Category Archives: Earthing

The road rises

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As a youth worker for so many years it always feels like September is a start point of the work year. Although I rarely stuck to the path this September for the first time in maybe over 35 years I don’t have a clear work path for the year ahead. So it seems apt to post this thought I shared via Facebook when I decided it was time to move on.

There’s a line in an old Celtic blessing that lingers in the mind  “May the road rise to meet you.” It’s the kind of phrase you might find on a bookmark pressed between the pages of a book, or spoken at the end of service. It’s gentle, but to let it hum with its real quiet, persistent power demands we recognise that the road rises, you meet it as you step forward. Its solidity is made manifest with each step.
This road is Not the tarmac artery that thrums with the pulse of traffic, but the quieter ones: the footpaths that snake through fields, the cobbles slick with rain, the tracks that vanish into the hush of a morning mist. These are roads that don’t announce themselves. They invite you in, and then, step by step, they reveal themselves as you go.

The trouble with writing is it’s too head oriented, indulge me and stand up and lift your foot to step forward, and imagine as you go to place your foot there is shift and road has physically risen to meet you. I like the embodiment of this exercise, the feeling somehow we step and everything changes, the road is not where you expect it to be, each step feels a little odd but there’s a new oneness to the step.

Most of the time, we don’t really know the road we’re on. The blessing doesn’t say, “May you always know where you’re going.” It doesn’t promise a smooth journey, or even a clear signpost. It simply hopes that the road, whatever road it is will rise to meet you.

So the act of being human is that I will keep walking, and trust that the ground will appear beneath my feet. Sometimes, it’s only in looking back that we see the shape of the road at all. But here’s what I’ve learned: taking each step, especially the ones that lead us away from the familiar, is how we move from what is known into what is possible. The roads we know, the well-trodden lanes of habit and orthodoxy, can be comforting, but they can also become ruts, grooves that keep us circling the same old certainties. There’s a subtle courage in stepping off those paths, in letting go of what we think we know, and trusting that something greater than us is changing the laws of the cosmos so the road can rise to meet me. .

Every journey away from the settled and the safe is a journey towards new practice, new knowledge. It’s how we shed the false skins of received wisdom and find something truer, something deeper, something more alive. The road that rises to meet us is not always the one we expected, but it is always the one that teaches us. It asks us to loosen our grip on the old maps, to trust the compass of curiosity, to let experience be our teacher.
Maybe that’s the gift of the blessing. Not certainty, but discovery. Not a guarantee, but a gentle encouragement to keep moving, even when the way ahead is hidden. It’s a reminder that the road like a mountain is not something we conquer or control, but something we meet, one step, one breath, one heartbeat at a time.

So let’s make a toast to the roads that rise, to the journeys that surprise us, and to the quiet courage it takes to keep walking into the unknown.

Resisting Resolution: Living the Questions of the Way and Along the Way

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I bang on a lot about dualism but how do we practically try and live this out, this post try’s to explore that using the idea of resistance and the need to ask questions OF the way and questions ALONG the way.

Theology, at its most vital, resists the seduction of resolution. It thrives in the fertile soil of paradox, where dualisms dissolve and the sacred reveals itself not as a fixed destination but as a dynamic tension between presence and absence, immanence and transcendence. I’ve played around the edges of some radical theology and wondered what would it look like to reframe theological inquiry through two interwoven strands:

– Questions of the Way, drawing on Peter Rollins’ Church of the Contradiction, Alfred North Whitehead’s process thought, and Thomas Altizer’s death-of-God theology,

– Questions Along the Way, informed by Tripp Fuller’s relational openness, Sophie Strand’s ecological mysticism, and Thomas Jay Oord’s theology of love.

