Category Archives: Faithful Improv

Why Bums on seats might really matter

Posted on by
Reply

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. 

Beyond Blueprints: How Systems Thinking Can Transform Mission

Posted on by
1

We are intertwined systems, they shape us and  we, in turn, shape them. In the years I been blogging here I have  long explored the tangled roots of mission, church, and community, resisting the urge to slip into tidy dualisms or easy binaries. Instead, I’ve tried to inhabit that compost-rich space where culture and nature, activism and contemplation, all intermingle. As I look to the next chapter I want to reflect on that  learning particularly from the “Crafting Mission in Systems” journey and see how they are resonating with the work of Alchemy At The Edge. Skip to the bottom of the post if you want to see 3 services that people are finding particularly helpful at the moment.

From Compost to Craft: Mission as Alchemy

Mission is not a static program to be rolled out, an ABC or a rock-solid truth to be defended. It’s a living, breathing system, a field of relationships, stories, and experiments. We are not outside the system, tinkering with its gears; we are the system. As Bayo Akomolafe says, “we are not stuck in traffic, we are the traffic”.

Alchemy At The Edge, in its very name, hopes to evoke the ancient art of transformation. Alchemy was always more than a quest to turn lead into gold; it was a way of seeing, a practice of attending to the hidden processes that bring about change, both in matter and in the soul. The alchemist’s work was slow, patient, and deeply attentive to the interplay of elements. In the same way, I hope my services are about facilitating transformation within organisations, teams, and individuals, not by imposing a blueprint, but by cultivating the conditions for emergence and growth.

Letting Go of Control: Embracing the Unknown

One of the persistent themes in Sunday Papers is the tension between epistemology (knowing, controlling, securing) and ontology (being, becoming, risking). In the “Crafting Mission in Systems” post, we are reminded that real change rarely comes from clinging to certainty. Instead, it emerges when we risk stepping into the unknown, when we allow “grace spaces” to disrupt our routines and invite us into new patterns of relationship.

Alchemy At The Edge’s approach will mirror this and are be not about delivering off-the-shelf solutions or quick fixes. Recently I worked with a diocese and the planning and preparation sessions with the leadership team were so key in making sure what was delivered was not just properly contextual but also spoke to the deeper issues being faced. I want to work alongside people and systems to co-create processes that honour the complexity and uniqueness of every context. To help organisations raise their head beyond the pulpit and step into new possibilities, trusting that something richer and more generative can emerge.

Systems, Stories, and Soul Work

At the heart of both the Sunday Papers ethos and Alchemy At The Edge’s practice is a commitment to deep listening and story. Systems are not just structures; they are made up of people, histories, and hopes. Transformation happens when we pay attention to the stories we tell, the rituals we practice, and the ways we show up for one another.

Alchemy At The Edge will facilitate this kind of soul work within organisations not just individuals. Creating spaces where teams can surface hidden assumptions, name what matters most, and imagine new ways of working together. Like the alchemist, they know that true change is both an art and a science,  that it unfolds in stages, often requiring us to sit with uncertainty and paradox.

The Edge of Becoming

To craft mission in systems is to embrace the messy, generative work of transformation. All models are wrong but some are helpful. As I have started having conversations and work with dioceses and other clients a few key assets/models/processes have emerged that people are finding helpful and I can build sessions around. These include

1. Scale – Scaling Out is pretty straight forward as good ideas spread but Scaling Up or Deep is more challenging. I have been working on processes that help identify what and blocks and opportunities for Scaling Up and Deep which  will embed and accelerate change.

2.Mixed Ecology Trellis – lots of dioceses have found the Trellis helpful to describe and value the whole Mixed Ecology of church, but don’t realise that it can be operationalised as a diagnostic tool both for leadership development and to Scale Out at local and regional levels.

3 Theory of change development – if you aim at nothing you hit it. Recent sessions helping people explore the why behind what they do have been helpful in designing better processes. This not only ensures that what they value is front and centre but that these values inform and drive real change. Too often organisations talk about being values driven without a real understanding or process to ensure they translate in action and lasting change.

