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To finish of season one we’ve got a really great episode as Linda tells us about the different initiatives she and her community are engaged in. One of the most creative expressions we’ve heard about is “Wrestling Church” and they’ve got other stuff in the pipeline. Prepare to be challenged and inspired!
Fountains – fountainsbradford.org
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Transcript (Automated)
00:00:05:23 – 00:00:37:00
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the Mission Shaped Podcast. My name is Mark Robinson and I’ll be hosting today. Later I’ll be joined by Beth man, as we unpack the contents of this episode. This is the last episode of season one featuring Linda maslin and a community focused around wrestling.
00:00:37:02 – 00:00:38:18
Speaker 1
Hi, Linda. How you doing?
00:00:38:21 – 00:00:39:21
Speaker 2
Hi, Mark.
00:00:39:23 – 00:00:42:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, let’s just launch into it, if that’s right.
00:00:42:11 – 00:00:47:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. Of course. Yeah. So you can ask questions. I’m going to respond to them.
00:00:47:14 – 00:00:53:14
Speaker 1
That’s usually a good format rather than just me asking questions and you sitting there quietly. That would be really awkward, wouldn’t it?
00:00:53:16 – 00:00:55:19
Speaker 2
Well, it’s better.
00:00:55:21 – 00:01:13:17
Speaker 1
Why don’t you tell us about yourself? Tell us about your your community. And and especially the the rather interesting angle of your community that some may know that has something to do with wrestling.
00:01:13:19 – 00:01:43:24
Speaker 2
Okay. Yeah, sure. So I, was recruited to come and lead the church here in Bradford. Fenton’s church, Bradford. We, three years old as a community. It’s a community that was planted with nothing. So we’re part of the Church of England Resource Churches network, and we were planted in City center Bradford, with no kind of, existing building.
00:01:43:24 – 00:02:07:05
Speaker 2
We bought some buildings which are nightclub building set for. It was for nightclubs in one kind of complex. And we’re in the process of, kind of working through doing that, building up. It was completely trashed as we took it on, and we’re about halfway through the refurbishment program now. Our worshiping communities again were starting from scratch with them.
00:02:07:05 – 00:02:32:16
Speaker 2
So we weren’t going into an existing, church to revitalize. We were, starting right from, people who were interested in Bradford around the Resource Church project. Were interested in how we might reach the, Sixth Sense community around to around to the Baptist. So our strapline is that we want to be a church, which is enough.
00:02:32:16 – 00:02:57:19
Speaker 2
And for Bradford. So at the moment we have a, full 30 congregation on a Sunday, that’s grown kind of from nothing to on average. Now we have about 110 people at our Sunday service at 430. But then we have other worshiping communities that have emerged out of and what we’re doing here. Intensive mission I swab. So you alluded to the wrestling church.
00:02:57:19 – 00:03:24:07
Speaker 2
Bradford has a real history of wrestling. And, it’s so happened that within my congregation, as it’s growing, we have three professional wrestlers in our congregation. I guess that’s a little bit unusual, particularly, but it felt like one of one of the people, was really interested in had already been using wrestling as a evangelistic tool.
00:03:24:09 – 00:03:49:11
Speaker 2
Okay. So and very, dramatic story of conversion, of, God’s restoration work in his life and, using the wrestling as a means to be able to communicate that message to other people and in conversation with him, we started talking about what could that eventually morph into a worshiping community? And of course, it’s always with these things.
00:03:49:11 – 00:04:11:22
Speaker 2
As you start out, you’re not quite sure. But what I came to understand was, the kind of pro wrestling that we’re involved in is telling stories. Obviously it’s often about the wrestling between good and evil. And of course, we have plenty of that within our scriptures. So it’s a great way to be able to tell a story.
00:04:11:24 – 00:04:38:05
Speaker 2
And we began with, hiring a ring in over a weekend. And over the weekend we did an evangelistic, kind of pro wrestling. We did a thing which was just pure wrestling in its ordinary form. So just a normal car that matches. And one thing, none of that. And then we also had our Sunday service run out of the wrestling ring and talked about it, and also had a wrestling match in the middle of our normal Sunday service with the events.
00:04:38:07 – 00:05:06:18
Speaker 2
That was kind of that was kind of the beginnings of it all. That was it was a really exciting weekend, and obviously because somebody broke into something a bit shocking. But we discovered was actually, there was a community that fell outside of our normal, Sunday worshiping community who were really interested in, the wrestling and were also there was some people in there who returning to, discipleship actually.
00:05:06:18 – 00:05:42:01
Speaker 2
Jesus. So that had some church background before and others who actually do the message that was conveyed. We’re really interested in beginning to follow Jesus. And so we then started this process of, okay, so would you begin to build the community? And so, since that point, every month we’ve had wrestling in one form or another. We had initially it was kind of pro wrestling, but even when we just having a pro wrestling kind of match, then we still have the opportunity to be able to speak about Jesus somewhat in that, in that match and essentially that set.
00:05:42:03 – 00:06:06:08
Speaker 2
It’s a means to bring people together. Obviously we’re building relationships with wrestlers all the time. Is there might be 15, 20 wrestlers involved in a, in a show and, and we have the opportunity to point them then towards Wrestling Church, which is the alternate month. At one month we have pro Wrestling show, and then the following month we have a wrestling chat.
00:06:06:10 – 00:06:23:04
Speaker 2
So it’s safe in our, in our wrestling church, we’ve seen quite a number of people coming to faith, and quite a number of people have been baptized. In fact, out of all of the wrestling church services that we’ve had, we’ve been had one which hasn’t been a baptism service. And that was because I wasn’t available to do any baptism.
00:06:23:04 – 00:06:45:16
Speaker 2
So it was, a normal service. I think we’re probably it’s about 15 or 20, people so far who’d be baptized. And actually this Sunday we’ve got. So this Saturday we’ve got four more baptisms and probably around 12 confirmations that are going to happen. So it’s going to be our bishop’s first trip to, wrestling church, which is.
00:06:45:18 – 00:06:46:09
Speaker 2
00:06:46:11 – 00:06:48:07
Speaker 1
Is your bishop.
00:06:48:09 – 00:06:50:15
Speaker 2
Bishop Toby Bradford.
00:06:50:17 – 00:06:55:06
Speaker 1
And, is are you going to encourage Bishop Toby into the ring, or is that. Yeah.
00:06:55:08 – 00:07:10:22
Speaker 2
Well, he will have to get into the ring if he’s going to confirm the candidates, because he then usually they like on the candidates, and the candidates are going to be up in the ring. So yes, he will. He will be up in the ring. I think he’s a little nervous about what’s going to happen. But,
00:07:10:24 – 00:07:16:09
Speaker 1
Does he get to choose his own wrestling name or is a wrestling name something that your your given?
00:07:16:11 – 00:07:26:06
Speaker 2
No. See, your wrestling your wrestling name is something that you choose. And I don’t think he’s chosen one. But he has got some entrance music. But it’s, it’s a.
00:07:26:12 – 00:07:29:05
Speaker 1
It’s a, it’s it’s I would.
00:07:29:07 – 00:08:00:10
Speaker 2
Use them in my wrestling name is Princess Warrior. So I and I, in all of our journey, I said that we started to get to know, people who were wrestling, and, a couple of our wrestlers are actually being baptized this Sunday. So in, conversations with, Gareth, who has is, you know, kind of one of the senior leaders in, our wrestling church, and, and me, he’s, come to face.
