It’s hard to put into words what Tim Lea has meant to the Fresh Expressions movement. He’s been part of the story almost from the start, not just shaping things behind the scenes, but holding space for others, asking good questions, and pointing us back to what matters.
From Vision Days in coffee shops to quiet conversations in corners of national gatherings, Tim has always brought a calm, grounded presence, full of wisdom, warmth and the occasional Yorkshire-style bluntness (the good kind).
Now living on the North Devon coast, Tim will be stepping down from the FX operations team later this year. It’s part of a wider move into something new, a slower pace, more space to reflect, and a contemplative calling that’s been quietly growing for some time. We’ll miss him hugely, but we’re also cheering him on as he continues to follow where the Spirit is leading.
Before any official goodbyes, we sat down for a proper chat to look back, look forward, and reflect on the journey so far.
The interview
Mark: Tim, why don’t we start with how long you’ve been involved with Fresh Expressions, and how you first got connected to the team?
Tim: I’ve been doing the present job for about six and a half years now, which has been great. But the very first time I came across Fresh Expressions was when a bloke called Norman Ivison contacted me via somebody called Pete Pillinger who worked for the Methodist Church, and said, “Can we come and film what you’re doing at The Bridge?”
So I was leading a project called The Bridge in a Methodist context in Hinckley, Leicestershire. We were running it in a school – which sounds almost normal nowadays, but at the time, it wasn’t. That was how I first came across Fresh Expressions. We ended being on the very first ‘green’ DVD that Fresh Expressions produced.
Then over a period of time, I ended up working with the training director, who was the wonderful Andrew Roberts, and we got to know each other. We ended up designing and running the Vision Days, along with Rachel Jordan- Wolfe. I remember us meeting in a coffee shop in Birmingham, sitting down and planning all of the Vision Days and how they were going to look and how they’d work out.
We ran, along with loads of other people, over 100 Vision Days for Fresh Expressions – just to get the information out in those really early days. I think that was when Graham Cray was the team lead – maybe towards the end of Steven Croft’s time.
That’s where I started. I suppose I ended up doing half a day a week or something, paid for by the team.
Mark: So this was still very much the early stages of the movement, right? What was it that attracted you to Fresh Expressions?
Tim: It was the sense of joining in with something where you didn’t have to explain yourself. You were meeting like-minded people who were pushing the edges and exploring what church might be. You didn’t have to apologise for it.
Suddenly, you were in this group of people who, we were discovering, kind of got it too. In that respect, it was a real pleasure. Just realising you weren’t the only one with this outward calling, so to speak.
And there was this wider sense that the Holy Spirit was up to something. It wasn’t manufactured. It felt like God was agitating, nudging, cajoling a whole group of people, beyond just us, to do something different, to reach people with the good news of Jesus in a different way. That was really exciting. It was fantastic to be a part of that, and to meet people from all over the country who were working things out.
Mark: Tell us a bit more about how your involvement evolved over time – from those early days into the role you’ve held for the last six and a half years.
Tim: I suppose during the time Phil Potter was the team lead, I started doing some project management work for the team across different areas.
Then Phil came to me and said, “It feels like we need a different type of leadership for the next phase.” We weren’t going to have a team leader in the traditional sense – we wanted something with more of a facilitative, coaching kind of style. He said he thought I’d be great for that.
So I had conversations with people like him, and with the board. Ric Thorpe was chair at the time. People like Pete Atkins and Michael Moynagh were involved. We knew things were going to change. The Church of England had made a decision to stop funding the central FX team – not as a withdrawal, but because they wanted to embed the vision and values into the structures of the Church. The Methodist Church and Salvation Army were doing similar things. With people like Andrew and Andrea Vertigan and others coming in to lead pioneering work within their own denominations, there was this clear embedding of the FX ethos into those contexts.
So it wasn’t seen as a negative – it was actually really constructive. It felt like a natural outcome of the previous 15 years.
Mark: What did that change look like practically for the charity?
Tim: Phil stepping back marked the end of that first phase, when there was a clear team leader. The involvement from the mainline denominations was changing, and that changed the dynamic for us as a charity.
I remember sitting and thinking, “Do I really want to do this?” That was a genuine question. Is this still what God is calling me to? I was undecided for quite some time. But in the end, I felt it was something I was prepared to throw myself into and see how it worked out.
We knew the team would be smaller. My role was focused on networking – animating the networks and helping Fresh Expressions operate as a network of networks. Simon Goddard came in around the same time and focused on resourcing. He and I worked closely, especially with Suzie Wall, as we were still running national gatherings. The three of us were the main driving force, and then Andy Freeman did communications for a while, which was great.
So yeah, it was a shift – a smaller team, a smaller budget. But at the same time, churches and denominations were spending millions on their own initiatives. The names changed – “New Places for New People,” “10,000 new worshipping communities” – but the DNA was the similar and contextualised.
Mark: Are there any standout moments that really stick with you – things you’re particularly proud of or moved by?
Tim: One of the things I’m always surprised by is the number of people from around the world who still come and want to know about this thing called Fresh Expressions. People from Nepal, Hong Kong – they come to hear the story.
That helps me realise what a privileged position we’ve been in. We’ve seen something of God, something of the Holy Spirit, that’s had an impact not just here in the UK but far beyond.