Together I think questions of and along the way, sketch a spirituality that embraces uncertainty as sacred, reimagining wholeness not as a static ideal but as a participatory dance between becoming and letting go.
5 Questions of the Way: Unsettling Dualism Through Paradox
1. What if faith is sustained by doubt, not dissolved by it?
Rollins’ Church of the Contradiction rejects the dualism of belief/unbelief, arguing that faith flourishes when we relinquish certainty. His liturgy of the “Kinder Surprise” (a hollow egg) invites worshippers to confront the absence at Christianity’s core, a God who, in Lacanian terms, is “barred” from full presence. This mirrors Altizer’s claim that the death of God is the event of faith: transcendence collapses into immanence, and the divine is reborn in the act of letting go. Here, faith becomes a practice of holding, not resolving, the tension between God’s absence and presence.
2. Can process theology redeem God from perfection?
Whitehead’s God is not omnipotent but a “fellow sufferer who understands,” evolving through time. This undermines the dualism of Creator/creation, reframing divinity as a persuasive force within, not above, the world’s unfolding. If God is “dipolar”, both eternal and temporal, how does this reshape our vision of holiness? Holiness becomes a collaborative pursuit, not a fixed state.
3. Is divine self-annihilation the heart of Christian love?
Altizer’s radical kenosis, (God’s self-emptying into the world) collapses the transcendent/immanent binary. The cross becomes the ultimate icon of this inversion: God’s death births a sacred world. This provokes a startling question: Does atheism, in its rejection of a detached deity, become Christianity’s fullest expression?
4. How do liturgies of absence heal our addiction to answers?
Rollins’ “pyrotheology” designs rituals to expose the void beneath religious symbols, Such practices disrupt the dualism of sacred/profane, inviting communities to dwell in the anxiety of unresolved questions. Could embracing liturgical instability train us to resist ideological certitude in politics and ethics?
5. Does beauty demand imperfection?
Whitehead’s God lures the world toward harmony, but beauty arises from contrast, order and chaos, novelty and tradition. If God is not a cosmic dictator but a poet coaxing cadence from chaos, how do we reconcile suffering with divine persuasion? The answer lies in releasing the dualism of control/chaos, seeing creativity in constraint.

5 Questions Along the Way: Weaving Immanence and Transcendence
1. Is prayer a collaboration, not a petition?
Tripp Fuller’s open theology reimagines prayer as co-creative dialogue. God, as the “living body of the world,” does not dictate outcomes but participates in the messy improvisation of existence. This erodes the dualism of divine/human agency, framing prayer as a dance of mutual influence.
2. What if decay is sacred?
Sophie Strand’s eco-mysticism finds divinity in decomposition, the mycelium breaking down fallen logs, the carbon cycles of life and death. If God is entangled with ecological processes, how do we ritualize grief for a warming planet? Strand suggests composting despair into activism, seeing rot as resurrection in slow motion.
3. Can love exist without coercion?
Thomas Jay Oord’s kenotic love insists God cannot override free will. This rejects the dualism of power/weakness, proposing that divine strength lies in vulnerability. If love is inherently non-coercive, how does this transform our approach to justice? Perhaps justice becomes less about imposing order and more about nurturing conditions for flourishing.
4. Is uncertainty a spiritual gift?
Fuller and Rollins both frame doubt as a generative force. If the future is truly open, faith becomes a commitment to curiosity. What spiritual practices, silence, communal discernment, paradox meditation might help us embrace “holy not-knowing”?
5. Are churches crucibles for collective becoming?
Rollins’ insurrectionary communities and Fuller’s “Homebrewed Christianity” reimagine church as a lab for experimentation. This resists the dualism of institution/individual, suggesting that spiritual growth happens in the friction of diverse perspectives. How might congregations structure themselves to prioritize questions over answers?

Perhaps the conclusion is that  Wholeness is found in Dynamic Tension, To resist resolution is to participate in the pulsing heart of Christian faith, a tradition rooted in the scandal of a God who is both transcendent and immanent, crucified and risen, fully divine and fully human. The Incarnation, Trinity, and Eucharist all encode this nondual logic: wholeness emerges not from erasing tension but from holding it reverently.
Julian of Norwich’s “All shall be well” is not a naively optimistic slogan but a radical affirmation that wellness resides in the struggle itself. When we release the dualistic urge to resolve the questions of the Way and along the Way, we encounter a God who is neither “up there” nor “down here” but in the relational flow between. This is the dynamic fullness Paul described as “Christ in you, the hope of glory” a hope that thrives precisely where certainty ends.
In the end, resisting resolution is an act of trust: that the tension between transcendence and immanence is not a problem to solve but a mystery to inhabit. As Whitehead wrote, “The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” To live the questions, then, is to participate in the divine art of weaving wholeness from paradox.

the violence of endless growth

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Pretty much every year since moving Cumbria we have had snow in winter and noticeable season (albeit with a lot of rain), its a place where the rhythms of the land and the needs of our communities are so present. One thing that troubles me is how easily we absorb the logic of the systems of world around us, especially the relentless drive for endless growth, rather than the logic rootedness of place. In so we are complict in a kind of violence to ourselves, to others, to creation, and to the very systems we are part of.

Endless growth is not neutral, yet the capitalist system is built on the myth that endless economic growth is both necessary and beneficial. But when you look closely, this drive for perpetual expansion is about profit, not people or planet. It’s about extracting more, consuming more, and externalising the costs whether that’s pollution, exploitation, or the destruction of habitats and communities. The result is a world where the rich get richer, the poor and the planet suffers, and everyone is trapped on a treadmill, running faster but never really getting anywhere.