00:08:00:12 – 00:08:31:03
Speaker 2
So these two people have come to faith. One of them was, my kind of arch nemesis. Really? So from the beginning, there had been a bit of battle between him and I because he was Jeet, and he used illegal means in order to be able to win championship. And he was quite frequently dissing women. So, you know, I couldn’t, I couldn’t stand, but, I’d say, you know, he should know stands against him.
00:08:31:05 – 00:08:55:12
Speaker 2
But the the challenge was then when he came to know Jesus, he couldn’t really been our resident buddy. On a range from, what’s known as a heel. So the buddy to, be the face, which is a good guy. And so that’s taken us a little while to do that. And part of that did involve me getting into the ring and learning some moves in order to beat Jack.
00:08:55:13 – 00:09:07:10
Speaker 1
Well, yes, I, I, I have on my screen over here a I’m looking at a Twitter video of you in action. And I have to say it’s it’s mightily impressive.
00:09:07:12 – 00:09:09:12
Speaker 3
And it also.
00:09:09:14 – 00:09:43:15
Speaker 1
It sparks the question and is is it the same the wrestling strategy. You talked about it earlier as sort of being one of the branches of, of, of your ministry that, and while sort of this is something that we’re focusing on because it’s, it’s, it’s just such an interesting form of church, would I be right in saying that if that’s a branch of your ministry, is that sort of, a major branch or is it just is does that go alongside the regular parish ministry, that sort of stuff?
00:09:43:17 – 00:09:45:19
Speaker 1
Or how does how does that work?
00:09:45:21 – 00:09:46:01
Speaker 3
By.
00:09:46:06 – 00:10:11:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. So so it’s one of our other congregations. So we have a you know that I can would be you would tell me probably fresh expression of church or you know, we call it congregational plans, which is, for people who are on the margins again, we’re $0.60 church. We are really in the city center. So one of the things that we’d said right from the beginning was that we would joyfully engage with people who made the city center their home.
00:10:11:14 – 00:10:31:12
Speaker 2
So that could be people who are street homeless, people who here in the very cheap, accommodation that’s around in about Bradford who actually don’t like being in their accommodation because it’s not very warm and not very nice and still spent quite a bit of time on the streets. They might be addicted. Days often have significant mental health and well-being issues.
00:10:31:14 – 00:11:11:10
Speaker 2
So Saturday gathering is something which is geared towards that particular community. And again, has grown from I mean, it was really interesting because you’ll, you’ll, you’ll notice in the time frame that we’ve been running for two of those years, by and large, we were in Covid. So not a great time to plant church in our great street strategic plans of how we were going to grow our congregation got really cut off because of that, but one of the first areas where we were able to begin to minister as Covid, began to kind of, reduce in the, all of the restrictions declined was with people for whom we could provide support
00:11:11:10 – 00:11:31:17
Speaker 2
groups. And so we began by giving food away at the door and building relationships. Then when we were able, started to invite people in. And then on Saturdays, when we invite people in for food, we also invite them in for a very simple service, which has some some worship, some prayers, and usually a very short talk about Jesus.
00:11:31:19 – 00:11:53:19
Speaker 2
And again, we start to see people coming to know Jesus for the first time through that. And, and, and lovely kind of transitions from people coming first of all for food and then starting to get into volunteering, realizing that actually this family that’s at Fenton’s, you know, our our central theme is God. He’s you know, he’s he’s he’s in charge of all of this stuff.
00:11:53:21 – 00:12:13:22
Speaker 2
And then then gradually coming on journey, getting to know, and know about God. So so we have that as well. So suppose what I view, what I’m doing as being, you know, it’s kind of we’re beginning to have like a bit of an umbrella ministry here. And the call is, you know, we’re under the umbrella of Fountains Church, Bradford.
00:12:13:24 – 00:12:45:13
Speaker 2
But what we’re seeking to do is to bring people who wouldn’t ordinarily get involved in church into a, environment where we can make it possible for them to know God, and to see God at and see God at work. So, so, yeah, we’ve got a core and more traditional Sunday congregation, younger than probably most Church of England, congregations, broader reach of demographics than most Church of England, churches.
00:12:45:15 – 00:13:21:03
Speaker 2
Kind of quite a nice mix of races and ethnicities because we’re in Bradford. But, so it’s beginning to reflect the community that we, that we serve. So you’ve got that, that core. But actually we’ve got these other communities that are developing as well. So it’s evolve between these communities. Well, sometimes the if, you know, some people from Saturday gathering will come into a full 30, congregation, some will go to the wrestling church, some people from wrestling church will come to a full 30 congregation.
00:13:21:04 – 00:13:46:16
Speaker 2
So it’s good to start the gathering, you know. So there is a little bit of mix. Actually, the nature of all of these worshiping communities is quite different. So, you know, all the Saturday gathering, the Sunday worship is a calm, it’s peaceful. It’s, you know, it’s it’s drawing on themes of healing, and restoration, wrestling church.
00:13:46:16 – 00:14:11:13
Speaker 2
It’s rock, it’s loud, it’s lively, it’s, you know, it goes with the, with the with the wrestling. And Sunday can be a mix. I mean, our last, Sunday, we have a lot of, Nigerians in our congregation and, they some worship had a real African feel about it because that’s what’s emerged out of the community.
00:14:11:13 – 00:14:41:02
Speaker 2
And I think I think that’s the thing around the, around fresh expression, developing different congregations is what you’re not trying to do is to, is to create conformity with, and you’re also not trying to create something for a group of people. Doing is creating the community, you know, enabling the community to come together. And then out of that community, it merges the worship that’s appropriate to that community.
00:14:41:04 – 00:15:09:14
Speaker 2
So that’s really what we’re trying to do. So I’m a facilitator. I always think, and particularly with Wrestling Church, I have a wrestling church team. And I think to them, you know, I feel like I’m a little bit of an imposter, into, somebody else’s world. So I’m trying very hard to learn some of the stuff around what it means to be a part of that’s a part of that world, deliver language, which is different in the way in which people, work with each other is different.
00:15:09:16 – 00:15:29:18
Speaker 2
Everything about it is different. It’s all really beautiful, but it’s very deep broke me. So I have to remember that when I’m in that community, I’m kind of a bit of a guest in that community. I’ve I’ve earned some rites of passage into it because of, getting involved in the wrestling, being prepared to, you know, take some actions which ordinarily, as a vicar, I wouldn’t do.
00:15:29:20 – 00:15:50:15
Speaker 2
So, you know that, say, I’ve been prepared to do that, but I still have to be really myself. You know, I’m finding out about this community and allowing the people who are in that community to really enable them to, you know, kind of become and be part of worship. It’s appropriate for that community. Does that make sense?
00:15:50:15 – 00:16:21:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s, that’s, a common, I think a common theme, that, we hear in, in the, in the movement at that, the ownership and what, what is what is the community and what what’s the purpose of it and. Yeah, how we’re we’re serving the community rather than, shaping and allowing the community to shape us and sort of that very, almost symbiotic nature of it.
