Crucible: Creating Church on the Margins

Introduction

Christians in Britain (and across western culture) are facing profound challenges and fresh opportunities. The long era of Christendom is coming to an end. We now live in a plural society, with multiple religious options alongside secular assumptions, in which Christianity has largely lost its position of dominance and privilege. Although we seem to be declining in numbers and influence, this new environment offers many new possibilities - if we have the courage and imagination to grasp them.

Crucible is a training programme for Christians with courage and imagination. It assumes:

• We live in a mission context and need to think like missionaries.
• We need to think creatively about church in diverse and changing cultures.
• We serve the God who constantly does new things on the margins.

- on the margins of society among the poor and disenfranchised
- at the margins of culture, where creative thinking explores new possibilities
- within the margins of the familiar, those spaces all around us neglected or ignored but full of potential

 

What is a Crucible?

• A time characterised by the convergence of powerful intellectual, social, economic or political forces.
• A place in which different cultures or styles can mix together to produce something new and exciting.
• A melting pot, where old structures are made pliable and reshaped for more effective purposes.

 

Course outline

Crucible will run three intensive training weekends each year to equip Christians to create church on the margins:

• Weekend 1: Creating new churches explores the principles and practicalities of starting new churches in contemporary cultures.
• Weekend 2: The urban challenge presents the opportunities and challenges of starting new churches on the margins in urban communities.
• Weekend 3: Emerging church investigates the fresh expressions of church emerging on the margins of church and society.

Crucible ran for the first time in 2005-06 with a total of 45 participants (many of whom were involved in all three weekends), drawn from various places and backgrounds.

Dates for 2008/09

Weekend 1: 25-26 October 2008
Weekend 2: 21-22 February 2009
Weekend 3: 4-5 July 2009

 

Times

Saturday 10.30am - Sunday 4.00pm

 

Venue

International Mission Centre, 24 Weoley Park Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 6QX

 

Trainers

The Crucible course will be taught by a team of experienced trainers, all of whom will have practical experience of creating new churches on the margins and the ability to reflect theologically on the implications of mission in a changing culture.

These trainers will include:

• Andrew Grinnell. Andrew works for ALOVE, where he develops youth work mission opportunities, primarily through the creation of church planting teams. He holds an MA in Christian Spirituality.
• Juliet Kilpin. Juliet is an Urban Expression staff member with responsibility for equipping and networking church planting teams.
• Stuart Murray Williams. Stuart is the founder of Urban Expression and works as a trainer and mission consultant under the auspices of the UK Anabaptist Network. He has experience as a church planter in East London.

 

Placements

The role of placements

The Crucible course provides three forms of learning:

• Tuition and interactive learning over three weekends spread over a year
• Open learning material for home study between these weekends
• Placements for reflection on the practical application of this learning

Although it is possible to participate in the course without engaging in all these forms of learning, we hope that most participants will want to apply what they learn and so we regard the placement component as very significant.

Varieties of placements

We are offering three kinds of placements:

• Existing placements - where participants use the present location to work out the practical application of what they learn throughout the year.
• Arranged placements - where we offer opportunities for participants to work alongside church planters or others involved in urban mission for the year.
• Intensive placements - where we provide short-term block placements for participants who cannot be involved throughout the year in other placements.

Where participants bring existing placements with them, we will ask for some details of the situation and for someone to be designated as placement supervisor.

We will put participants wanting arranged placements in touch with church planters and others who are offering placements (and who will act as placement supervisors), leaving those involved to work out the practical details.

Providing there is sufficient interest, we will arrange an intensive block placement each year, usually in East London, and we will provide a supervisor for this.

We encourage participants to keep a reflective learning journal throughout their placement to reflect on issues that arise and experiences that are significant.

Assessed placements

For participants who want to gain credits for their placement activities, it is possible to present a portfolio of work at the end of the year (or after the block placement) and a report from their placement supervisor.

 

Open Learning

We are offering (in partnership with Spurgeon's College) an open learning module to supplement each of the three weekends. These will be available either as workbooks or in CD-ROM mode. Participants can either study these just for interest or present some written work to gain credits (see below).

 

Accreditation

Three modes

The Crucible course is available in three modes:

• Audited: participants are involved in one, two or all three of the weekends but do nothing beyond these days.
• Applied: participants are involved in one, two or all three of the weekends and also work in a placement in order to apply what they learn and reflect on this. Three kinds of placements are available (see the section on placements).
• Accredited: participants are involved in one, two or all three of the weekends, study one, two or all three of the open learning modules, and/or work in an assessed placement.