When we stop looking up and out, internalise the logic of growth, we start to measure our worth by productivity, by accumulation, by what we can consume or achieve. We become exhausted, anxious, and disconnected from the deeper rhythms of life. We sacrifice rest, relationships, and even our health on the altar of “more.” We do violence to ourselves, a slow erosion of joy, meaning, and peace.

Capitalism’s endless growth depends on exploitation. It treats workers, communities, and even whole nations as resources to be used up and discarded. The pursuit of profit means that people are paid less than they deserve, forced into precarious work, or displaced from their homes and land. The system is set up so that a few benefit at the expense of the many. As we buy into this we do violence to others; structural, systemic, and often invisible, but no less real.

The environmental cost of endless growth is devastating and it is plain to see in the wether patterns and ecology. Forests are cleared, rivers poisoned, species driven to extinction, and the climate disrupted. Capitalism’s need for continuous expansion leads to resource depletion and ecological collapse. We are literally killing the world that sustains us and calling it “progress.” we are complicit in violence to creation.

We are not separate from the systems we live in and these do not need to be violent. When we participate in the logic of endless growth, we perpetuate cycles and systems of harm. Our churches, our communities, and our institutions can become complicit prioritising numbers, budgets, and buildings over people, relationships, and the common good. This is violence to the systems we are part of, a corruption of what was designed and ordained  good and so it distorts our values and undermines our mission.

What if, instead of chasing endless growth, we embraced a different rhythm? What if we valued sustainability, justice, and care for one another and the earth? What if our churches became places of rest, resistance, and renewal, where we learn to live differently, to share what we have, and to challenge the violence of the status quo?

At its best in Cumbria the new ways of being church, gathering around campfires, sharing meals, listening deeply, and learning to trust something beyond ourselves, offer an alternative. We’re trying to let go of the need to fix everything, to control outcomes, or to measure our worth by what we produce. Instead, they’re learning to be present, to accompany one another, and to let our gifts emerge organically.

As we gather around the table, the campfire, or the Sunday papers, let’s flex the muscle of hope dare to imagine and live into that different future.

The interactive power of Language, Metaphor and Models

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I have been thinking a lot about the role lanaguage as a precursor to change. What I’m keen to do with Alchemy At The Edge is not to be a coach, but co-create system change with people, and this means not simply asking people to adopt frameworks or models I have used. Remember “all models are wrong but some are helpful”. So thinking about how I can use the interaction of lanaguage and the models I have developed to grow something more contextual in any given situation.

Noah Lowery writes, “Through language, we create meaning, structure our thoughts, and ultimately, shape our perception of the world,” and “Language is a powerful tool that constructs our reality by shaping our thoughts, perceptions, and social constructs.” These insights invite us to consider the profound influence of language not merely as a medium of communication but as a foundational framework through which we conceptualise and engage with our world.

Language, as Lowery highlights, is indispensable in crafting meaning and defining the boundaries of our understanding. It allows us to articulate abstract concepts, delineate systems, and construct narratives. However, the transformative potential of language in systemic change goes beyond the act of expression. It provides the initial scaffolding to identify and develop metaphors, the cognitive tools that bridge from the abstract towards the tangible.

Take, for example, the metaphor of the “Mixed Ecology Trellis,” a framework that can be adapted to diverse contexts to support outcomes, allocate resources, and deploy strategies effectively. Here, the trellis serves as a conceptual structure, a visual and functional metaphor for cultivating growth, fostering interconnectedness, and guiding systemic adaptation. While the language introduces and explains the metaphor, its real power lies in how it is operationalized: by transforming abstract ideas into actionable tools.

This is where the limits of language as a solitary agent of change become evident. Systems are complex, and while language enables us to name and frame issues, it is through the tangible enactment of these ideas that change is realised. The “Mixed Ecology Trellis” does not merely describe; if used well it directs. It offers a flexible yet structured way to engage with systems, balancing stability with the ability to respond dynamically to varying needs.

To illustrate, consider a community grappling with resource allocation. The trellis metaphor can guide their strategy by suggesting a living system where resources are channeled like nutrients, fostering growth where it is most needed while maintaining the overall health of the system. Through this lens, language shapes understanding, the metaphor provides focus, and the tool, the trellis, enables action.

This interplay highlights a key truth: language alone cannot dismantle entrenched systems of inequality, inefficiency, or injustice. What it does is spark the imagination and frame the possibilities for action. By identifying the right metaphors, we bridge the gap between conceptual understanding and practical application, equipping communities, organisations, and individuals with tools that drive meaningful change.