00:16:21:09 – 00:16:57:14
Speaker 1
And then when, when the, the we’re allowing the Holy Spirit to, to feed that, and all the creativity that comes from that gets, gets really exciting. I, we love the, the, the idea that you set about him being the guest in that community. Because I suspect for some that’s quite a challenging idea, and because there’s so much energy and work that that many church leaders put into their communities, that, to suggest being a guest almost.
00:16:57:16 – 00:17:12:21
Speaker 1
It flies in the face of that a little bit because it’s there’s ownership that tends to happen, when you work hard at something and, and so, yeah, I think it’s, it’s a really, really good way of looking at it is, is, is to.
00:17:12:23 – 00:17:13:20
Speaker 3
It is an interesting.
00:17:13:20 – 00:17:46:15
Speaker 2
Balance because whilst yes, I am the guest, I also have to have, you know, kind of the overall, I don’t know what’s the word. I have to make sure that everything is done appropriately. I have to make sure that, you know, where we’ve got safeguarding issues that they set and managed appropriately. I have to make sure that, you know, all of the correct governance is in place for this when, you know, there’s kind of that piece which clearly that will is my responsibility to make sure that that that happens and that isn’t really a guest, a guest role.
00:17:46:17 – 00:17:56:24
Speaker 2
But most of that should be happening outside of the actual worshiping community itself at this, at this point in time. So, so.
00:17:57:02 – 00:17:59:17
Speaker 1
That’s sort of like being a being a host.
00:17:59:19 – 00:18:00:22
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:18:00:24 – 00:18:03:01
Speaker 1
I was the other guest.
00:18:03:02 – 00:18:21:00
Speaker 2
I guess. Yeah, I guess, I guess so, you know, it’s it’s a obviously it’s hosted within our building. We now have a wrestling ring and all of those, all of those kind of things that go with it. So you, you know, so this kind of a, you know, an operational side of what’s going on here as well.
00:18:21:00 – 00:18:49:16
Speaker 2
But we have to, you know, ensure it. Good. Again, good governance, is is maintained. And I think it’s just recognizing that I, I don’t know. And certainly as we started out, I didn’t know how a, wrestling church would develop, you know, what does that even begin to look like? It does that. And I think that’s the point at which you kind of feel like you’re you are a guest in the community, but, but you are, engaging with the community.
00:18:49:16 – 00:19:10:09
Speaker 2
You are asking questions of the community. You’re enabling then to be able to, become a worshiping community. So, you know, providing obviously a little bit of a consultant around it. But, yeah, we’ve been to guide the whole thing rather than, you know, I support it rather than I, you know, at the from making it happen, if that makes sense.
00:19:10:09 – 00:19:11:06
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:19:11:08 – 00:19:39:01
Speaker 1
Tell me the the question that’s sort of itching for me is and I realize just in, in different contexts. So for anyone who’s sort of working within a fresh expression of, of church or, a fresh expression, or a new Christian community that that doesn’t look like traditional church and, and how people get into it. It’s always a very unique story.
00:19:39:03 – 00:20:14:00
Speaker 1
And so I’d love to hear sort of what your journey was to, to sort of the, I guess, coming and coming up in the, in the, in the Church of England, and where your desires came from to specifically do church differently, I guess, and from the stuff in the margins, the wrestling, but also, I guess it’s that thing of how does one how do you find yourself in a position where you’re going like, yeah, wrestling church.
00:20:14:02 – 00:20:40:04
Speaker 1
That’s a cool idea. And, and just going with that. When faced I guess with, yeah, there’s all that stuff that, you know, there’s a lot of reasons why that’s a, not a great idea because of all sorts of things. How do you how do you navigate that? But so I guess let me simplify my question and first for of question let’s go to that is like how did you find yourself getting into this idea of just doing church differently?
00:20:40:06 – 00:20:59:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, okay. That’s really good. It’s a really good question. So, I’ve, I’ve been in church for most of my life. I had about 20 years when I was not when I, leading in organizations and I took a deviation away from my kind of core discipleship journey with Jesus when I came back to him, which would be about ten years ago.
00:20:59:12 – 00:21:25:08
Speaker 2
Now, we, I started to go to an undefined church in Halifax where I, where I lived, and, not long after, I felt called towards ordination when it was a recall, really, because I felt called to ordination when I was about 13. And we didn’t have women priests in the Church of England at that time, but had gotten a degree in theology.
00:21:25:10 – 00:21:46:20
Speaker 2
So having come back, and began to finish this, this crucial to ordination began the discernment program, as you do with that, a directory of ordinance and starting to talk to them about, you know, kind of roles within me, within the church. And it was really just at a time where fresh expressions were really just beginning to be heard about.
00:21:46:23 – 00:22:09:02
Speaker 2
And, and I was kind of interested in that, but I couldn’t think about what, what would church look like if you were going to do it differently? I just I’m not I don’t have a great imagination. So I couldn’t picture what that might look like at all. But I did have just as I was, going through the kind of final processes of then being selected to go to ordination.
00:22:09:04 – 00:22:25:10
Speaker 2
I was having this conversation with my, director of ordinance, and he said, you know, I could really see you being a pioneer of something. Linda. I bet you know, I bet Pioneer Ministries where you could be. And I said, well, that’s really interesting because it does kind of exciting, but I’ve got no idea how you’d even begin to do that.
00:22:25:12 – 00:22:54:13
Speaker 2
Anyway, I get to the point where I’m at college and, I’m working full time. Really trying to work through what it means to be a Christian in my workplace as well as, being in this ordination, this strange ordination process, which I was doing kind of in evenings and weekends. And, you know, I now realize actually some of what I was doing in the workplace was actually starting to create little mini churches.
00:22:54:13 – 00:23:20:05
Speaker 2
I didn’t see it in that way at the time, but I was beginning to gather together and people who were either on a journey to knowing Jesus, okay. And he knew Jesus, but were actively following him in church. So, you know, a little like Bible study groups were emerging where I, I kind of lost. And then when I, when I the day I actually started college was the day that I planted a church without really realizing that I’ve planted a church.
00:23:20:05 – 00:23:50:05
Speaker 2
So I’d been working with, some friends in Halifax where I was with, been involved in this food bank. In introducing prayer to the food bank, we actually started to see again people wanting to know more about God in Christ, because that was what was happening, answering prayers. And then people wanted to know about, well, I didn’t like, any anybody else would do I when people had suggested this, I start to take them into my church.
00:23:50:07 – 00:24:13:07
Speaker 2
The church that I was attending, which was a lovely and making church very friendly, and very open and, but suddenly realized how, how kind of different the, you know, the whole culture was within church to the culture that sat outside church of the people who were a food bank, you know. So how do you suddenly teach somebody how to stand up and sit down in the right places?
00:24:13:07 – 00:24:30:12
Speaker 2
Have not to respond to the rhetorical questions that a preacher might ask. And you know that now all of those kind of things, it’s it’s just so different. And one day I when I’d been out doing something and coming to my church late, and the people that I’d brought along from the feedback, they were just sat apart from everybody else.
00:24:30:12 – 00:24:52:15
Speaker 2
And and it wasn’t that people were being unfriendly because people definitely being friendly, but there was no kind of real sense of connection that made me really begin to evaluate what is it that actually we, trying to do in trying to create for these people because they’re not going to settle where I was settling just with, say, foreign to them.