It is possible, by agreement, for participants to transfer from one mode to another as the course proceeds.

The accredited mode

Participants doing the accredited mode of the course have the opportunity of gaining up to 40 credits during the year:

• 10 credits are available for each weekend plus the associated open learning module.
• 10 credits are available for an assessed placement.

There is written work to submit for each of the open learning modules and a portfolio for the assessed placement.

The value of credits

The Crucible course is validated by the University of Wales under the auspices of Spurgeon's College. This provides accountability and ensures quality control for all aspects of the course. It also means that any credits gained can be transferred when participants move on to other relevant courses.

40 credits represents one third of the 120 credits required for a University Certificate (level 1 of a degree course).

Spurgeon's College offers a range of further open learning modules which may be of interest to participants in the Crucible course. For further details of these modules, see www.spurgeons.ac.uk. Other theological colleges also offer such modules.

 

Costs

Weekends

For participants who do not want accreditation but are simply attending one or more of the weekends (and/or an unsupervised placement), the fee is as follows:

One weekend: £50
Two weekends: £100
Three weekends: £130

For participants who are also studying on the Workshop course, a special discount applies. A combined fee of £568 is payable. This breaks down as £448.00 to Workshop (a £50 discount) and £120 to Crucible (a £10 discount). There are reduced fees for unemployed participants: £40 per weekend or £110 for all three.

Food

The course fee includes tea/coffee throughout the weekend, but not food. Participants can choose to bring their own food, eat out locally or book in for lunch and/or dinner at the International Missionary Centre. Charges for meals are £19.00 per day (£38 for the weekend)

Accommodation

Participants needing accommodation can either make their own arrangements or book accommodation at the International Missionary Centre. The charge for accommodation and all meals from Friday evening until Sunday is £61.00 (or £68.00 with an evening meal on the Friday). The charge for accommodation and all meals from Saturday morning until Sunday is £42.00.

Open Learning Modules

For participants who want accreditation through studying the open learning modules, these are available at a special discount price of £60.00 (usual price £90.00). For those who want to study these modules without presenting essays for credit, they can be purchased at £20.00 each.

Placements

For the existing and arranged supervised placements there is a fee payable of £25 to cover administration and assessment costs. There is no fee payable for unsupervised (non-accredited) placements. For the intensive placement there is a higher fee payable of £50 to cover additional administration and assessment costs.

Bursaries

We have a limited number of bursaries available in 2006-07 for those who are unable to cover the full costs of the course. If you wish to apply for one of these bursaries, please contact us.

 

Sponsoring Agencies

Crucible is the result of a partnership between Workshop, Urban Expression and the ALOVE initiative of The Salvation Army:

• Urban Expression has been pioneering new churches in urban communities and networking pioneers in different urban contexts for the past 8 years. Participants will benefit from this experience; not only in the teaching but also in the opportunity for practical placements should they have the courage and imagination to be actually involved in ‘creating church on the margins'.
• Workshop has offered leadership and discipleship training with fresh insights on faith, church and mission to thousands of Christians since 1983. Its partnership in this course means that while participants may choose simply to do one or more of the three ‘creating churches' weekends offered, they also have the opportunity to combine these with the full Workshop course, at a special price, and gain the full applied theological and contemporary teaching, along with those focusing on creating new churches, and so deepen and expand the whole learning experience in preparation for the future. See further www.workshop.org.uk/crucible/
• ALOVE UK is an expression of The Salvation Army for a new generation, involving new church plants, youth-focused projects and initiatives developed in the poorest areas of Britain and Ireland.

 

Booking

To book a place on Crucible, or for further information, please contact us at crucible@urbanexpression.org.uk

Brochure

If you want to encourage friends or colleagues to consider participating, please pass on information to them. Brochures for 2007-08 and 2008-09 can be downloaded below.

Creating Churches on the Margins

Developed in partnership with the Anabaptist Network, this is a 5 hour training package that consists of 4 main sessions:

1. From the Centre to the Margins – Post-Christendom

2. Watching the Margins – Emerging Churches

3. Learning from the Margins – the Anabaptist tradition

4. Mission on the Margins – the Urban Expression story

The first two sessions set the scene by exploring the cultural and mission context and investigating some of what is emerging in response to this context. The third and fourth sessions present the Anabaptist tradition and the Urban Expression story as resources for reflection.