While language may not directly change systems, it is undeniably the starting point for envisioning the change we seek. As Lowery aptly states, it constructs our reality, providing the cognitive foundation for shaping thoughts, perceptions, and, ultimately, actions. When paired with actionable metaphors and tools like the Mixed Ecology Trellis, language becomes more than a means of communication, it becomes a catalyst for transformation.

Building Communities That Honour the “Other” and resist unconscious capitalist bias.

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At the heart of many of the issues we face is our unconscious tetheredness to capitalism and how this playing out in its late stages. Inspired by  Ian Mobsby recent article I wanted to explore more how non othering emerging church or community spaces might play out practically in the light of my recent posts. As Ian highlights Merton wrote  “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves…”

This vision of love—unpossessive, liberating, and rooted in radical acceptance—is both beautiful and destabilising. It asks us to relinquish control, to release our grip on outcomes, and to embrace the sacred chaos of difference. But how do we translate this into the messy reality of community-building? What practical approaches may help us resist the urge to “twist” others into our image. Here’s a few thoughts drawing from Merton’s theology, eco-feminist thought, and lived experiments I have been involved in over the years.

How do we build on Divine Love, Not Human Effort, Merton argued that true community is founded not on our “own love” but on “God’s love”—a love that “puts us in a position where sometimes natural community is very difficult” . This shifts the focus from compatibility (seeking those like us) to faith in something larger than ourselves. Christina Cleveland writes similarly in her work on reconciliation. What I particularly like about Christina’s work is her acknowledgment of the mental and emotional energy these spaces take. Stereotyping and categorisation are short cuts are hard to override and even in a more enlightened outlook it’s takes energy and intention to try and inhabit these spaces.
In practice either joining or intentionally gathering people across ideological, cultural, or generational divides, through local community garden for instance could a way forward. However in reality too often these spaces can be pretty homogenous. So intentionality to host shared spaces is needed eg meals where climate activists, retirees, and teenagers collaborate on composting projects, learning to listen without agenda.
A key for us in Cumbria has been to Ritualise surrender, in our Cmpfire gatherings we set the tone by saying we are not here to fix things and use a talking stick for simply creating a space to listen deeply. I wonder what would it look like to begin meetings with a simple practice: “We are here not because we agree, but because we trust something beyond us.” Reframing conflict and spaces as generative, not destructive.

Borrowing from ideas in  Eco-Theology of Becoming-With what does it mean to move on from notions that we need to fix stuff. Donna Haraway’s concept of “becoming-with”—seeing humans as entangled with non-human beings and ecosystems, resonates with Merton’s call to love others as they are. This ecological lens rejects transactional relationships (e.g., “I’ll love you if you change”) in favour of mutual accompaniment.
Soil doesn’t demand plants conform to its image; it nourishes what grows. Applying this to community roles: lets gifts emerge organically. What would it look like to shift from hierarchical leadership to something more organic based on needs at particular times and where tasks are claimed based on passion, not just expertise.

In Alchemy At The Edge I’m working on the idea of Listening Fast and Listening Slow, and how context changes the listening process. If we host walks where members share stories while attending to the more-than-human world—birdsong, wind, urban rhythms our listening will be very different.  This approach dilutes the ego’s voice and fosters the type of missional humility the church really needs.

There is an unconscious capitalist bias around progress and growth. It’s something we have noticed in our mixed ecology trellis, because it can read like a graph people make an assumption that we value top right more than bottom left. We can these challenge capitalist efficiency assumptions by honouring those who simply be—the elderly, neurodivergent, or chronically ill, as vital to the community’s ecosystem. In the context of the Mixed Ecology of church this means recognising the value of everyone on the Trellis.

I love TAZ spaces and Merton acknowledged that “we are going to make mistakes” in community, but “it really doesn’t matter that much” if rooted in good faith . This liberates us from the myth of permanence, inviting experimentation. Do we really value process Over Perfection or again is our desire to get it right or make it permanent, or sustainable part of a capitalist bias. Creating pop-up spaces, temporary, theme-based communities (e.g., a 40-day Lenten arts collective or a prayer space, a listening bench) allow people to practise radical acceptance without lifelong commitment mirroring something to a TAZ.

We also need to normalise endings: what would it look like have fixed point reviews where you expect to end something unless there’s a real reason to continue, so we prevent stagnation and power hoarding. Instead of asking did this meet x or y outcome we could ask  “How did we help you become more yourself and would changing or ending our structure/meeting/values etc help you become more authentically you?
Instead of thinking  every relationship needs resolution or a space needs to continue what would a bless and release ritual for departing members or spaces look like  acknowledging their ongoing role in other spaces, with real joy and sadness.