00:24:52:17 – 00:25:25:15
Speaker 2
So with this, other couple of people that I worked with over, over a number of years, we set up what was then the first Saturday gathering in Halifax, and that was church specifically geared to the people who were coming to faith through the food bank. And over the period of about, it was, I think, seven years I was there before I moved David’s come to Bradford, we saw about 130 people come to know Jesus, make commitments and and really disciple with us, over that kind of over that kind of time frame.
00:25:25:17 – 00:26:01:14
Speaker 2
But the, and we at first kind of said, this isn’t a church, it’s a gathering. Because actually it becomes complicated if you set up a church. Yeah. And particularly, as you know, the, actually that Saturday gathering grew up to the charity rather than out of my, sending church. But you start to see these, these people coming along and then, you know, eventually we had to go, actually, it is a church because that’s what the people within it were saying, that it was, you know, to then it was church, because we were worshiping and we were praying and we were baptizing people.
00:26:01:14 – 00:26:24:00
Speaker 2
And, you know, all of those all of those kind of things were, were going on. So then that made me think, well, okay, this is happening kind of over here, then what else is there? And I guess that was the point at which my brain started to get into, well, where else is that that actually we could be thinking about new worshiping communities rather than thinking about drawing people into a church?
00:26:24:02 – 00:26:45:15
Speaker 2
Actually, if you’ve got a group of people who are beginning to know Jesus, getting to know him, then you know, asking them to go into a church which is foreign to them is probably not the right kind of answer, particularly if you’re seeing that happening with groups of with groups of people there. So a kind of long story short, I then adopt, been ordained.
00:26:45:17 – 00:27:08:14
Speaker 2
So, curate in a couple of normal ish kind of churches. But even after that, then, I had the opportunity to have a second year in, in that second year, say I had pretty much responsibility for the church that I was in and was able to grow another church outside of that which was in the school.
00:27:08:16 – 00:27:35:22
Speaker 2
So starts out going to do assemblies, collective worship. Begin to build relationships with the teachers and with the kids, then started to do after school church, so after school club, which turned into after school church because actually, again, you start teaching scripture, having prayers and, singing songs, and suddenly you’ve got service that’s happening outside of it and, you know, really interesting dialog.
00:27:35:22 – 00:27:56:23
Speaker 2
Then with the cool members of the church because they were like, well, when are they all going to come to Sabbath then? When are they? When I know that when are they all going to write like, you know, an inability to get the head right? Actually, they probably weren’t ever going to arrive. And actually they didn’t arrive. They really wouldn’t like it in Sabbaths because they wouldn’t be nice, quiet children while communions all taking place.
00:27:57:00 – 00:28:17:20
Speaker 2
Okay. You know, again. So I suppose once it started, then actually you kind of go, well, you kids easily start a worshiping community over there. If you begin to build relationships, share the gospel, see people come to break and then start. They say, I can be really frustrating for my team and for other people because that’s what I’m like.
00:28:17:22 – 00:28:41:11
Speaker 2
So you can start church over there. And I have to now really think about, you know, kind of where, where is it exactly that God is leading in terms of that kind of the Spirit’s leading into fresh expression, say, the wrestling church? You know, I had discussions with Gareth just as we were starting, a church here.
00:28:41:13 – 00:29:01:04
Speaker 2
And I just really felt that this was Holy Spirit’s leading and, and, and hence it’s developed in the way that in the way that it has started gathering again. Similarly, you know, we we couldn’t go in the direction of travel that we’d thought we were going to go. But actually, the Spirit’s leading led us in, in that direction.
00:29:01:06 – 00:29:03:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, that it strikes.
00:29:03:06 – 00:29:23:11
Speaker 1
Me as and one of those things and, and I guess because both of us have Church England backgrounds, but to to I think it’s also common across other denominations that often when we think of the word church, depending on your denomination, you have a very idea set structure of what that looks like.
00:29:23:13 – 00:29:24:08
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:29:24:10 – 00:29:48:10
Speaker 1
And, it just requires that usual thing of just breaking breaking that mold a little bit. You know, I think I’ve heard some people say, well, depending on the denomination, it can be quite difficult to work within the boundaries, but I think it just, it’s just requires some creative thinking and, and, you know, when the Holy Spirit is at work, we can’t we can’t stop that.
00:29:48:12 – 00:29:52:18
Speaker 1
It’s going to happen. And and right.
00:29:52:20 – 00:30:10:16
Speaker 2
I mean, most of what we do is it’s a, you know, it’s canonical. You know, we we most of what we do is, like I said, it’s at the word we, we preach that we, you know, we have Scripture equipment, we pray, we, sing songs, wash it, you know, but but we do that in a way that’s actually quite different.
00:30:10:21 – 00:30:33:19
Speaker 2
If you went into a, a kind of more traditional, parish church, you would see a sense of the word played out differently. There’s actually all the component parts would be in what we’re doing in, in, in all of our fresh expressions. And when we do baptisms and confirmations, we release liturgy, in and do be authorized liturgy.
00:30:33:21 – 00:30:40:02
Speaker 2
So but we’re doing it in creative ways and sharing the goodness of Jesus in creative ways.
00:30:40:04 – 00:31:00:07
Speaker 1
But it’s not. We’re even it’s even the that of the word liturgy. Yeah. I’ve come to learn in the last few years that that’s still very flexible, because there’s obviously this traditional liturgy, certainly within the Church of England, there’s a traditional, liturgy, and there’s the, the different books. And that’s not my job to to know is it’s my lifestyle to do that.
00:31:00:09 – 00:31:21:18
Speaker 1
And, but, there’s still liturgy, like more informal liturgy that does, does the same job. And, and I guess I’m saying that for, for those who might be listening, going like, but how do I how do I fit this into this mold? And so like, well, it’s, it’s maybe it’s like a jelly mold and where the jelly and it has to go in and around the creases.
00:31:21:18 – 00:31:48:13
Speaker 1
But it can it can work and there’s one of the things I was thinking about is just with, with seeing these different sort of communities that you’ve been a part of and that you’ve worked alongside, there’s, you know, obviously we’ve talked about this different cultures and, and quite possibly very different cultures between those different, different communities.
00:31:48:15 – 00:32:20:20
Speaker 1
And so this sort of the. Yeah, as you’re, a facilitator and those, this kind of, this idea of, and bringing the gospel into those environments that you’re, there’s, an active translation, I guess that culture. Yeah. And and so I guess I’m, I’m trying to figure and, and you sort of talked about it before a little bit with the wrestling church about how the good and evil stuff and, but maybe you could tell us a bit more about how, how does that, that work.
00:32:20:20 – 00:32:26:23
Speaker 1
Is that a gentle, gentle. Is it quite direct. Yeah. How do you how do you sort of.
00:32:27:00 – 00:33:00:15
Speaker 2
I mean, it it depends really. So, wrestling last Easter, we, basically threw the wrestling ring and acted the whole kind of trial death, Holy Saturday resurrection, aspects of the, of Jesus’s narrative. Incredibly powerful. You know, somebody was dropped into a coffin, you know, dropped down onto they onto the floor, quite noisy.
00:33:00:17 – 00:33:02:09
Speaker 2
And then silence.