In the end, perhaps the greatest gift we can offer is to hold space and to trust that in the compost something beautiful and unexpected can take root.

“We are all in the system. The truth is at hand and it’s held with an open palm… the kin-dom is so much more than we can imagine.”

For a conversation on what I can offer your organisation or diocese please GET IN TOUCH

 

Re-enchantment

Posted on by
Reply

This post has been sparked by a post from Andrew Jones (TSK) asking a question about the place and space enchantment may have now there are 3.5 billion online gamers, inhabiting mystical worlds. Yet when I questioned some younger people about the possible impact their response was they could see little connection as they inhabit many of these spaces and still compartmentalise life. But perhaps they underestimate the pervasive nature of culture because a quick glance around their rooms will often reveal that the icons of the virtual space make it into the physical one.

Many psychologists and philosophers argue that modern life is increasingly defined by fragmentation and compartmentalisation. Our days are still split into work, leisure, family, and digital selves, each with its own codes, expectations, and emotional boundaries but this is somewhat weakening with the rise of side hustles, and a rejection of unfulfilling work. Division allows us to manage stress or trauma by separating conflicting experiences and identities, but the same process can lead to a sense of internal discord, draining energy and making it difficult to pursue a coherent sense of self or purpose. Alasdair MacIntyre argues that this compartmentalised existence is not just a personal phenomenon but a cultural one, where society struggles to articulate a unified vision of the good life. Instead, we float between roles and obligations, rarely integrating them into a meaningful whole.

Against this backdrop, a hunger for re-enchantment has emerged. As our lives become more mediated by screens and routines, many seek a renewed sense of wonder and belonging through nature, which accelerated through the pandemic, and saw a surge in people rediscovering wild spaces, gardening, and outdoor rituals. This movement is not just about environmentalism; it’s about reconnecting with something larger than ourselves, finding awe in the living world, and feeling rooted in a cosmos that is alive and mysterious. But whilst it offers a counterpoint to fragmentation and invites us to experience wholeness, presence, and meaning will compartmentalised routines still be the norm.?

As mentioned by TSK nature is not the only realm where re-enchantment is unfolding. Online games, especially role-playing and massively multiplayer worlds, have become fertile ground for the growth of alternative mystic narratives. These digital spaces often blend myth, prophecy, and magical systems, creating modern mythologies that echo ancient spiritual quests. Games like Skyrim and Mass Effect draw on the hero’s journey, offering players a sense of agency, transformation, and connection to the transcendent. Perhaps such games are acting as the unconscious wells of religion that Mircea Eliade alludes to in The Sacred and the Profane.

Perhaps the dual movement towards nature and towards digital myth reflects a deeper shift in how people approach spirituality and here’s a few things worth noting if we are seeking to understand how this may shape our missiology:

  1. it’s a spirituality that often is increasingly individualised, shaped by personal quests for meaning rather than institutional doctrines.
  2. nature-based practices and online mystic narratives offer opportunities to integrate fragmented parts of the self, whether through mindful presence or immersive storytelling but only often temporarily or still in a compartmentalised way
  3. maybe community can form in digital and real-world communities form around nature practices
  4. providing belonging and shared purpose outside traditional religious structures remains important to people despite rumours of the quiet revival (3.5 billion is a big number!)
  5. The search for spiritual practices, whether rooted in nature or narrative, can offer a sense of coherence and say a lot about the chaos so many face.

The bible speaks pretty directly to the tension between fragmentation and wholeness. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 calls for wholehearted love, echoed by Jesus as the greatest commandment, urging integration, and reiterated by Paul reiterates this vision in Colossians 1. Where fragmentation divides, the biblical narrative points to a God who unites.

So whilst we will only be able to read the impact of these culture shifts retrospectively the juxtaposition of fragmentation and re-enchantment is shaping a new spiritual landscape. Where compartmentalisation divides, re-enchantment, through nature or mythic play, offers the promise of wholeness. In seeking out the enchanted, whether under open skies or in digital realms, people are crafting new ways to be spiritual: ways that are imaginative, inclusive, and deeply attuned to both the wounds and wonders of modern life. And If this is the work of the spirit how do we join in?

