Category Archives: Church

Communion as training

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Faith communities have always been exercise grounds for resistant hope. In the cracks of empire, the early followers of Jesus broke bread and imagined life beyond Caesar’s reach. What if their gathering wasn’t simply a meal, what if it was training? A strengthening of the moral and spiritual fibres of hope that keep us reaching for the unseen alternative, even while our feet are still planted in the old order.

To dream is not to escape. It is to remember that the structures around us are not the whole story or even like a star that dies before it’s light reaches us  the current empire might already be dead. Dreaming of justice, of communion, of the future possible, is both an act of imagination and of resistance. It helps us see that what is, does not have the final word. Hope, then, is not naïve optimism but the slow work of building spiritual muscle memory for what could be.

And perhaps quiet longing of communion, holds us both securely and precariously. Securely, because it ties us to one another in a web of belonging that mirrors the creation. Precariously, because real communion demands vulnerability, and vulnerability always risks loss.

We are both held and stretched at once. The table, the shared dream, these are both anchor and edge. Perhaps that is why hope is never static. It aches, strains, and strengthens in the same breath.

To exercise hope and communion then, is to keep turning toward one another in our shared longing. It is to keep dreaming stubbornly of the alternative hidden beneath the noise of now. It is to live as if the world God loves might yet be remade, one hopeful muscle at a time

To places we have never been before

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Paul Bradbury’s recent reflection on moving beyond empire reminds us how deeply Western mission has been entangled with universalising instincts, the drive to export methods, models, or mindsets far beyond where they first belonged. His question, “How might we save the world without conquering it?” pushes us toward a more humble, localised, and participatory understanding of mission. It’s a call that echoes strongly with what I argued in my previous post what works, works because it is contextual.

If empire seeks control of space, then contextual mission seeks communion IN space. In other words, mission faithful to the gospel begins not with scale but with soil. It roots itself in place but years of contextual mission,following the missio dei and the incarnation has taught us place needs to be understood broadly. Contextually shaped mission is about both “communities of place” and “communities of interest”, and in both these, space matters or perhaps more precisely the space between matters.

Space as the Ground of Context

For communities of place, context is pretty straight forward it’s bounded by postcodes, pavements, local histories, and particular faces. Here, “listening to context” means walking the streets, dwelling among, noticing the patterns of belonging and exclusion, paying attention to how the Spirit stirs through daily life. The missional question is spatial: How is God already at work here?

But the same is true for communities of interest those gathered by vocation, affinity, digital connection, or shared passion. These are not disembodied spaces; they are differently embodied. They occupy networked space, an online forum, a workplace, a music scene, a shared narrative world. These spaces, too, have boundaries, cultures, and ecologies of meaning that also require listening, care, and presence.

To be contextual here means learning the topography of these less tangible places the rituals that shape belonging, the language that signals trust, the injustices and hopes that animate people. This too is place work. Contextual mission is not about being “place-based” versus “network-based”; it is about recognising that space and particularly the space in between is the texture of all context.

The Space Between: From Ownership to Participation

Empire’s imagination is to fill space to occupy, to own, to organise territory. Contextual imagination leaves space, space for others to speak, for grace to emerge, for co-creation. This is not the space of empire, this is the space of incarnation: God dwelling, not dominating; participating, not possessing. 

In our current moment, where both geography and culture feel unsettled, perhaps the task is not to create new models of church or even parish, but to nurture new ecologies of space, perhaps even Brave Spaces of Community and Conversation, porous enough to hold the complexity of both rooted neighbourhoods and fluid networks of meaning.

Context is not an afterthought, It isthe space where the gospel takes shape. So maybe the better question isn’t simply “What works?” but “Where does mission dwell?” Because where mission dwells, (whether a community of place or interest)  determines how God’s story is spoken and heard, and when we listen and join in we go to a new place we have been before. 

Today’s heresy, Tomorrow’s orthodoxy letting the Holy Spirit is ruin our comms plan!

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I’ve always been fascinated by the role language plays in meaning making and for several years my walk of faith has been helped by entering into dialogue with nature through of emerging church space Mountain Pilgrims. Thomas Berry suggests humanity has broken The Great Conversation, the deep, ongoing dialogue between humans, the more-than-human world, and the wider universe.  We talk a lot, but mostly to ourselves and church is no different to any other eco chamber. It has developed a sophisticated internal language but often struggles to hear, let alone respond to, the voices of culture, creation and those at the edges questioning what counts as “orthodox.”