00:33:02:11 – 00:33:03:22
Speaker 1
And.
00:33:03:24 – 00:33:36:17
Speaker 2
And then, you know, the resurrection taking place after, after that. So, you know, in an incredibly dramatic, in some, you know, in some senses, but then at other times much more, you know, kind of subtle in your approach in terms of telling story and telling and telling narrative. We find with Wrestling Church, so kind of preaching is like five, seven minutes, and it’s up in the story.
00:33:36:17 – 00:33:58:15
Speaker 2
So it’s, you know, replaying perhaps into words what’s being seen in the ring and then drawing that into what’s, what’s that like for, you know, today. What is it, what does it mean? You know, we’re looking at a story from 2000 years ago, maybe 4000 years ago, you know. And what does that mean for me? For me today, when where we are at the moment is actually really trying to work.
00:33:58:17 – 00:34:23:24
Speaker 2
How do we do, discipleship from that point for, this community, and it was really interesting. We had then our first confirmation class, a couple of weeks back, and we were using the stopped course, to identify the people who’ve come across that. It’s kind of quite something which is emerged, actually out of Bradford from one of our, Bradford missioners.
00:34:24:01 – 00:34:46:07
Speaker 2
And and to be honest, it’s not really my favorite class. It’s all I did a little bit, and it’ll be kind of cringeworthy. But I sat and watched the leaders of the confirmation class go through it with these guys from, wrestling church, the new kind of new disciples of Jesus. And they were completely enthralled by it.
00:34:46:09 – 00:35:03:22
Speaker 2
You know, the conversations that emerged out of it were amazing. They, you know, the opening scene was basically, you know, kind of fairground and, you know, the message was, you know, whereabouts are you in life? You know, all of these fairground rides and you could depict yourself on one of these. So, you know, you might be on a roundabout where you going round and round doing that, being a swing back where you go up and down.
00:35:03:22 – 00:35:21:17
Speaker 2
Or it might be a dodgem where actually you’re okay, except that people keep bumping into you. Well, you know, all all of these kind of things. And the dialog that emerged out of that was just beautiful in terms of people being really vulnerable and open about where they were in their lives, but also starting to think about where they wanted to be in their lives.
00:35:21:17 – 00:35:41:05
Speaker 2
And, you know, where God is in in all of this, all of this journey. So I think we just you have to be really creative about, you know, what’s going to work for that particular community. And, you know, some of the normal stuff that we might think about, say, you know, the normal gates, it would be like Alpha.
00:35:41:07 – 00:36:02:01
Speaker 2
And if the Alpha, you know, the, the language even on like the youth alpha is, would it be appropriate for this particular community does doesn’t work for them. They wouldn’t get it. But you know, this this you know, kind of fairground roundabout stuff and you know, being on the journey and God in the middle of that, you know, that just worked absolutely, absolutely fine said.
00:36:02:03 – 00:36:25:09
Speaker 2
I mean, for me, a lot of it has been experimentation because, you know, often people haven’t gone on the journey that we’re going on. Hudson and and so, you know, you have to kind of research and pray, look, I think all of, all of those kind of things in order to make sure that what you’re creating is something that’s appropriate, you know, kind of for that, for that community.
00:36:25:11 – 00:36:48:21
Speaker 2
Well, I think it becomes more challenging to try and have people go from one of our worshiping communities into another. Yeah, some of that will translate, but some of it won’t. So if I took everything down to the lowest common denominator in terms of what what we did within fountains, then that would it work for, you know, people who were perhaps university lecturers who come to our full plate service.
00:36:48:23 – 00:37:27:09
Speaker 2
So, you know, you’re you knowing within each congregation what it is that’s needed for that particular community. And then working together, you know, they kind of, the worship, the, the sermons, you know, all of that to that particular community. And if somebody comes in then from wrestling to that, then they’ll probably take something away, but they won’t get the whole of they, you know, whatever has been spoken about, somebody who perhaps would come to our 430 congregation who came into a wrestling, you know, kind of church would go so, you know, a seven minute tour which basically just retold the story, you know, not really.
00:37:27:09 – 00:37:29:19
Speaker 2
Take me anywhere. Do you see what I mean? So it’s it’s.
00:37:29:19 – 00:37:53:20
Speaker 1
But it’s that cultural context, right? Yeah. Because it’s, it’s talked a lot about is that that’s that every, every sort of new community, new Christian community has to have its own it. They all have their own individual cultures. And if if something that’s guaranteed, nearly guaranteed to like to make, a new Christian community fail is if you’re trying to push your own culture.
00:37:53:22 – 00:38:20:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, to a, a new worshiping community, where your culture isn’t their culture, it has to grow. It has to be organic and has to just sort of see, see what comes from it. And yes, there can be an a specific idea around it. Of course. But the culture within that and how that works has to, you know, it’s a journey and, and some, some of the, the, the people that we’ve spoken to before.
00:38:20:12 – 00:38:37:11
Speaker 1
And one of the threads that they talk about, is the longevity of that, where, some of them have been going for like years and years and years and some of them not so long. But the point is that the people in this community, you build trust with people in the community because that’s what a community is, is about.
00:38:37:11 – 00:39:00:18
Speaker 1
It’s building trust with people and being there regularly, being there all the time and getting to know people and earning that trust. And so, like you say, you’ve earned the trust of those communities. You’ve earned the credibility to to sort of be a guest in that community. And, and and that’s such an important aspect to think because, again, it’s it’s while church leaders might have a whole spiritual authority over.
00:39:00:18 – 00:39:12:24
Speaker 1
Yeah, over a thing. Within a community, if you, if you force that, you know, it’s, you’re, you’re going to lose people straight away. Yeah. Which is. Yeah, really fascinating.
00:39:13:02 – 00:39:32:08
Speaker 2
And, and also I think, you know, and where I, I, my understanding had to develop. So going back kind of ten years to what I thought I was doing was not creating a church. I thought what I was doing was creating a stepping stone into church so that the early kind of society gathering stuff was really me thinking.
00:39:32:13 – 00:39:57:17
Speaker 2
So I need to train people so that they can go back into the type of church that I’m in. Period. Yeah. And then I realized that that was just that was crazy. You know, that wasn’t wasn’t what was it was going to be the right thing, a toll for anybody. And so, you know, and again, it’s amazing how many people just don’t really get that, you know, so wrestling church is wrestling church.
00:39:57:17 – 00:40:17:03
Speaker 2
It’s not that wrestling church will provide the training for people to come into a full basic congregation. It’s it’s I think again, that’s it’s really it’s one of the things that I love about the whole concept and fresh expressions is this is a fresh expression in its own right. It’s not a stepping stone into something else. This is this is.
00:40:17:05 – 00:40:38:14
Speaker 1
It’s the the other, the drum that I often hear being banged, is, is it’s not about bums on seats. Which is what a lot of the models of church are about. You know, we can understand that. Yeah. There is accountability in, in different ways, in different denominations and how they work. And but most of them aim towards this in increasing numbers of bums on seats.
00:40:38:16 – 00:40:54:01
Speaker 1
Whereas this is not that’s about this is about serving a community and bringing Jesus into a community in a way that works for them. And that might not look like the same model of getting bums on seats. And that’s not what it’s about, though. It’s about.