And then there are those moments of personal connection – people who’ve said, “I feel like I’ve come home.” That sense of finding your tribe. People realising they’re not alone, they’re not mad – that there are others like them. I remember one gathering where a woman who’d never been to anything FX-related spent part of the first afternoon just weeping. It was a huge moment of relief and significance for her.
And then there is the impact of different Christian communities which have been formed, born and co-created in contexts we could never have imagined; forests, pubs, workplaces, cafes, church halls, mountains, etc, from Messy to Mossy, to Muddy, etc with people largely who have had little or no contact with Church as we might have understood it in the past. Amazing! People drawing together around the person of Jesus to discover the Christ.
That’s the kind of thing I’ll always hold on to.
Mark: One thing you’ve said in the past is how important “permission” is for pioneers and how gathering helps people really feel that permission.
Tim: Exactly. That moment of realising, “I’m not the only one.” Going from feeling like the odd one out to finding others like you – it gives you confidence. We don’t go around giving people permission, but we do create spaces where they discover that they’ve had it all along.
And that can be enough to keep someone going through the hard stuff – and it is hard, often misunderstood, often lonely. But those connections can change everything.
Mark: So, moving to the present – you and Claire relocated to North Devon last August, just under a year ago. What’s next?
Tim: We’d lived in the Midlands for 25 years, brought up our family there. Our youngest had left home. We didn’t want to stay in the big house anymore. We put it on the market, had one viewing, and sold it at asking price. It just felt like doors were opening.
We have no family in Devon, we know no one. Moving down here has felt like an invitation into something new. We still don’t know what that is exactly but I’ve had a long-standing call to be a contemplative – probably for the last 10 or 12 years, and increasingly so in the past 18 months. Now feels like the time to pursue that more intentionally. There are more adventures to live even though we might not know what they are yet. Moving to the ‘edge’ has felt significant after years of living in the Midlands and being at the centre of something.
I’ll continue doing some coaching for clients and some consultancy with Charis. But I’m also taking time to rest – walking on beaches, enjoying the countryside, just being still. It’s a process of laying things down, and only when I do that do I begin to discover what might come next.
Mark: As we’ve been chatting I’m struck with imagery of liminality, specifically, standing on a cliff edge facing the abyss but it’s charged with excitement.
Tim: Yeah, it’s interesting you brought that up because that came up in a conversation with my spiritual director. I said I felt like I was standing on the edge of an abyss. At the time, it felt scary. But now I’ve realised I’ve stepped off – and instead of falling into nothing, I’ve fallen into an ocean of love. Martin Laird talks about that – an ocean of love and light.
That’s where I find security now. Not in a job or a role, but in Christ.
And North Devon is just beautiful. When you drive past the sign for North Devon it says “World Class by Nature” – and it is. I’m fortunate to live here. But it also feels like a threshold place, an edge. Like being called into the desert.
Mark: Yes, that imagery of the desert – that came up again in other chats with the Leadership Community when we talked about Israel’s wilderness years.
Tim: Yeah. I keep coming back to that. Israel wanted to go back – back to slavery, back to Egypt, because it was familiar. And yet Yhwh was ‘wooing’ them into a liminal space, to be formed, reformed, transformed. The desert became a place of trust, a place of intimacy, of remaking, of identity being formed.
Brueggemann says it took 40 years to get Egypt out of them. How long does it take to get Christendom out of us?
The desert years weren’t wasted. The Celtic idea of peregrinato – the holy wandering – maybe there’s something of that in all of this.
Mark: Let’s end with the question we often ask our podcast guests. What would you say to others who find themselves on the edge – maybe stepping into something new, unsure of what comes next?
Tim: Go out further.
Push off from the shore. Go deeper in Christ. Keep going out. But don’t do it alone.
Get connected. Find your people – those who’ll support you, hold you to account, ask the awkward questions, fight for you.
Go further out, go deeper, get connected.
Thank You, Tim
Tim’s been more than a teammate, he’s been a friend, a steadying voice, and someone who always made time to really listen. His presence has helped shape the culture of FX, and his fingerprints are all over the way we do things; gently, relationally, and with a quiet kind of courage.
Here’s what a couple of us wanted to say as he heads into this next season:
“Tim has been a literal Godsend to the FX movement. He has provided so much stability and wisdom during periods of huge change (to the FX structure, not to our core mission!), and has consistently led in a humble, collaborative, ego-free and Spirit-led manner. His contribution to the FX movement in the UK has been immense.”
— Mark Williamson, Board Member
“It’s been a joy to work with Tim, who has served the FX team with both a servant heart and a great sense of humour. His gift for creating space to listen for the Spirit’s leading has been a real blessing to individuals, to us as a team, and to the wider movement.”
— Simon Goddard, Operations Team
“It’s been such a joy working with Tim over the years. He’s brought so much passion, humour and insight to the team and we’re all really going to miss working regularly with him!”
— Suzie Wall, Operations Team
Of course, Tim’s not someone you simply replace but we have started thinking about what it might look like to bring someone new onto the team. If this stirs something in you, or you know someone who might be a great fit, we’d love to have an informal chat. Just drop us a line at jobs@freshexpressions.org.uk.
Thank you, Tim.
Go gently.
You’ve shown us how.
