change matures and practice deepens, trickster becomes a reminder to listen to what emerges with humility, to hold structures lightly, and to let stories and edges lead the way toward renewal.

In organisational and systemic change, then, trickster is not a one-off tool but a shape-shifter morphing between clown, sage, and the voice that asks the question no one else dares name. The journey through these stages is itself trickster-like a reminder that creative transformation is rarely linear, often surprising, and always a bit mischievous. So I think we let trickster take us further, rooting practice in tricksteresque space where the grace of emergence calls leaders and communities not just to survive disruption, but to welcome it as the soil in which new worlds may be planted. And in this, perhaps, the trickster makes our world anew, again and again.

 

As part of Alchemy At The Edge I’m thinking of developing three webinars based on these three trickster stages. If you are interested in this please leave me a comment or email me richard@alchemyedge.co.uk 

(The image was my leaving present from the wonderful Emma Richardson.) 

Momentum You Can See and Feel

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In the second episode of Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams The Ultimate Test, down in Newton Heath, Manchester, there’s a key moment. The rebuilding of the clubhouse has slowed; they had lost the lease document and Freddie talks about how nothing had changed since the last visit. Despite this they still get a bunch of young people to show up and start playing. (I’m yet to see if the slow clubhouse progress impacts the wider project). On the Bottle estate, the young people a to move quickly, They want to play proper games with the hard ball, not just knockabouts. They crave the test, the experience of doing the real thing.
It’s a reminder that change often hangs on two surprisingly simple tools: visibility and momentum.

John Kotter, one of the most over quoted figures in change theory, makes much of “short term wins”. His point isn’t just about morale boosting milestones; it’s about the need for evidence. Communities, like individuals, need to see difference made real. A patched fence, a working clubhouse, or that first hard?ball match. Sightlines anchor belief. Without them, the best written vision documents drift into abstraction.
Although I’m yet to watch the rest of the series I suspect in Newton Heath, the clubhouse will be more than bricks and mortar it’s will be a symbol. The slow progress at that site will test patience, while the practice showed possibility but how will the quick and slow play out? (UPDATE just watched the next episode and they had to move to a new venue which I guess kind of proves my point)

At the Northern Mission Centre, we found a parallel when we designed our Speed Incubator. We built it on the principle that pressing the accelerator early helps overcome inertia. Speed matters. Think of it like cycling: harder to push off from standstill, easier once you’re rolling.
In community development, momentum is not about racing ahead irresponsibly. It’s about creating experiences of movement, moments where participants feel the breeze of progress. People learn with their bodies as well as their minds. That first product launched, that story told at a community meal, that visible experiment tried in public, these generate a sense of speed you can feel.
Visible + Experiential = Trust. Bring visibility and speed together, and you start to rebuild trust in the possibility of change. That’s what Freddie Flintoff stumbled into on the Bottle estate. The young people didn’t simply hear him talk about cricket or watch a clubhouse crawl towards completion. They stepped into a match where the sound and sting of the hard ball told them: this is real.
Likewise, our Speed Incubator showed that the feel of “something happening” matters as much as strategy. Prototypes and pilots, no matter how rough, are worth more than perfect plans delayed. The eye sees, the body feels, and the imagination follows.
Lessons for Local Change
For those working in churches, charities and neighbourhood initiatives, the lessons are clear:
• Create visible wins that people can point to. Paint it, patch it, play it, even if it’s not perfect.
• Design for speed experiences that shift momentum. Small risks, real experiments, fast follow?through.
• Remember that change is not only told in documents or meetings, it is embodied in what people see and feel together.
That’s where belief grows. Change is contagious when it shows itself in sights and in motion.

How do you know who is safe

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I recently bumped into an old friend and student who I hadn’t seen for 20 years. He asked “was I still as radical in my theology and thinking as ever?” I said yes probably even more so. He then preceded to tell me about how his church had become fully inclusive a while back and how they lost people. I wonder if in part if he was checking if I was still a safe person to this news with? The encounter made me wonder how in an  age of virtue signalling that can be nefarious, do people who need to share things know you are safe?
So I thought I would ask my friend Jo Dolby a few questions. She is the Community Director of The Oasis Hub Bath.

1) What practices and attitudes can an individual adopt to make it visible and known that they are a safe person for others?

The bottom line for me is about being someone that is committed to self awareness, and who has a desire for learning and growth. The safest people to me are people I know have ‘done the work’ on themselves, whatever that means for them. They know their weaknesses, own their mistakes, apologise when they get it wrong, and see all others as teachers who can help them work out their blind spots and do better when they know better. An obvious process that helps with this is something like therapy, but also anything like spiritual direction, supervision, appraisals (360 feedback is great!) reflective practice etc. Even smaller daily practices can be amazing – like the examen, journalling, meditation or prayer where you leave space for silence and stillness and actively reflect on what you’re experiencing, and what you’re noticing about yourself, others and the world around you. So much of being safe for others is about awareness, so do what you can to increase your own awareness, and tell others about these practices!