Scaling Deep: Measures of Possibility, Personhood and Story

Posted on by
1

In the previous post I wrote about the importance of scaling deep; that elusive, essential work of transforming the cultural values, relationships, and everyday practices at the heart of our systems.  Scaling deep, I argued, is about more than numbers or institutional reach; it is about changing hearts and minds, shifting the stories we tell, and nurturing the kind of belonging that can weather storms. Today, I want to expand on that theme, drawing in the wisdom of Rowan Williams and the concept of sobornost, and exploring how we might measure engagement by more than attendance or output, to include by our collective openness to possibility, creative reimagining, and the space we make for different voices.

Beyond Numbers: The Limits of Shallow Metrics
It’s a familiar refrain in church life: “How many came?” “How many stayed?” “How many gave?” These questions, while not unimportant, often reflect what I’ve come to see as institutional anxiety, our capitalist captivity, a need for reassurance that we’re growing, that we’re succeeding. But as I’ve reflected on the journey of Fresh Expressions and broader systems change, I’ve become convinced that these are shallow waters. Real, lasting change, the kind that endures beyond a single project, leader, or season requires a shift in the very soil of our communal life. This is the work of scaling deep.

Scaling Deep and the Wisdom of Sobornost
Here, Rowan Williams offers a profound lens. Drawing on the Russian Orthodox tradition and the theologians Losskey,  Khomiakov Williams describes sobornost as a gathering of free persons into one organic body, not simply the sum of its parts but an active, living wholeness. Sobornost is not about headcount or institutional uniformity. It is about the quality of our togetherness: the depth of our relationships, the space we make for difference, and the organic unity that emerges when people are truly seen and heard.
Williams writes that the church, at its best, is a community whose boundaries have been decisively altered by the Resurrection, a place where the barriers of class, race, and loyalty are overcome, and a new social pattern of forgiveness, patience, and truth-telling emerges. This is not utopia, but a real, flesh and blood community marked as much by failure as by success. The point is not perfection, but the ongoing work of living into a new, unbounded world, a world where every face is one God has already looked at with love. When we take this as a base I think we can use the principles of Scaling Deep and develop at different set of measures, but we will need greater attention to process to make this sort of measurement possible.

Measuring Engagement with Possibility
If we take sobornost seriously, then engagement is not just about participation in programmes or committees. It’s about how we engage with possibility, how open we are to new ways of being, to creative thinking, to the reimagining of spaces and relationships. Here are some ways I see this playing out:
• Reimagining Spaces: Our physical and symbolic spaces shape our communal life. Too often they reinforce old hierarchies and exclusion. But what if we saw our spaces as canvases for possibility? What if we designed them to be more inclusive, more hospitable, more reflective of the diversity of God’s people? This isn’t just about architecture, it’s about the stories our spaces tell and the possibilities they invite. It’s as much about medium as message.
• Creative Thinking: Scaling deep is inherently creative. It asks us to imagine new forms of community, new patterns of discipleship, new ways of relating to one another and to God. This creativity is not a luxury; it’s a necessity for communities seeking to embody the gospel in a changing world.
• Personal Development Spaces: True engagement honours the personhood of each member. Are we creating spaces for personal growth, for the sharing of stories, for the honest wrestling with faith and doubt? Are we nurturing resilience, vulnerability, and the gifts that come from lived experience, especially from those on the margins?
• The Place and Space of Different Voices: Sobornost insists that unity is not uniformity. Are we making space for voices that have been silenced, for perspectives that challenge our assumptions, for the kind of dialogue that Rowan Williams describes as essential to the church’s witness? Are we willing to be disturbed, to be changed by the encounter with the other?

All of the above provide real opportunities to measure scale both in terms of Scaling Up and Out and importantly Scaling Deep but we will need an accompanying shift to valuing story and gathering Narrative-Based Evidence that stories allude to.