00:40:54:03 – 00:41:02:22
Speaker 2
But they since that’s the bums on seats that come to wrestling church are just as valid as the bums on seats that I have it a full 30 congregation.
00:41:02:22 – 00:41:04:05
Speaker 1
So of course.
00:41:04:07 – 00:41:22:22
Speaker 2
We’re a resource church. So, you know, within that there’s a lot of accountability. And I do an awful lot of reporting. You know, so that said, those numbers are counted and they’re part of, you know, they’re part of Stanton’s. And, you know, we’re now at that stage of say, well, actually, but I said this to our, our trustees, who were the equivalent of our PCC.
00:41:22:22 – 00:42:00:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. The last time we met is our our representation at the moment doesn’t represent our whole church. It represents really well a full 30 congregation. So how do we get representation now for, for, wrestling church, for instance, in that community for Saturday gathering into that community, how do we adopt ourselves as a trustee board to make sure that actually if they come in to that board, then actually they have a voice, they have influence, and it doesn’t feel like it’s something that’s completely uncomfortable and foreign.
00:42:00:23 – 00:42:10:23
Speaker 2
See them. So how do we, you know, how do we move now, our governance structure to cover, the greater breadth of what we, representing because we should.
00:42:11:00 – 00:42:11:09
Speaker 1
It.
00:42:11:11 – 00:42:32:07
Speaker 2
Shouldn’t just have a trustee board that represents a qualification and will not every now and again to the fact that there’s a wrestling church on a Saturday gathering, you know, they the combination of those two now, you know, probably make up almost the same number as our Saturday, our Sunday board that the congregation, you know, the numbers are quite, quite significant.
00:42:32:09 – 00:42:40:05
Speaker 2
And so you have to say, well, actually, how does that how does that change the nature of our governance as well as the nature of our church.
00:42:40:07 – 00:42:43:20
Speaker 1
The holistic nature of it, you know, different communities.
00:42:43:22 – 00:42:45:03
Speaker 2
And it.
00:42:45:05 – 00:43:04:02
Speaker 1
Then we are we are nearly out of time. And and so this has been amazing hearing all that stuff. It’s it’s it’s really fun hearing about it. It’s also I think it’s going to be really challenging for some. And because even.
00:43:04:04 – 00:43:04:20
Speaker 2
If that’s.
00:43:04:22 – 00:43:31:06
Speaker 1
My, you know, my comments on bums on seats and your, your, your, your, twist on that, which is absolutely invalid, it’s I think it’s, there’s, it’s recognizing the challenges that some will hear because I think there’s a lot of folk out there who, are having stirrings of the spirit to do new things. And, I think there’s a lot of that.
00:43:31:06 – 00:44:00:19
Speaker 1
There’s a lot of the structures that that exist that I think people think are barriers to that sort of stuff. So my I always ask this question to all of our guests, which is, what’s what’s the kind of thing you want to say to people who, who are out there, who are thinking of starting the Christian communities in different, be it very creative models of church to maybe regular looking models of church, and, and everything, everything in between.
00:44:00:21 – 00:44:07:06
Speaker 1
And as someone who’s doing quite a few different things in very creative ways, what what would you say to those guys?
00:44:07:08 – 00:44:31:13
Speaker 2
I think to just do it, say I you can wait. I think pray and scrutinize what others are doing or you like, but really, until you set out on a journey, then you don’t know. You just don’t know. Whether that’s going to be something which is within the breath of the Holy Spirit and certainly is going to fly or something, that’s all.
00:44:31:14 – 00:44:51:00
Speaker 2
Something that’s not, and, Yeah, I think I think that’s, that’s the main message. Once, once you begin to step it into something, you often get asked, is it okay? You know, how do I know? Which is God’s leading? How do I know which path to go on? And, you know, all of these, like, highly spiritual things.
00:44:51:00 – 00:45:11:17
Speaker 2
And I often say that in in response to that, just start doing something because it’s amazing how God can move your foot, and it’s much easier for him to move something that’s moving rather than something that’s stuck in the ground. So if you’re feeling the leading of Holy Spirit to a particular community, then make the first moves within that and, you know, that might be going and speaking to people.
00:45:11:17 – 00:45:46:00
Speaker 2
It might be going and joining, you know, a community might be it might be 1,000,001 different things. But just start and do something and then watch out for what the Holy Spirit does in response to your breathing. And that for me, is usually the affirmation that you’re in the right, in the right kind of direction. It’s been many things where I’ve kind of headed in the direction and actually gone just not felt Holy Spirit’s leading beyond, you know, the the thought of the imagination that I’d got, so, you know, just don’t be afraid scripting to go.
00:45:46:00 – 00:46:07:12
Speaker 2
And, you know, I sometimes think God looks at that kind of me goes, I wonder what crazy ideas I can check in her direction now. You know, the wrestling I remember so well, the initial conversation and just sitting there thinking, either decision made or it’s, you know, completely not there’s no middle ground in all of this.
00:46:07:14 – 00:46:29:18
Speaker 2
And then it’s setting out and then, you know, realizing that there’s there are challenges along the way. There’s all sorts of things that you have to confront, both individually and collectively as you go on the journey. But actually, when you’re in that kind of slipstream of God’s Holy Spirit, then even though there are, you know, plenty of bumps along the road, there’s still the stop, which is just showing that actually there are people who are beginning to journey.
00:46:29:18 – 00:46:40:21
Speaker 2
There are relationships that are beginning to develop between person and God. And you know, that for me is the affirmation, the confirmation that God’s in this.
00:46:40:23 – 00:47:06:23
Speaker 1
And my final question for you is, what are we again? We often ask people what their hopes for the future are. And because like, yeah, this is this is very much, there’s a lot of people listening to this who will be. Yeah, interested in starting Christian communities and may want to pray for you. So, yeah.
00:47:06:23 – 00:47:09:11
Speaker 1
What are your hopes for the future for?
00:47:09:13 – 00:47:10:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure.
00:47:10:22 – 00:47:14:02
Speaker 1
At a church, for, for your first searches.
00:47:14:04 – 00:47:38:12
Speaker 2
It’s been a it’s, you know, I’ve told you a lot of the amazing stuff that’s been going on at fountains, really in this last kind of two, three years. We’ve also had very, very difficult time from a whole variety of, kinds of perspectives, which is, it’s been hard to navigate through Bradford’s very contested territory. And so, my prayer for this year is it’s going to be I, in a word, that we had was that it’s going to be a year of exhilaration.
00:47:38:14 – 00:48:03:20
Speaker 2
So I’m hoping that, like, all of the down bits have been done. And actually now we’re going to really begin to start to see some energy, the ability to move forward and, you know, in some other significant ways. So, so for me, it’s growing the depth of what we have within our prophetic, congregation that’s continuing to develop and the, the requirements of the Saturday gathering and the wrestling, you know, the wrestling church.
00:48:03:20 – 00:48:29:05
Speaker 2
So taking them from outside, that kind of idea stage to, you know, kind of more kind of may not not until mainstream church, but it’s been, you know, a mainstream worshiping, worshiping community. So developing the disciples, within their there to me now is and going back to some of my, roots in terms of starting to think about how do we create worshiping communities within the business community.