I’d also add that it’s impossible to be a totally safe person, and that’s ok! I love Brené Brown’s discussion of the difference between safe spaces and brave spaces, where she argues that to promise safety for someone is to make guarantees about other people (and I would argue yourself) that you just cannot make. We are all human, and we will make mistakes and hurt people, so we cannot always guarantee to be safe, or to provide a totally safe space. A brave space is one where difficulties and differences still happen, but we have the bravery to have the tough conversations, express how we truly feel, and deeply listen to others so we learn and are changed and challenged as a result. I would say try to be safe but mostly be brave – listen as much as you can and ask questions to deepen your understanding (I have a rule of trying to ask two questions before giving an opinion or statement in response to someone!), be open to being wrong, be kind to yourself, be honest and expect others to educate you. If you don’t know the right words to use, just ask!

Finally, don’t underestimate the little things. Small signs often go a long way. When you are wearing a rainbow lanyard, when you include your pronouns in your email footer, when your display a Black Lives Matter badge on your rucksack, when you mark Pride month as a manager with your team in some way, these things communicate to others that you ‘get it’, that you care about this stuff, that you understand and value difference and therefore you will understand and value their difference. This advert for Oslo Pride is incredibly powerful, and demonstrates what a big impact these small acts can have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVepoXddTW4

2) How do you create and hold a space where people feel safe enough to share their real stories and identities, especially when they may have been hurt by church before?

I would echo my thoughts above on creating a brave space, rather than promising a safe one. If you want to dig a bit deeper into what this looks like, the definition of a brave space from the Oxford Review is helpful;

‘Brave space is a concept that goes beyond the traditional safe space ideology. While safe spaces aim to provide refuge from discrimination and harm, Brave Spaces encourage individuals to engage in courageous conversations, confront biases, and challenge perspectives constructively. It acknowledges that discomfort and growth often go hand in hand, and by stepping out of comfort zones, meaningful progress towards inclusivity can be achieved.’

People may feel safe to share their own stories and identities when they see this kind of behaviour modelled – when they know people are not afraid to have tough conversations, challenge perspectives (but from a place of kindness and respect), and when they feel they are seen as someone to learn from, not someone to ‘correct’ or change to become like the group or socially dominant culture of that setting. It’s the difference between inclusion and affirmation – where people are celebrated and seen as a gift, rather than tolerated or included and seen as an inconvenience.

Victoria Stubbs from the University of Maryland, wrote a paper on brave spaces defining six pillars of a brave space, which I also think are helpful. Perhaps you could think about what this might look like in your context or role?

1)    Vulnerability (making yourself vulnerable and at risk of harm)

2)    Perspective taking (owning our own biased perspective and being curious about other’s perspectives)

3)    Leaning into fear (doing the thing we’re afraid of)

4)    Critical thinking (questioning and being open to being questioned)

5)    Examining intentions (“Is what I am about to share for the purpose of advancing dialogue or merely self-serving? Am I oversharing? Is what I am saying operating from a place of personal integrity? Examining our intentions also enables us to hold ourselves accountable for our words and actions thus promoting a deeper level of self-awareness.”)

6)    Mindfulness (Being fully here, in this moment)

When I think specifically about how to make something or somewhere safe (or brave!) for those who have been hurt by church, I also think applying a trauma informed approach is so important. That’s a whole blog post in itself, but across most disciplines there’s agreement that being trauma informed means embedding and applying principles such as trustworthiness, safety (physical and psychological), choice, collaboration, empowerment and cultural consideration.

I’ve chucked some big words and theory out there and you’ll need to work out the application and examples for your context, but there’s as much to be said about doing the right and little things consistently. Asking about pronouns, challenging the sexist joke someone makes, apologising for the mistake you made – all those things are also the application of those bigger principles.

3) In a culture where inclusion can sometimes be used as virtue-signalling, how do you discern authenticity in others and how can I demonstrate authenticity as a leader?

Authenticity to me, particularly in leadership, is so often the difference between words and actions, and whether those things line up. So many people in the past have told me how they’re personally affirming theologically and are totally with and for me, but continue to stay silent about those beliefs. Or others will attend churches that discriminate against people like me and cause great harm with the non-affirming theology they teach and model, but hey, at least “the kids work is great”. Not only do they attend these churches but they resource, support and enable them through the giving of their money, time and energy. They’re part of the problem! I will believe you are authentic when your actions start to match your words, and when you show up in solidarity and sacrifice, speaking out about the things that matter even if it costs you (and your family) something in the process.

I would also challenge us to go beyond inclusion. We don’t talk enough about the problems of inclusion, that actually, it doesn’t go far enough! There is a huge difference between including someone, allowing someone in your space that’s comfortable for you, where you hold the power etc, and affirmation – where difference and diversity are celebrated and seen as essential for the flourishing of a community, and where it’s understood that a community without difference is a community that is lacking and impoverished. You need me and I need you, and when that’s recognised, we can all flourish.