So how do we measure this kind of engagement? I think if we get the principles right the organisation can use spreadsheets or dashboards, and numbers but the process or lens is through the gathering of stories, narrative-based evidence that honours context and personhood. There’s all sorts of participatory, narrative techniques like Community Narration invite members to share their experiences and to shape the collective story of the community. These stories reveal not just what we’ve done, but who we are becoming. They help us see where we have truly scaled deep, where hearts and minds have been changed, where new possibilities have emerged, where the quality of our togetherness has grown.
“Narrative methods have great potential to avoid hierarchical and unidirectional forms of evaluation, encouraging the group’s collective psychology and identity-based constructs to emerge… The community’s participants were able to use the technique successfully, found it enriching, and the constructs obtained have led to many discussions and member-guided research related to the organization.” See here

Mapping Scale: Out, Up, and Deep
Once we begin to gather this narrative evidence, we can more easily categorise where we have scaled out (replicating innovations), scaled up (influencing systems and structures), and scaled deep (transforming culture and relationships). Scaling out and up are often visible and quantifiable. Scaling deep, by contrast, is subtle, slow, and sometimes invisible yet it is what makes all other change sustainable.

Honouring Context and Personhood
At the heart of this approach is a commitment to honouring both context and personhood. Every community is unique, shaped by its history, its challenges, and its gifts. Every person brings their own story, their own wounds and hopes. Scaling deep means attending to these realities, refusing one-size-fits-all solutions or predetermined outcomes and opening ourselves to the possibility that God is at work in the very particularities of our lives.

So, through Alchemy at the edge I invite you to join me in measuring engagement not by what is easy or obvious, but by what is deep and lasting. Let us reimagine our spaces, nurture creative thinking, make room for every voice, and gather the stories that tell the truth about who we are and who we are called to become. In so doing, we honour the spirit of sobornost, a unity that is organic, dynamic, and always open to the possibilities of grace.
And perhaps, in the end, this is the most faithful measure of all: not how many we have gathered, but how deeply we have learned to belong to one another, and to the God who calls us into ever-widening circles of possibility.

The interactive power of Language, Metaphor and Models

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Hopeium, the church, and change

Posted on by
Reply

In church systems and institutions, it’s not uncommon to encounter a phenomenon of “hopeium.” It’s that heady mixture of optimism, faith, and a dash of magical thinking that makes us believe everything will be okay—if we just believe hard enough. On one hand, this hope can be a balm. After all, hope is foundational to the Christian story: the hope of resurrection, of renewal, of God’s kingdom breaking through. But what happens when hope becomes detached from action, critical reflection, or adaptive change? That’s when hopeium can turn toxic.

Toxic hopeium often shows up in church systems grappling with deep-seated challenges: declining influence, outdated structures, or a widening gap between institutional priorities and the needs of the world. Instead of grappling with the hard realities, institutional leaders might cling to vague promises of revival, grand but unfocused visions, or the comforting refrain of “God will provide.” While it’s true that faith can move mountains, it’s also true that someone has to pick up a shovel. When hope is used to paper over systemic issues or avoid making tough decisions, it can lead to stagnation, disillusionment, and a cycle of institutional inertia.

Consider the denomination that launches a major strategic initiative every few years, each time heralded as the solution to declining membership or cultural irrelevance. Resources are poured into programs and campaigns, but the underlying issues remain unaddressed: the inability to engage with a rapidly changing society, resistance to adaptive change, or a leadership culture that prioritizes preservation over mission. Hope, untethered from thoughtful strategy and missional humility, becomes a narcotic. It numbs us to reality instead of equipping us to transform it.

And yet, hope is also a gift. It’s what inspires institutions to dream of a renewed role in society and take risks for the sake of the gospel. The challenge, then, is to ground institutional hope in adaptive change strategies that acknowledge reality while pointing us toward renewal.

So, how can church systems navigate this tension? The first step is honesty. Institutional leaders need to adopt a posture of missional humility, recognizing that no single program or vision will fix systemic issues overnight. Missional humility invites us to listen—to God, to our communities, and to one another—and to admit where we’ve fallen short. This isn’t about doom and gloom; it’s about clarity. Only when we understand the landscape can we discern the path forward.