00:48:29:07 – 00:48:53:10
Speaker 2
So we’re very close to City Center, Bradford retail, you know, kind of all of all of that kind of stuff. Magistrates courts on the base, you know, how do we begin to, introduce Jesus, Zimbabwe? We have a beautiful city square that we overlook, which has a reflection pool and fountains and stuff in the summer, which is where we get our name from, you know, how do we how do we begin to be really active disciples down there?
00:48:53:10 – 00:49:21:08
Speaker 2
Interestingly, because of all the things we’ve done with the marginalized community, we were very welcome down. There is a presence is people of peace and are invited into things for that reason. So we have quite a number of doors that are opening, and it’s kind of a camp for us, which is the ones that we are going to walk through in this season and at this time, to extend, the reach of God’s kingdom, to be able to share with others the good news of Jesus.
00:49:21:10 – 00:49:40:01
Speaker 2
So, yeah, that’s that’s that’s my hopes and dreams. Really. My hopes and dreams is actually out of this. Other people will just take that that first step and discover, you know, the amazing adventures that are out there in, in, in following garden, you know, kind of helping to develop worshiping communities in different ways.
00:49:40:03 – 00:50:16:19
Speaker 1
Brilliant. Linda, this has been a privilege. It’s it’s really inspiring and it’s really fun and it’s. Yeah, as I said, some will find it challenging. But I think the, the, the it’s really refreshing to hear such a fun, a fun model of church being been talked about because it’s, it’s it’s so good. I think it, it’s so good because it hits immediately, at least in my head, starts to spark all sorts of different ideas of, of creative forms of church.
00:50:16:21 – 00:50:50:22
Speaker 1
And I know that there’ll be some out there like, well, if, if you can do wrestling church, surely you can do X, y, Z, or you can ABC. And that’s what I think is really, really exciting. But for now we will draw to a close. Linda, thank you so much for your time. You’re welcome and be blessed and no doubt we’ll speak again in the future.
00:50:50:24 – 00:50:55:12
Speaker 1
When I’ve got my reaction, as always, like by.
00:50:55:14 – 00:50:57:10
Speaker 3
My own, I had.
00:50:57:15 – 00:51:21:00
Speaker 1
To come up with something a bit more original every time. But yeah, what a story. And one of the things I find really inspiring about Linda’s, it’s not only the wrestling church, but it’s also the the church in the margins stuff that she’s doing and, and and and the, the sort of regular traditional Church of England church, like 430 service.
00:51:21:00 – 00:51:50:20
Speaker 1
She was talking about and that’s, that’s for me that’s really challenging. Because I think it’s, it’s sometimes a stretch to think about doing a creative form of, or creating a new Christian community in a, in a specific context. So to be doing multiple ones. But then I guess, as she said herself, she’s like sort of gotten into this rhythm of just doing stuff and, her context is that that’s,
00:51:50:22 – 00:51:51:19
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:51:51:21 – 00:52:23:11
Speaker 3
I know, I just kept thinking when she, when she was saying these things and I was like, wait, is I another one? Is that another thing? And then she’s like, I’m this year we’re hoping to go into the business community. I’m like, how? Like what? She just so I love, you know, I it’s amazing that, you know, there are some people that God keeps on us that can just hold so many things, you know, I mean, there are some people that, called on this earth to be very singular and just hold one thing and do it incredibly well.
00:52:23:11 – 00:52:49:16
Speaker 3
And then God gives these other women, like Linda, to just, you know, to just go into so many spheres and spaces and, yeah, phenomenal. Really great story on that drive to to just want to say to to not be, you know, the wrestling community. It isn’t enough. She’s constantly seeking you know where where next like she was saying, you know, the doors are open.
00:52:49:18 – 00:53:13:02
Speaker 3
She’s constantly looking for that next space to be able to, to welcome into her community, like the community into. And it was. Yeah. I think you put it perfectly when you said that it’s a real it’s going to be some key treasures in there that are really going to challenge people in this episode, for sure.
00:53:13:04 – 00:53:44:12
Speaker 1
I just there’s one point just I want to I want to tackle just from from us acknowledging the fact that, like, Linda herself is, is quite it’s quite the human being to to manage all of this. And I wouldn’t want anyone listening to feel overwhelmed by by what she’s doing because I think, you know, like you were saying, there’s some people who are called to do a singular thing, and there are some people who are called to do multiple things, but it’s remembering that God gives us everything that we need to do that.
00:53:44:12 – 00:54:03:16
Speaker 1
And yes, it might be challenging and we might go in scared out of our wits and feeling unprepared. But God always is with us in these things. God doesn’t call us to stuff that we’re, that is not going to prep us to do, We might not be fully prepped without him, but with him. Yeah, it should be an obvious point, but wants to make sure we.
00:54:03:18 – 00:54:39:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. And no and that. Well, you know, Linda spoke about what, you know, the work that she does because that’s from her perspective. You know, I am under no illusion that it’s just her running all these things all the time and that she probably has a phenomenal team capable in each sphere. And, something I really like is, and it resonated a lot personally with, with the ministry we working in is almost having, each, expression of that church, a fountain’s, you know, having its own community and then perhaps its own group of leaders.
00:54:39:08 – 00:55:02:11
Speaker 3
We’ve reached as we’ve developed now to where we are, we’re really seeing that that that is that is not only is it a healthy model, of doing church, it almost, it really it really allows us to be very intentional with the people that we are. We know that the, this team, these people are for the, for this group.
00:55:02:11 – 00:55:39:16
Speaker 3
They’re not stretching themselves like, you know, we might be the facilitator. AG I think facilitator is a great word that she used. You know, we are actually the facilitators making sure that all of these, all of these plates spinning are, still spinning, but then you’ve got each community that is holding itself with this group of leaders running in that, and there may be other people that cross into other plates and jump from plate to plate for some things, but and, and I think when you what I loved in in Linda story is that it shows how you can still have some form of traditional chat, but I hate using that word old.
00:55:39:18 – 00:56:03:07
Speaker 3
And you can still use a form of a Sunday service worship, but still have all these multiple expressions coming from that. It doesn’t have to just be a fresh expression in the community on its own, not attached to any major church, or the fresh expression itself wasn’t the thing that started, you know, now, in traditional church, you’ve got a traditional church, which is multiple expressions, but that reflects the culture, the community.
00:56:03:07 – 00:56:21:07
Speaker 3
That was the you know, when you when you chatted with her, you touched on that so much and how it is reflective of the community. And, you can see that she’s seeing that, you know, thinking, oh, well, it’s a it’s a business community now where we are very business minded. So that’s where we need to be. And, and.
00:56:21:07 – 00:56:49:12
Speaker 1
Also what I really loved, towards the end, of some of those points was she said several times that reminder of the, the led the wrestling community. And the the the, the, the group on the margins were there that the the the mission isn’t to get them into the regular service. That’s not what they’re trying to do.
00:56:49:12 – 00:57:07:22
Speaker 1
It’s not trying to grow this one thing. It’s all these little pockets. And to to remember that those and the and the different the idea of the different cultures and those cultures would clash. And and I remember I was thinking about, a former church that we were a part of, and it’s just something that we should think of.
00:57:07:22 – 00:57:36:18
Speaker 1
We, but we used to have a, a bunch of sort of on the margins guys who would sit at the back of our services. And I think most of the time they would sit there because they would come in, especially during winter, because it was a warm place to be. And we I mean, when many places on the high street that where we were based didn’t but I, you know, when I think about it now, I kind of wish that we had considered creating community that was of their culture.