Merton’s vision of love is no sentimental ideal. It demands courage to dwell in uncertainty, to release the ego’s need for control, and to trust that “the power of God’s love will be in it” even when our efforts feel fragile.  In a world obsessed with optimisation, building communities that honour the “other” becomes countercultural resistance—a way to “stay with the trouble” (Haraway) and find holiness in the unpolished, the unresolved, and the unscripted. Perhaps the most radical practice is this: to love a community enough to let it evolve beyond our own imagination.
“We are human becomings,” as Pip Wilson once wrote. May our communities become spaces where all people can unfold in their wild, messy, gloriously uncontainable uniqueness.

The gift of the edge and bias as a virtue

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Nigel Pimlott and I spent well over a decade at FYT and we have both moved from there to what I would call the edge of the inside. Nigel now works with the Methodist Church as Regional Learning and Development Officer (4 days a week) and church-wide Evangelism and Growth Officer (1 day a week), and I work as the Director of Mission Innovation and Fresh Expressions in Cumbria. So, in the next few posts Nigel and I will explore some of the early and more recent pioneer learning and explore why the church can seem reluctant to draw on this resource.

To set the scene I want to revisit some of the cultural backdrop and responses to the story we now find ourselves in. The pace of cultural change has been accelerating over the last 70 years. Where previously we talked about longer term generational change, more recently significant cultural shifts have been noted at least every ten years. The Face Magazine back in the noughties was talking about significant shifts every decade: 1960’s The Decade of Optimism, 1970’s The Decade of Decline, 1980’s The Decade of the Individual, 1990’s Caring and Sharing, 2000s The Digital Decade. Although the Face article only went up to the noughties, several commentators suggest 2010’s as The Decade of Participation. This with the larger overarching constructs of Post-Modernism and Post-Christendom was the culture I swam in when I started in ministry back in the late 80s. For at least two decades I felt I was swimming in a completely different sea to everyone else. During that time I was grateful to link with Frontier Youth Trust who grew in response to the challenging culture of the 1960s seeking to respond to these new entities called “teenagers”. With FYT I started to recognise, thanks to the brilliant work of Jim Punton and Terry Dunnell, that as well as finding new ways to do things we also had to find new ways to think about things. I learnt that practice and reflection went hand in hand and as early as 1993 with others we started thinking through the need for a new type of ecclesiology. We had critical conversation partners such as Jim Punton, whose work on shalom was key, and several early pioneer workers and thinkers with decades of experience, like David Watson (and Graham Cray), Jeanne Hinton, Pip Wilson, and David Sheppard. It is interesting to reflect on how well these people were listened to at the time and how this helped prepare the way for some radical change, and later Nigel picks up why we may struggle to listen as well to edge now.

The two Loops of Change theory talks about the need for innovators to network and this was key to the survival of what was being birthed throughout the 90s and 00s. Towards the turn of the century a clear emerging church movement was building (often with youth workers getting older and trying to work out how to connect to their culture) and slowly we met others who were in the same ocean. Eventually the structures also started to recognise what was happening on the edge, and that they were perhaps not as well equipped as they thought to swim well in these fast moving currents, so Fresh Expressions was bought into being. Someone once said that Fresh Expressions was the “Research and Development wing” of the church. For the past 20 years several key denominations have been investing in Fresh Expressions, this generosity is a gift to pioneers and now maybe this wealth of learning could be a gift to the church.

With the two loops in mind churches have innovated well in the lockdown, either in the online space or in other ways, so it maybe worth asking, how are you networking with others to build knowledge and support yourselves? Many churches have been brilliantly creative, but innovators need to network not just for new ideas but more importantly to build the resilience needed to resource continuation. Someone once asked me when I was speaking at Greenbelt to say in three words what is needed in today’s missionary context and my answer was Courage, Courage, Courage. As churches reopen the pressure to restart the old will be on, but we can’t do everything, and you will need courage to say no, to not restart some things, courage to stand with what the spirit has been doing for the last weeks and courage to go to new places theologically. Networking will help you build the knowledge and story base to hold the innovative space you have found, and the friendships you build through networking will sustain and nourish your innovation, but alongside this maybe invite a local pioneer to walk with you through the processes, they will probably have more questions than answers but that is important right at the top of change curve.

Richard

Appreciating the hidden harvest: bias as virtue – Nigel writes…..