Next, we need to pair hope with action rooted in adaptive change. This means moving beyond technical fixes to addressing the deeper cultural and systemic shifts required for renewal. It might mean dismantling hierarchies that stifle creativity, investing in grassroots initiatives, or fostering a culture of experimentation and learning. Adaptive change requires courage—and a willingness to fail—as we navigate uncharted territory.

Finally, we must cultivate a theology of hope that’s robust enough to withstand setbacks. Christian hope isn’t about quick fixes; it’s about the long game. It’s about trusting that God is at work, even when we can’t see the fruit of our labors.

Hopeium, in its toxic form, can trap church systems in a cycle of false expectations and inertia. But hope, when rooted in truth, humility, and adaptive action, can be a powerful force for institutional renewal. The difference lies in whether we use hope to escape reality or to transform it. As I prepare for my next stage with Alchemy At The Edge I want to harness the transformative power of hope.

Explaining Church as way of being with AI’s help

Posted on by
Reply

I recently did a podcast for Youthscape which timed in well with a lot of thinking I have been doing recently about the nature of church. my amazing friend Paul Rose gave some great thoughts that’s set my mind going on why knowledge (epistemological) based approaches to defining church are such a stumbling block. I think much of what I was arguing for in Here Be Dragons was a more ontological approach but At the time I hadn’t really encountered enough embodied theology and practice to start to frame it well. As Rachel and Martin said I use a lot of long words I thought I might just explain the ontological approach a bit more here. And then I thought as it was youth focussed and I’m into co-creation why not use the latest tech to help. So  I asked ChatGPT Ai to write it for me in the style of Sunday Papers blogpost and here with a few edits is what was created.

I think my shift reflects the growing interest among theologians and religious scholars in the use of an ontological approach and towards a deeper consideration of the fundamental nature of reality, and a rejection of the dualistic thinking that has long dominated Western thought. Part of what we learnt from being and doing church young people and Flow was we needed a different embedded joined up approach, and this was where we were heading in Here Be Dragons with sobornost.

At its heart, an ontological approach to the church emphasizes the importance of being and existence, rather than simply knowledge and understanding. While the epistemological approach tends to focus on the intellectual aspects of faith – what we know, what we believe, and how we come to know it – the ontological approach looks beyond these cognitive processes to consider the very nature of the church itself, and the role it plays in the world.

One of the key benefits of an ontological approach is that it allows us to move beyond the limitations of language and conceptual thinking. Too often, our understanding of the church is shaped by our attempts to put it into words – to define it, categorize it, and understand it within a particular framework. However, this can often lead to a narrow and limited understanding of what the church really is, and what it can be.

By adopting an ontological approach, we can begin to see the church as a dynamic, living entity that is constantly evolving and changing over time. Rather than trying to pin it down with definitions and concepts, we can appreciate the church in all its complexity, and recognize the many different ways in which it can manifest itself in the world.

Moreover, an ontological approach to the church allows us to move beyond the traditional boundaries of religious affiliation and denomination. Rather than seeing the church as a set of beliefs or practices that are unique to a particular group, we can recognize that the church exists in many different forms and contexts, and that it has the potential to transcend the divisions that often separate us.

Of course, an ontological approach is not without its challenges. It requires us to embrace uncertainty and ambiguity, and to acknowledge that our understanding of the church will always be limited by our own experiences and perspectives. However, these challenges are precisely what make the ontological approach so valuable – by embracing the unknown and the unknowable, we open ourselves up to a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the church, and with the divine.

In conclusion, the adoption of an ontological approach to the church represents an important step forward in our understanding of what it means to be religious and spiritual in the modern world. By focusing on being and existence, rather than simply knowledge and understanding, we can move beyond the limitations of language and conceptual thinking, and appreciate the church in all its complexity and diversity. So let us embrace this approach, and open ourselves up to a deeper and more profound experience of the divine.

The Ai bit ends here.

once the podcast goes fully live on the site I might say a bit more why I think how the epistemological approach showed up in the podcast discussion and how it can inoculate us from change.