Berry’s concern was not simply about ecology but about language. When only one way of speaking is recognised as valid, everything else gets pushed to the margins.  That resonates with our ecclesial habits. The church has learned to privilege certain kinds of words, authorised, platformed, “sound” and to distrust improvisation, lived experience, and wild metaphors that do not fit existing systems.  I know even writing this several people will comment on how I’ve lost the plot, gone mad and am talking to trees again. The result is a narrowing of conversation and, with it, a shrinking of imagination.

One thing thirty years of mission has taught me is that that like G-d, Language is not a museum piece; it is a living, mutating thing, constant in its movement even when the printed page pretends otherwise.  Berry’s work suggests that meaning arises in the between in relationships, exchanges, frictions rather than in frozen statements detached from place and encounter.  If that is true, then a church that tries to manage its language purely through control (doctrinal, institutional, reputational) ends up disconnecting its words from the world they were meant to serve.

A similar concern sits behind recent reflections on how church handles its public voice: the drift from conversation into messaging, from mutuality into management.  When our words exist mainly as outputs, strategies, statements, carefully curated content, we are no longer participating in language as a shared, risky, evolving practice. We have moved from speaking with to speaking at.

The irony is that the Christian tradition, at its best, already knows that meaning is relational. The gospel of John points to Logos not as a static “word” dropped from the sky, but as a dynamic, relational presence through whom all things come into being.

Orthodoxy should be a faithful emerging conversation but too often it is treated as a fixed package, a set of statements that must remain untouched in order to be “true.”  But if God is encountered in history, in bodies, in place, then faithfulness cannot be about freezing language; it has to be about staying in truthful conversation as the world changes. This does not mean anything goes but it does mean that orthodoxy cannot be maintained by shutting down dialogue with those who unsettle us. The temptation is always to label the troubling voices as “unorthodox” so we don’t have to listen. But perhaps the deeper danger is a church that can repeat the right phrases while refusing the great conversation where the Spirit might be speaking in unfamiliar accents.

If orthodoxy is reframed as fidelity-in-movement, then the test of soundness shifts. The questions being asked are more about if this way of speaking or being deepens love of God, neighbour, and creation, or does it protect systems at their expense?  This is a very different conversation from a lot of what I hear and ff the church is to re-enter the great conversation, who or what are are the conversation partners we need need. None of these named below are new, but each reveals how thin our language becomes when separated from encounter.

1. With the more-than-human world

Creation is often reduced to backdrop or resource in church practice, something we “use” or “care for,” but rarely someone we listen to.  Emerging eco-liturgies, “wild church” practices and place-based spirituality are tentative attempts to let rivers, soil, seasons and species become conversation partners rather than illustrations.  What happens to orthodoxy when the groans of creation are treated not as background noise but as part of the community’s discernment?

2. With decolonising and marginal voices

Mission history has trained Western churches to imagine themselves as speakers and others as listeners.  Decolonising work insists that the roles must be reversed, or at least shared: theologies forged in colonised, racialised, and economically marginalised contexts need not only to be “included” but allowed to interrogate and reshape what the centre calls orthodox.

3. With shifting identities and bodies

Conversations around gender, sexuality, neurodiversity and family structures are often handled through statements rather than stories.  People are turned into “issues,” and language is deployed to control rather than to understand. Yet if the body of Christ is genuinely diverse, then these lives and experiences are not detachable from theology; they are part of the place where theology happens.  Staying in conversation here may mean discovering that some of our long-held assumptions were more cultural than Christlike.

4. With digital and symbolic worlds

Digital culture is not simply another channel for church messaging; it is a habitat where new forms of presence, authority and belonging are emerging.  Online communities, memes, gaming, AI, are all forming people’s imaginations long before they meet a sermon. A church that only uses these spaces to broadcast pre-formed content refuses the opportunity to learn a new dialect of human longing and connection.  Conversation here would mean showing up not as brand but as neighbour.

Berry writes of the need for a “new language” that can draw humans back into a mutually enhancing relationship with the rest of the community of life.  That newness is less about inventing clever phrases and more about recovering humility and recognising that our words must once again be accountable to the earth, to history, to those who suffer under our systems.

Perhaps this is where pioneers and locally rooted parishes have role: to keep pointing to the gaps between our official language and the real conversations happening at the edges.  To remind the church that the Spirit has always been ahead of us, out in the wild, teaching new words to those willing to listen.