I’ve recently done some Unconscious Bias training. I’ve worked hard over the years and hopefully become more fully aware of my biases. As a white middle aged man, I think I have reasonably successfully endeavored to raise consciousness-levels regarding any gender, sexuality and race bias I may have had and I have sought to change my thinking and behaviour accordingly. However, I have recently become very aware of a whole set of biases that I embrace which I didn’t really know were there. I am pondering if these biases are a problem, or if they should not be called biases at all, but rather aspirations, virtues and/or essentials. Let me explain …

I am biased towards the ‘new’ and innovation – I think that’s an aspiration. I am committed to working in diverse and creative ways – I think this bias is a virtue. I remain passionate about involving younger people (participation) in the life of the church and I am biased to hearing all the voices in as many ways as possible, and on their terms – I think that’s an essential. Bias on the basis of gender, sexuality, or race is, I believe, a big problem, but the biases I refer to here I consider virtues, not problems. My challenge is, I note other people don’t see things this way. For them, my ‘new’, ‘creative’, ‘younger’ biases are a threat.

In 2015-16 The Methodist Church carried out research into 15 years of involvement with fresh expressions and in 2019 produced a report of the findings – Methodism’s Hidden Harvest. The research concluded that fresh expressions have been extremely successful in welcoming previously unaffiliated people into Christian faith exploration and participation, certainly much more successful than the vast majority of inherited Methodist churches. So why isn’t everybody who wants to reach unaffiliated people drawing on these research findings and deploying them?

• Why isn’t everybody looking to start something new rather than simply maintain ‘what is’? The research notes that fresh expressions are evangelistically fruitful, with an estimated 65% of those attending having no previous involvement in church.

• Why isn’t everybody looking to grow the church working in diverse and creative ways – the research notes that fresh expressions work in multiple and creative ways to make disciples and asks if this is an important factor inherited church needs to embrace if it is to similarly attract unaffiliated people.

• If the church wants to engage and disciple younger people, why does it not embrace how fresh expressions go about doing this as they appear much more successful at it?

Could it be that the reluctance to embrace the new, creativity and younger people’s participation is the unconscious bias, perhaps conscious bias, of some people against such things? If so, this bias is putting them in danger of disregarding things which don’t fit their own templates, paradigms and worldviews, at the expense of making disciples and growing the church. In other words, the problem isn’t my bias for these things, but the bias of those who will not embrace such things.

Of course, it’s not as simple as this, nor a binary choice, and hopefully not a case of inherited church vs fresh expressions; ‘them and us’. Having said that it sometimes feels like it is! Drawing on a bit of political bias thinking, I will explain what I mean.
There is what is known as Confirmation bias – in our context this is when someone favours information about church that affirms their existing paradigms and worldviews. People who like inherited models of church and who don’t want to change might, for example, draw exclusively on narratives that value tradition and predictability of output. They might use information that espouses the familiar, embeds and promotes an ‘it’s what we know’ paradigm. In my experience, whenever I draw on research findings like the Hidden Harvest? report, endeavor to facilitate debate, and/or offer suggestions to those in declining churches facing uncertain futures, there is more often than not push back and a negative response to counteracting information – like the value of new approaches, creativity, and aiming younger – which conflicts with favoured information.
Then there is what is called Coverage bias – this is when, for example, someone happily tells (covers) stories that relate to the ‘good old days’, when the church was full, overseas mission adventures from yesteryear, what happened in 1970, but rarely, if ever, tells stories or allows space for others to tell stories, about what is happening now in new forms of church and the changed lives of those becoming disciples.

Thirdly, I would highlight Concision bias – where people selectively focus on information, ignoring nuance and context, in ways that crowd out different views that take longer to explain. For example, someone will often counteract my encouragement for the new, creative and younger with a tale of when a fresh expression closed, a project failed or a young person left. The detail, reasons, learning and legacy are never portrayed, just the (perceived) negative outcome.

A couple of years back I had surgery for cancer. It was radical, impacting and has meant things will forever be different. If I had not had it, my future was uncertain, and I probably would have died many years prematurely. I needed to set aside my bias against someone chopping bits out of me, having lots of injections, not to mention several other deeply personal things that might not be appropriate to mention in a public blog. It was challenging but necessary.

If we are to set aside our biases and embrace the virtuous findings of research and development from fresh expressions of church, the consequent changes we need to make will be challenging and necessary. If we don’t make them, we may discover our end is also more premature than it might have otherwise been.