Flags

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Driving back north on Wednesday I saw a lot of flags but one St George’s flag was emblazoned with the words ‘All welcome’.  Which I think captures well the powerful emblem at the heart of England’s story, one capable of both division and unity. Beneath the flag’s simple red cross on white is a turbulent history of meaning: chivalry, resistance, exclusion, revival, appropriation, and hope. For decades, the flag has oscillated between representing inclusive civic pride and marking out territory for exclusionary identity politics.

When identity politics infects symbols like the St George’s flag, balance collapses into threat. Time and again, the flag has been seized by particular movements or parties, often the far right, and weaponised against ‘outsiders’. Suddenly, the flag’s presence can signal anxiety, hostility, and political confrontation, a coded message of unwelcome. Recent rallies and protests, especially those challenging immigration, have made the red cross synonymous in some communities with division and fear, rather than broad belonging. This is not unique: anywhere a symbol is monopolised, it stops representing a collective story and starts policing boundaries.

Such capture is especially corrosive in Britain, where identity has never been one-dimensional; when the flag is wielded as an exclusive badge, it hardens the oscillating debate into antagonistic camps. It provokes reactive opposition, deepens divides, and risks turning patriotism into nationalism.

Yet behind the flag lies a deeper narrative. St George’s cross first entered English heraldry amid crusades, then evolved through centuries as a sign of bravery, sacrifice, and national aspiration. It has flown in the context of sporting triumph, commemoration, regeneration, and even in multicultural solidarity, when British Pakistani communities decorated their homes with the flag during the World Cup as a mark of shared pride, not division.

Restoring balance means anchoring the symbol not in ownership but in story, recognising that the flag only becomes inclusive when its meaning is held in trust by all, and when its display resists the urge to exclude. The phrase ‘All welcome’ challenges us to claim the flag for the many stories of Englishness: the Windrush generation, football fans reclaiming the flag from the BNP, and new citizens asking to belong.

British identity has never been a fixed point but a rhythm, oscillating around the core values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance. Sometimes leaning inward, sometimes outward, always negotiating plural meanings. The St George’s flag, when balanced by an inclusive story, becomes a mirror for this oscillation: both pride and humility, belonging and questioning, celebration and critique.

Identity politics, at its worst, corrupts this balance by locking the flag’s meaning to one group’s fear or resentment. But when the entire story of the flag replete with change, struggle, and inclusion is reinserted by the words “all welcome” the flag becomes a space, a canvas for every citizen’s tale and this dynamic, not static, understanding of identity is the true heartbeat of Britain.

Why Bums on seats might really matter

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I keep asking myself: is the spiritual weather shifting out there or is it just me noticing new clouds? Years of following Jesus have taught me that what seems solid, settled, and “done” often isn’t. The tangled roots of faith are always wriggling, refusing the simplicity of census boxes.

We are pretty familiar with the idea of the Spiritual but not religious people but I have been following the Nones Project research from America that Toby Jones is involved in. If you squint sideways at it, there’s something of our own messy British spiritual landscape there. Especially when we dig into the Dones, those completely finished, and then the NiNos, the “Nones in Name Only” who are still whispering secret prayers, holding onto invisible strings, or turning up at a candlelit church despite claiming no religion at all.

But what does this really mean for us in the UK, trying to read the culture and context and wondering if the so-called “quiet revival” is just one more weather front that will drift off by Thursday?

The Dones sound like people I’ve met around the campfire, feet up, story shared. They’re not staging a protest; they’re just done. The chapter closes quietly. But if you ask where their roots go on a hard night, there’s often a thread leading somewhere, a family ritual, memory, old hopes still warm somewhere inside.
The NiNos I meet everywhere, The “I’m not religious but…” crowd. The ones who  can’t stand the boxes but show up for something real, a blessing in my garden, a  chat on a sofa in a high street, the kind activist or volunteer engaged but not sure why, often looking to belong. Linda Woodhead’s research says our own British “nones” are full of patchwork belief, doubt, ritual, history all looping round like strands of bramble and honeysuckle. Got to love an ecological metaphor!

Against this backdrop we have The Quiet Revival, where church attendance is quietly up. Are these young people supposedly filling our pews the NiNos nosing around the edge, curious and awkward, or are we witnessing a quiet boomerang, a returning of people who never truly left in spirit?

I wonder if we’ve got the whole thing upside down. Maybe the “revival” was always growing beneath our feet, wild, resistant, unplanned, like those pop-up spaces and listening benches I’ve found so beautiful in the mixed ecology. Maybe the really radical thing is learning to notice the gentle stuff instead of chasing the fireworks.

When I look back, I see it again and again: community is rarely tidy; the best spiritual wisdom comes from the edges, the in-between places, the unpolished questions. Perhaps we’re “human becomings,” as Pip Wilson said, meant to unfold in all our messy, glorious, uncontainable uniqueness. The language of faith is always more experiment than doctrine, more bless and release than possess and control, so we need great care for those now turning up.

Maybe we are not living through a spiritual comeback but people are opening their eyes to the quiet revival that’s been running, barefoot, in our midst all along, and only noticing it now there is some bums on seats. So maybe bums on matter if helps the church wake up to what’s been happening all along, and attune itself the gift these people are bringing.