Re-entering the great conversation will mean losing some of the safety that comes from tightly managed speech. It will also mean discovering that orthodoxy is not a fragile artefact to be defended, but a living stream kept fresh precisely because it flows through new landscapes, picks up new sediments, and keeps finding its way back to the sea and the source.

Competition, Can Rivalries Spark Renewal

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The fourth in the series recognises that Competition is a difficult word for the church. In the wild, animals compete for food and territory, and this tension drives adaptation. But in the church, competition often feels like a zero-sum game, who’s in charge, who gets the most members, who has the best worship, more often fuelled by anxiety than faith. That anxiety can choke creativity, turning vibrant missions into mini turf wars.
Most leadership and systems theory tell us that a little healthy tension can actually sharpen identity and purpose. When churches see competition as a sign they’re uniquely called to a specific community rather than a threat, it becomes a motivator for innovation. Differentiation becomes a deliberate act of mission, each expression carving out its niche while still remaining connected to the larger body.

“Healthy organizations are understood not by their sameness but by their capacity to differentiate and adapt.”—Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline.
A good example is church communities that focus on specific demographics, one for families, another for artists, another for students, each pursuing its calling without envy or encroachment. Leaders who nurture this healthy diversity, rather than fear it, foster resilience and growth. It’s about creating a culture where competition spurs mutual encouragement, not jealousy or conflict.

The challenge lies in maintaining clarity amidst tension. Leaders must set clear boundaries of mission, respect differences, and celebrate each community’s unique contribution. And they must do it with humility, acknowledging that competition is a signal to sharpen the focus, not a reason to divide. In the end, competition when set alongside the other ecological discussed in the previous post, can be a crucible for innovation, clarity and sustainability. It reminds us that the church’s strength isn’t uniformity but a diversity of callings that, when held well, strengthen the whole.

Parasitism: Knowing When to Draw the Line

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Hopefully the series isn’t turning dark but maybe we need to be honest. In nature, parasitism is always a delicate matter. It’s where one organism benefits at the expense of another, ticks on deer or fungus creeping over plants. It’s messy and often damaging if left unchecked. In our churches, parasitism shows up when one community siphons off energy, resources, or leadership from another, without giving anything back.
It’s a quiet, often hidden relationship and at first glance, it may seem mutually beneficial, but over time, the imbalance saps the life from the system. When a fresh expression relies heavily on inherited church resources, be it finances, leadership, or space without sharing or investing in its own growth, it may drift into parasitism and kill the host. At the same time we need to remember that story of Christ is one of death and resurrection so some things need to die well, so there is a gospel tension here.

Leadership must be attentive to boundaries. That’s not about walls, it’s about creating rhythms of renewal where all parts are healthy. Systems thinking teaches us that feedback loops are vital; if one part expends more energy than it reinvests, the entire system risks collapse. Leaders on all sides need to ask: ‘Are we enabling life-giving relationships, or are some parts draining others?’
Shifting from parasitism to health involves honest conversations and clear boundaries around resource sharing and leadership roles. It also involves a culture of accountability, where both old and new expressions pay what they can, contribute their strengths, and recognise their limits.

“Good governance doesn’t focus only on what to do — it emphasizes what not to do. Boundaries protect the system’s integrity and promote resilience.” — Adapted from Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line.
In practical terms church plant that uses a traditional church’s building for free, but then drains the church’s hospitality team, without sharing in planning or resourcing, risks exhaustion. Leaders must gently reframe this, encouraging mutual investment rather than drain. Healthy mixed ecology churches grow in trust and respect, not dependence or exhaustion.
In the end, parasitism teaches us that boundaries are not barriers but safeguards, protecting life, ensuring that each expression of church can flourish without becoming overly dependent or destructive.

Commensalism – Quiet Hospitality in the Shared Space

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Continuing the series, one of the gentler relationships in nature is commensalism, the barnacle clinging to the whale’s back, the harmless epiphyte perched high in the trees. The host doesn’t lose; the guest gains a foothold. It’s subtle, unobtrusive, and rarely draws attention.

In the mixed ecology church, commensalism invites us to think about hospitality as a spacious, patient practice. Sometimes new worshipping communities, fresh expressions, or mission experiments find their home quietly alongside inherited churches, sharing the same space, maybe even the same pews. They get to try things out without demanding change or disruption. The traditional church hosts; the newcomer explores.
This is the art of supporting difference without crisis or competition. Systems thinking offers a helpful lens here: this relationship is a form of facilitative hosting that allows new life to enter the system with minimal disruption, it’s low-risk experimentation. It’s a testbed for innovation, a holding pattern for growth.