You can access the full results of the Hidden Harvest? research here

Dr Nigel Pimlott
Expressing a personal reflection especially for Sunday Papers

The relentless fight for political freedom from the market, a missional response

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At the height of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln gave and address at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 that contained these words. “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”  What we sometimes forget, is that this battle was directly related to the global market system of the time.  The battle in the USA was whether the State was there in the vision of the founding mothers and fathers of the nation to be centred on human freedom, or like many other nations, end up just another expression of an oppressive feudal state where the uber rich oppress the many.  The battle at the heart of this civil war was for the right to enslave human beings as the cheapest form of labour in the growing of global commodities of the time.  Lincoln won the battle, but I do not think he won the war.  Looking back at the USA now in 2020, I think we can clearly see that the market won and civil rights has never been fully delivered in one of the most divided and unequal societies in the world.

What exists now in the USA and now in the UK is economic slavery, maintaining cheap labour with reduced employment and terrible wages.  The Global Market won, and democracy and equality lost out.  We are now all commodified and where human dignity is now in decline.  You could argue that actually there has been a constant state of battle in the Western World ever since the Black death in 1346, when the feudal system and oppressive market society collapsed in the pandemic, as there were too few workers, so that wages and freedoms had to rise to ensure crops and industry were sustained. It was purely economics that drove this social change, and that since then there has been a battle between a society of justice and fairness v a market feudal oppressive system culminating in our current society.  Until recently you could argue the market had won, but now in another global pandemic, will this give us an opportunity again to diminish the power and relentless scourge of the market society? Or will it actually make a more feudalist system more likely to be reimposed? How does the church respond?

We remember that Jesus’ entire ministry happened in the context of the oppression of the Jewish people under the super power of the time, and that included the imposition of an international market system at the time.  It has always been a personal bafflement to me why Jesus did not call out this oppression at the time, other than Jesus being clear about money about fairness and money being of this world in Caesars name. The only hint of challenge to this, are the words of Jesus before Pilate after he had been flogged where he says “I am not of this world’.  Chad Myers helpfully reminds us that the greek here for ‘world’ here is ‘Kosmos’ the same as ‘domination system’.  With this in mind, Jesus is calling out the Roman Empire as a militaristic market society as a domination system and so we Christians, holding onto our understanding of Jesus ‘now but not fully yet’ Kingdom in the context of having to live in a domination system, but not of a domination system,

I want to point out at this point, I am not being an extreme Socialist or Communist, this is the stories of the Gospels and and Letters of the Apostles, and my thought has always been that more conservatively inclined Christians really need to get back the Gospel narrative, as you will be in for a shock!

So how do Christians react to the reality that our market society continues to oppression and now leads to destruction with global warming and ecocide.  Mission has to start with economic, ecological and social justice.  These are the heart of the Judaeo-Christian understandings of stewardship, jubilee and the Kingdom.  We can not idly sit by and see successive governments just continue to oppress people.  What will it take for Christians in the UK to stand up to the oppression of the market and the invisible power of the super-rich as Jesus sides with the unbearably poor?  What will it take to seek a Government that prevents the excesses of the market system by what used to be called a mixed economy?  What will it take for this to be seen by the church to be a missional priority?  It is not just about evangelism , fresh expressions and new ecclesial communities.  like Jesus turned over the market stalls in the temple for causing de-sacralisation, so we as Christians should be challenging and turning over the market stalls threatening the wellbeing of people and the continued existence of our planet.  It is high time that the Christian Church rediscovered it’s calling and historic roots. Now in this pandemic, can we face this calling to prophetic witness and prophetic living.

Is the normal we once knew worth returning to? – 10 Hyperglocal tips for a different future after lockdown

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I’m fascinated by the ramping up of the magnificent marketing machine preparing the way for a return to consumerism. Yes I’m looking forward to the freedom post lockdown but if we come out of the situation unchanged I think we need to ask some pretty big questions of our own humanity. It’s great that so many people are considering whether the normal they once knew is worth returning to. There have been a few memes floating around and they are asking the same question in different ways and Russell Brand pretty much hits the nail here.

However what I want to suggest are 10 Hyperglocal tips towards a different future.

Glocal was a term mainly coined in business terms around how to be a global brand that rolls out local variations to suit a local market. Think Macdonalds offering different burgers in different cultures. Later the term was taken up by environmental activists exploring how to address climate change by thinking of the global climate crisis and acting locally. What I mean by Hyperglocal is about both the small elements of activism we can do locally but also share globally through social media networks etc so the first tip is just that:

1. Be Hyperglobal – share your thoughts and small acts of resistance to the normal, that once was, with the wider world. Whether you are a poet, a pray-er, a philosopher, a carer, a doctor, or a nurse, and let’s be honest, the voices of nurses and bus drivers questioning the lack of PPE and dying as a result of their jobs, are some of the most heart wrenching stuff we will ever hear.