 

Let there be an invitation

Posted on by
Reply

When I think about how my faith and practice is formed, there are number of angles but each perspective has at it heart an invitation to a journey, an offer alongside others to co-create a better world. At the heart of lots of the key tools, or practices, that I have written about is the notion of collaboration not to create out of nothing but to co-create with what ever fish I hold and what ever bread the other carries. These concepts are embedded in community work through Asset based approaches, Youth ministry through particpation, Fresh Expressions through listening, and the emerging church through the resistance of power.  In fact they are embedded in the faith itself, in the earth, in the Beloved, since before the beginning of time.

Our past flows into our present reality and we tend to read the creation story from the position of power, reinforced by the idea of divine omnipotence  and the notion of humanity as the pinnacle so we see the statement “let there be” as a command. What if it was more complex, and it is a language of invitation of participation. This is much easier to see when we embrace the fullness of God revealed through the Trinity in the creation story. The Spirit hovers over the waters and enlivens the cosmos, joins with the Christ who participates and sows seeds, and the Beloved issue an invitation “Let there be light”. And there was light, and the God of Love responds with delight seeing it good and invites the elements to collaborate to bring forth life, and animals, and fish, and they do. So the Beloved sparks co-creation, encourages transformation and we begin dance in divine solidarity with the Beloved and the creation who continues to invite us to participate in the ongoing co-creative process.

The Mixed Ecology Trellis – a watershed moment?

Posted on by
Reply

Over the past few months I have been using an innovation technique of Pitch and Exhibit to further my thinking on Pioneering and Church. What has become clear over the past week or so is that what has been emerging as fresh expressions, and pioneering expressions of church has matured and is now firmly part of the landscape of the church in the UK and consequently we need a better way to describe the mixed ecology of church that is now present in so many communities and spaces. We have long said that Time Honoured church and Fresh Expressions have distinct needs, but we also know that they need each other. If pioneers have the gift of not fitting in, when we also see them as being a gift to the church, conversations and practice take a creative turn. We have experienced this in Cumbria and in my previous post I failed to adequately recognise just how far we have come. It is clear through church history that both modal and sodal expressions of church are required to help everyone flourish but more than that, when there are good relationships between the two, significant cultural systemic change could be achieved.  I think we are very close to a watershed moment where we can observe the church Cumbria and in places beyond and really begin to shed light on what a mixed ecology of church might look like and how it interconnects and relates to one another. The image below is an attempt to capture this. You can find a larger image as a jpeg HERE or  in a PDF here

A few things to say about the Trellis:

  • We have been reaching for a more organic image than the spectrum and I hope this captures more the ecological element and interconnectedness of the Mixed Ecology. You can’t see it amazingly well as I need to fade it but there is a vine that weaves and interconnects across the different elements, traditions and approaches. This is to try and help people see this in a more patterned and less linear way.
  • We have deliberately moved away from and taken out the specific pioneer words, recognising that we are in a new space. We all have parts to play and we are one Church in many expressions with different gifts and need one another. This is not to say pioneer language is redundant indeed it remains critical in creating the space and continued imagination we need in the institution to reach the breadth and diversity of the communities serve.
  • We have removed the sense of Venn circles for a more fluid and interconnected approach.
  • The left hand arrow is deliberately split into two to capture the learning from the original pioneer spectrum that at some point(s) we need a distinct and deliberate shift in posture if we are to reach deeper into our cultural context. This is particularly the case as you move towards Innovation and Activism.
  • Accommodators has been one of the words we have wrestled with. It is meant as generous space makers, leaders who see that Time honoured and Fresh Expressions need each other. Accommodators are leaders who are secure enough to let others flourish and generous enough to let people go to new places they may never travel, but nourish and support them. Accommodators are not those begrudgingly making room for new things, but those who set people free to build the kingdom in the now and not yet.

I have said “we” in the wording above as the pitch and exhibit approach I have used means this has been developed collaboratively and I am grateful to all who have contributed over the past months and weeks. There is a lot to be said about the relationship between the spaces and particularly about the relationship between the centre and edge. Indeed I would even say the language of centre and edge is now problematic as  in a mixed ecology centres and edges are hard to find but that’s for another blogpost.