Leadership here isn’t about control but generosity. It’s creating receptive spaces that respond to emerging needs in the community. As Margaret Wheatley reminds us, “Leadership is not about control but about creating an environment where new possibilities can emerge.”

Practical examples are peppered through the history of church life. Take the laundry ministry in St. Cloud, Minnesota, part of a traditional parish but reaching neighbours unlikely to walk through the church door. They borrow a local laundromat, offer food and prayer, gradually building trust and belonging. The church hosts this venture without co-opting or reshaping it. It is hospitality without strings, a living metaphor for commensalism.
Yet, commensalism requires care not to slip into parasitism; hosts must offer space without fatigue, and guests must be mindful of their footprint. Systemic health depends on this delicate balance.
Hospitality in mixed ecology is, then, an invitation to host without ownership, to support without smothering, to share space and life with kindness and openness.

Five Ecological Lessons for a Mixed Ecology Church

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Church life often longs for order and predictability. Yet the garden outside my window or better still the fells a short drive away are wild and tangled, and reveal another truth. Life flourishes in relationships that are messy, uneven, and interconnected. In reality the mixed ecology church, a community where inherited forms of church exist alongside new, experimental expressions will be similarly messy. But how do these different expressions relate without stifling one another? What patterns might help them grow together, not apart?

Nature offers us five such relational patterns that guide growth and resilience: mutualism, commensalism, parasitism, competition, and cooperation. Each reveals different ways life flourishes through connection, sometimes in surprising and challenging ways. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore each relationship, drawing from ecology, not just for metaphor’s sake, but as a living guide. Along the way, I’ll try to offer some leadership insights and systems thinking, because growing a mixed ecology church inevitably is also about patterns and structures as well as people.

The five patterns explored will begin with mutualism, where both partners give and receive, flourishing together through reciprocity. Next, commensalism invites us to practice quiet hospitality a kind of support without burden. Parasitism teaches the necessity of boundaries that protect the life of the whole. Competition, uncomfortable as it feels, can spur creativity and clarity. And finally, cooperation invites us into pragmatic alliances that bind us around shared purpose.

What if the church took these relationships seriously and rather than simply sitting with the metaphor of the mixed ecology we started to embody it and see what we can learn from our non human counterparts.

Be more Pete

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Whilst on holiday I watched Timothee Chamalat’s portrayal of Bob Dylan in A complete unknown. My favourite scenes were around the Newport folk festival and contrast between when Dylan played the song “The Times They Are a-Changin” and the crowd loved it because the style was acceptable and then a couple years later the crowd rejected his new electric music even though in few years the album would be widely acclaimed.  Change is the one constant, a reality captured through the film and so powerfully in the lyrics of: “The times they are a-changin’. In that song Dylan calls all the elders, from leaders to mothers and fathers to recognize the shifting landscape, to refuse to block the halls or stand in the doorways of renewal, because “the wheel’s still in spin” and there’s “no tellin’ who that it’s namin’.” Those who hesitate, he warns, “will sink like a stone” in waters that have already risen around us.

The current rising waters are echoing this, calling us to move from gatekeeping beliefs to cultivating new ways of being, that those who have eyes, see this new water springing up like wells all around. This rising tide is nurturing abundant, adaptive life, and to be rooted in Christ is to bear witness to the fruit that whispers of a Kingdom not yet fully seen. Our true telos is not in relentless self-preservation, but in flowing, loving participation in the waters of change.

Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” laments the slow recognition of what’s right (“How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?”) and poses the questions. While “The Times They Are A-Changin’” suggests the answers lie in adapting and warns a failure to so will result in being “drenched to the bone” by the coming tide of change thats happening now, and everyone must decide whether to move with it or be left behind.

Perhaps the key to not being left behind lies in Pete Seeger’s portrayal, even though at one stage he wanted to stop Dylan’s electric music, he relented and made space. I love the hope that Pete holds throughout the film and how the folk scene led to the love revolution. The final scene sees Pete’s hope in action through his servant leadership which shows him putting away the chairs after the festival. Hope as I’ve said before isn’t fragile or passive. It’s a muscle, “sinew and tendon that flexes beneath the skin with every reimagined dream of a better world.” And practically we build hope every time we give space to others to sing and dream, where as elders we refuse to block the halls or stand in the doorways and instead we serve others, put a chair away and wash the dishes.

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.