2. Be Courageous – call out the bad normal that once was. I love that Captain Tom Moore has raised over £10,000000 for the NHS and I’m not criticising him, but why the hell does the NHS have to be supported by additional charity, not to mention that we have been underfunding the NHS and undervaluing key workers for decades.

3. Be Aware – Take time to respond to the feelings you are having about questioning the normal that once was. Pause and reflect and throw those questions and angst out into the ether of social media, you might be surprised who responds and how this can equip you to move forwards.

4. Be Attentive – Notice the small things. People have talked about hearing the birds in Wuhan or seeing the mountain goats in Llandudno, notice this stuff in your locality and use it to resource your resolve when bombarded by busy-ness on the return to “normal” either by noticing those small things that continue, or their absence when they get squeezed out.

5. Question Language – In fact question most stuff that’s media and marketing related. Already the marketing machine has shifted its message to being “with” you at this time, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos saw his wealth grow by $24BILLION since the start of corona, whilst many of their workers fear for their health, and when the chancellor suggests we need to get the balance between health and the economy, what does that really mean, and what is your local response to all this? Yes we might question the long term economic sustainability if we are trying to return to the normal we once knew but remember that normal was a mirage, so we don’t have to play the same game any more. Research and support different economic possibilities, suppliers and use the questioning of language to help build some resistance to the lies we were once sold and will be re-ramped up as soon as lockdown ends. Indeed we are likely to see marketing messages about returning to “normal” as doing our bit to help economic recovery, when what we really need is a recovery package more like the 12 step programme to challenge our addiction.

6. Help others find a new vocabulary – keep reinforcing the message that the real key workers aren’t the business bosses. Start locally to do stuff that helps by giving the supermarket workers a thumbs up, gifting something to the refuse workers, etc and share your ideas and actions with others. Look for the positives of the lockdown (I know for some this will be easier than others depending in circumstances) and frame your language around this to explain and remind yourself of different possibilities.

7. Act yourself into new ways of being – Learn different ways of doing, behaving and belonging. Do-Be-Do, don’t rush back to the old ways but pause and reflect each time after picking up an old activity to ask if this is needed, helpful, healthy or simply a quick fix to the false normal. Take time to learn how to grow your own food, get an allotment, learn how to meditate, make that career change/move you have always wanted.

8. Live a different rhythm – many people are putting in different spaces into their day to help them cope with the lockdown, time to read, time to chat online with friends, experiment now with what works for you and join online groups or connect with friends to help you keep these up afterward.

9. Keep being Neighbourly and keep volunteering – If the lockdown has taught us anything it has been the rise of good community neighbourliness. From the practical support to simply chatting over fences. We too easily exist in social media echo chambers, but we rarely choose our neighbours, and so they are a great resource for hearing difference. Equally the massive response to the request for volunteers was great, and volunteering is a great way to open yourself up to newness and break out the bubbles you’re in.

10. Be still and Still Moving – many people will have to for a time at least return to jobs they no longer really want to be in. But can we cultivate a stillness deep in our being that will carry us through as we take the steps we need to change to the new normal we might be dreaming of.

I want to be a simple soul, and live in the Jesus way

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I want to be a simple soul, and live in the Jesus way….
I won’t draw lines of exclusion – because when you do Jesus is on the other side, or there with a giant eraser.
I won’t pull up the drawbridge, close the door, shut the gate – because when you do Jesus cuts the strings of security, invites the stranger in swings wide the opening.
I won’t give in to the power to perform, possess, or provide – because Jesus resisted and found the better way of love.

Co-creating rites of passage

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I love it when worlds collide and so often something amazing happens. Core to a good experience is that both worlds enter into the conversation and work out the way forward together. Grayson Perry has done this brilliantly with the first of his rites of passage pieces on Channel Four. The way he curates the living wake is simply beautiful, for the individual involved and the community around him, it is the best example of co-creating space I have seen in a long time.

As I reflected on the programme it made me reflect on how of all the major rites, perhaps, death is the one where the church is at its best. The process of developing the funeral service is co-created between the ministers and the family, its personal, its poignant because the space is co-created, it doesn’t matter where on the faith journey the participants are, their opinions and ideas are valued and included where possible. Perhaps something similar happens at weddings.

This co-creation of space is at the heart of the emerging church for me. It is what helps it move from a position of power to service, from orthodoxy to grounded orthopraxis, and make real connections that help us all discover the g-d we don’t yet know.