Here is an attempt to catalogue the different emerging church/alternative worship events in the North of England. This is an attempt to start networking between various emergent groups in the north as a way of facilitating the sharing of information and practice.
If you know of something that isn’t here, let me know. If you are involved in anything and want to say anything about it let me know.
Church Communities
- Dream: Liverpool
- Inspire: An Emerging Church Community in Morley and Leeds.
- The Net: An Anglican Church without walls in Huddersfield.
- Sanctus1: An Emerging Church community in the Manchester area.
- Visions: An Emerging Church community in York.
Events
revive in leed is a bit old but was and is a early emerging church
there is an alt worship service in ryton near newcastle (i’m assuming its still going on
in liverpool theres a community that bakes bread and thats their church – not sure what it’s callled but theres a book about it
also there is a spirited exchanges group in newcastle i think
My wife was part of the church that spawned revive when it happened.
Where do the spirited exchanges group meet? I used to hail from Newcastle a few years ago before moving back to God’s county.
hi there,
so does anyone know if there is anything at all “emergent” or “emerging” happening with 10 miles of Newcastle upon Tyne? My wife and I would be really keen to find out what’s already happening as we seek God for what he wants us to do
Hi David,
Check out the Anglican Church, Holy Cross at Ryton. They have traditional anglican worship on Sundays but a couple of years ago their new curate Tracy Reynolds was starting to run Alt. Worship services once a month. I have moved away from the area since then so haven’t been since the first couple.
Hope that helps.
Can you define “Emerging” church for me.. or at least whay you mean by it
Try here. It’s a start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_church
There is no hard and fast what it is as it is developing. In the Anglican and Methodist churches, Fresh Expressions is what most closely resembles the emerging.
emerging church definition? try this link for a great definition
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%202:%2042-47&version=MSG
The message translation is not very good David but i understand what you guys are saying I think.
However i would say that the wiki from Robb and the Biblegateway passage actually contradict each other.
In one we see much more freedom (wiki) and in the other the basic structure of the church gathering together in a building for organised worship and then going out into the community and their own homes.
Can emerging be both. We also so the establisment of strong identifiable leadership in the church (apostles teaching). Again something th emerging stream are not that fond of.
Its an interesting thing i guess
This is why the emerging conversation is difficult. It isn’t a formula or a ‘programme’, it is emerging. It is happening. Like postmodernism is difficult to define because it is happening rather than having happened.
It you look at the way in which our salvation history has been conveyed throughout the centuries it has moved and changed with the society in which it is being conveyed.
Unfortunately the church tries to work the previous era (or sometimes the one before that). For example, until legal systems came into being it was not possible to describe salvation history in terms of penal substitution. It would have made no sense as in medieval times the law was down to the Lord of the Land.
We are still in many reformed churches trying to work the enlightenment model and it isn’t cutting it like it used to. Ironically it isn’t cutting it for atheists either. People don’t want to be dictated to by someone who tells them that they know it all. We need to work out the ways in which we can convay the beautiful truth of our salvation history to this generation in this era.
actually i would say penal substitution was even more vali in medieval times, it makes even more of a point.
Its strange that you say the church is not cutting it, when i think it is but maybe not in the main denominations. For example i am part of a New Frontiers church, which is growing in new birth, as are the other NFI churche sin my region. They are starting to plan new churches out into different communities across the north of england and the world.
The church is the answer and i think we really need to understand what the biblical church looked like or what a biblical based church looks like now.
For that to happen they have to have the following criteria
1. regenerated church membership
2. qualified leadership
3 preaching and worship
4. rightly administated sacraments
5. spirit unity
6. holiness
7. the great commandment to love
8. the great commission to evangelize and make disciples
the discussion is how that then looks, acts, meets and functions
Glad to hear that you’re so happy with New Frontiers – really pleased for you.
Is that sarcasm David or are you just being rude not sure which.
NFI is not in any way perfect but we have some good churches doing good things for Jesus, just like most of the other ’streams’ in the UK natinal church including the more typical denoms such as CofE and methodist’s etc.
hey there, not being rude or sarcastic just genuinely pleased for you. hard to read tone in messages i guess. Apologies for any offence caused – not intended.
No worries David
The big problem with that question BTD is that everyone always comes up with the answer “the early church looked like us in our church”.
Which early church are we talking about? There are so many to choose from.
Penal substitution… well what went on to become penal substitution couldn’t really have been around in medieval times. Justice wasn’t understood in those impersonal terms of “price to pay” for “crime committed”. The view of God was much more feudalistic.
It doesn’t really matter, it was just an example. I could just as easily picked the Hellenistic spiritual warfare model where Jesus died to defeat demons.
My point is that at the heart of everything the church has done for 2000 years is the attempt to convey our salvation history and the good news of Jesus in linguistic terms that the culture around us can understand. The language doesn’t do any of it justice. We paint pictures with words and try to relay the god news in a way that makes people understand.
I don’t think it is as easy as saying “1.5% of the people who live here attend our church(es) so therefore the church is cutting it”. The church is successfully not communicating with masses of people – regardless of denominational affiliation – no matter how great we think our bit of the church is.
Your right of course Robb but i think looking at the church down the centurys and what the bible describes or says I think those things listed above have to be in place.
I dont think the early church looked like my church, but i think certain elements would have been there in both. They are the list I gave
Still the church needs to stand up get off its flabby backside and get into the community it serves… and serves is the right word…