00:57:36:18 – 00:58:00:04
Speaker 1
But and that was the missing thing for us. And we did we worked with those guys for years and years and years, until eventually the local council puts as bows on all of them to not let not let them hang around the high street, which ended up dispersing the community, which was which was tragic. But I wonder, had we well, on the on going into think in hindsight, let’s knock it down that range.
00:58:00:06 – 00:58:41:10
Speaker 3
Yes. And but that is, that is so that is just spot on. And I’ve had multiple conversations, particularly in the emergency, you know, coming out of the first stage of Covid, I don’t I hate using post Covid because we’re we’re not really there yet. And I don’t think we’re or we’re beginning wherever we are. But and somebody saying they’ve restarted message or something like messy cafe church, like a cross over and someone from a more traditional form of church, an old, an older woman said to me, oh my gosh, just to get them to come on Sunday.
00:58:41:12 – 00:58:45:04
Speaker 3
And I was like, why?
00:58:45:06 – 00:59:13:24
Speaker 3
Well, is that not there? Are they not? That is church what you were doing? I mean, first of all, it’s in the title Messy Cafe Church. You know, that is their former church. What what benefit to them would it be as a, you know, as a big family? You know, the family they were talking about was a big family to be sitting in a structured, quiet atmosphere where they have to sit still and follow a set of things that, like most of them, can’t read because they’re not of that age yet.
00:59:14:01 – 00:59:37:15
Speaker 3
What for? How is that going to benefit the, you know. Oh, well, it’s it’s more appropriate for the mum. What the mum who’s going to be worrying about her children running around screaming and upsetting all the people who were huffing and puffing at them or rolling their eyes, you know, it doesn’t. We, we need to stop. I think as a as a church culture, stop trying to imprint our own form of decide church onto other people.
00:59:37:17 – 01:00:02:09
Speaker 3
We’ve got to allow, you know, everybody’s imprint is going to be so different. I mean, I’m at risk now. You’ve I’ve said it so, so perfectly that why don’t we creating church cultures around things that suit them. You know, though, the reasons why we started our digital, Bible study through working through the Chosen was because we had.
01:00:02:12 – 01:00:03:13
Speaker 1
A great TV show.
01:00:03:15 – 01:00:20:17
Speaker 3
Be amazing. Definitely recommend watching. We had a few people come to us when we were starting and we said, oh, would you be in a Bible study? We’re offering this and they would get awkward and quiet. And then it was through by another means of supporting them in a different way. But I discovered that they couldn’t read.
01:00:20:19 – 01:00:36:13
Speaker 3
And, and another person who had a very low reading ability. And she said to me, I’ll never come to a Bible study because I can’t, you know, if I was asked to read, I’d just be mortified because I can’t and I don’t even know what they’re saying. So I just have to listen. Anyway, go spend some quiet time reading this, I.
01:00:36:15 – 01:01:00:02
Speaker 3
I won’t be able to do that. And we’re immediately stopping these people from accessing the gospel. So by having it done digitally on a screen, I can then manipulate that and I create questions and worksheets that the leaders then have. And as a group of leaders, we then facilitate that vocally so that nobody feels like they’re not able to get access to Scripture or or studying the Bible.
01:01:00:04 – 01:01:42:00
Speaker 3
You know, we have these adults now who now say they go to a Bible study, they’re studying the Bible, but just not through a traditional means, because we were trying to say, well, you have to come into our context and not allowing them to be in their own. And the same is for, you know, other contexts and, you know, cultures, whether that be, you know, literal cultures like an Asian culture or African culture or even European cultures, you know, in our community, one of the local Church of England churches has started a midday service for Ukrainians, recognizing that the way they run church is very different, you know, almost burgeoning upon Catholic.
01:01:42:00 – 01:02:00:03
Speaker 3
And so they run a service that is traditional to them, run by their own community, you know, not expecting them to come to us if they come to our services. Amazing, beautiful for them. But giving them what they have is so important. We’ve got to stop. It’s you know, I don’t like getting into this, but it’s almost like, like kind.
01:02:00:03 – 01:02:08:00
Speaker 3
I’m getting some mindset, isn’t it, of going into learning and imparting ourselves on rather than actually being way.
01:02:08:02 – 01:02:43:02
Speaker 1
And yeah, there’s some deep rooted, some deep rooted, ideologies going on there about how we. Yeah. Colonized almost. I was, I was, I was thinking the image of like, bubble, the Christian bubble that often people talk about. But then just as I was thinking about, I was thinking about, you know, if you’ve ever spent time blowing bubbles in a with a straw in some salty water, which I’m pretty sure most people have at one stage in their life, you know, there’s it’s really difficult to blow one big bubble.
01:02:43:02 – 01:02:59:23
Speaker 1
I realized this illustration breaks down because all bubbles and the popping so let’s imagine they don’t pop and but you spend that time trying to blow one big bubble. It’s a lot of time and energy. And then when it goes, it takes a lot of work to build it back up. But when you just when you just get on with it, it’s all these little bubbles pop up and it almost feels like time just.
01:02:59:23 – 01:03:15:20
Speaker 1
And I had little bubbles to pop up. And some of them do pop, and that’s fine because they’re for season for a time, and just others will be ran for longer. And I think that’s okay. But we have to get out of our Christian bubble sometimes. This is a this I realized this illustration is quite thin, but then I.
01:03:15:22 – 01:03:17:08
Speaker 3
Felt.
01:03:17:10 – 01:03:18:20
Speaker 1
About to realize we’re at a time.
01:03:18:22 – 01:03:19:18
Speaker 3
That.
01:03:19:20 – 01:03:39:16
Speaker 1
These, these ten minute conversations go very, very quickly. Yeah. I’m inspired. I’m, I’m I’m I’m excited that by this by the the I’m excited by what she’s been saying and what Linda was talking about. And so yeah, let’s bring it to him and I’m there if that’s cool.
01:03:39:18 – 01:03:41:04
Speaker 3
Yep. Absolutely.
01:03:41:06 – 01:03:47:05
Speaker 1
Thank you for your wisdom and insight and the chance. Until next time.
01:03:47:07 – 01:03:56:05
Speaker 3
Yeah. Thanks everyone. God bless.
01:03:56:07 – 01:04:17:05
Speaker 1
A really big thank you to Linda maslin for being our guest on this episode. If you want to find out more about what Linda does and what they do at Fountains Church and the wrestling church and all that, you can find more information at Fountains bradford.org. But that is the final episode of the Mission Shaped Podcast season one.
01:04:17:07 – 01:04:40:15
Speaker 1
We really hope that you’ve enjoyed it. We really hope that, you’ve gotten some gems of wisdom and been encouraged by it, but we’d really also love your feedback, so please do get in touch. Go on to the Mission Show podcast.com. It’ll bring you to the Fresh Expressions website. And use various different ways to give us feedback through either the Facebook group or through the contact page and contact forms that are there.
01:04:40:17 – 01:04:53:07
Speaker 1
If you have stories that you’d like to share or stories that you think would be interesting, for the podcast, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you. But for now, until next time, be blessed and thanks for listening.