Last week while at SEITE residential I was able to get out and spend time with people talking about community and fresh expressions. Community was something that majorly struck me while at Moot and I wanted a chance to consider this more.

I had a chat with Brother Reg from the Franciscans in Canterbury and then spent some time with Kerry Thorpe from Harvest.

Reg spoke about the essence of community being sensitivity and understanding. The Franciscan novice scheme is viewed as a time for interested people to explore what God is calling them to do. They join the community for this time – but many leave, but the community is simply happy that these men have found more of God’s plan for their life. This strikes me as something we need to get to grips with as church – being excited by peoples calling when it takes them away from church.

Meeting with Kerry brought out similar ideas. He observed that over 10 years people have re-connected with faith and/or church, but have ended up worshipping elsewhere – Harvest has blessed this as they are pleased to see people back in relationship with God and have an understanding that our calling is about being God’s people in the real world and not just what we do on a Sunday.

It strikes me that church can be precious about membership, belonging and doing stuff ‘for the mission of the church’ and I wonder whether we need to thin more on ‘doing stuff for the kingdom’ which coud well mean we spend less time on church stuff. This takes a generous spirit and an attitude that says we will invest in you heavily, we will give you lots of oportunities, we will listen and cy with you … and at the end of all that we will still love, respect and pray with and for you when you leave us and go elsewhere.

I think I learnt a lot on the day – and have a lot more stuff to think about.