Fit4Life Church Training Course

We are delighted to be able to offer, in partnership with the Anabaptist Network a new resource for churches. Available in CD-ROM format, this training course (which draws gratefully on Mennonite material) is designed to help churches behave well and develop healthy practices.

The course contains numerous practical exercises for group work and covers:

1. Church health and self-awareness
2. Healthy communication
3. Handling differences in healthy ways
4. Healthy decision-making
5. Clarifying role expectations
6. Covenanting for health

A short article by Anne Wilkinson-Hayes, one of the authors of the course, explaining its purpose and contents in more detail, can be downloaded from this site (see below).

Copies of the course are available for £10.00 from the Network. You can order one one through the Anabaptist Network contact form or by contacting them directly at the Anabaptist Network, 14 Shepherds Hill, London N6 5AQ.

Introduction to Church Planting

An 8 hour introduction to church planting for those just starting out on this adventure, with teaching sessions and group work on the following topics:

1. Models of church planting
2. Church planting teams
3. Spiritual dynamics
4. Research and preparation
5. Planting or cloning
6. Church and context
7. Learning from recent experience
8. The personal challenge

This course ran (in partnership with the Regeneration Trust) for the first time in London in September 2003 and ran again in East London on the four Monday evenings in October 2004. It can be delivered wherever there is sufficient interest.

Participants receive a folder of notes to accompany the teaching. This material provides an introduction to a module on Church Planting, written by Stuart Murray Williams, that is available on CD-ROM format from Spurgeon’s College.

If you are interested in participating in a future course or hosting such a course, please contact us for further details. It can run one evening a week over 4 weeks, or in two 4 hour blocks, or even in a single day.

Urban Expression on the Road

At the request of various organisations, members of Urban Expression have presented training at conferences, consultations and churches in different parts of the UK (and occasionally beyond).

We are developing training packages that can be taken 'on the road' (and customised to suit different contexts). Already available are the following packages:

Introduction to Church Planting (8 hours of training)

Urban Church Planting (12 hours of training)

Creating Churches on the Margins (5 hours of training)

This section of the website contains further details of these training packages. Watch this page for further developments.

If you are interested in hosting a training event or participating in one of these course, please contact us for further information at

Urban Church Planting

A 12 hour course on urban church planting (as far as we know the only such course in the UK), exploring the different dynamics of planting churches in the urban context, with teaching sessions and group work on the following topics:

1. What’s different about urban church planting?
2. Urban mission is holistic
3. The history of urban mission in the UK
4. Why plant churches in the inner city today?
5. Urban mission is cross-cultural
6. What kinds of churches do we plant?
7. Church planting in a Muslim neighbourhood
8. Church planting in a Hindu neighbourhood
9. Church in the inner city
10. Spirituality in the inner city
11. A tale of two cities
12. The challenge and the call

This course ran (in partnership with the Regeneration Trust) for the first time in London in January/February 2004 and can be delivered wherever there is sufficient interest. It ran again in Oldham between 19 April and 7 June 2004. The course can run for 2 hours one evening a week over 6 weeks, or in two 6 hour blocks. Participants receive a folder of notes to accompany the teaching.

If you are interested in participating in a future course or hosting such a course, please contact us for further details.

Occasional Papers

Coming soon – discussion papers on a range of issues affecting those who are involved in urban mission and urban church planting.

In the meantime, you can follow the links below to find other papers on urban mission:

http://www.cybertheology.net/07~02cyberurban.htm
http://www.jitc.org.uk/pdf/leeds_report.pdf

Other Training Courses

Members of Urban Expression or our Associates are also involved in delivering training on courses run by other organisations with which we have strong links. We recommend these courses, more details of which can be obtained directly from the organisations responsible for them:

1. Urban Mission Toolkit: a year-long training course in London, running one evening a week for thirty weeks, plus a residential weekend and a placement. More details can be found at http://catalysttrust.org/
2. Workshop: a year-long discipleship and leadership course leading to a Certificate in Applied Christian Studies, operating in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Bristol. More details can be found on the Workshop website, or contact
3. Delta: a congregational training programme offering 12 hour modules on various subjects designed to equip local churches for mission and ministry in a changing culture. The programme operates from Spurgeon’s College (London), Regent’s Park College (Oxford) and South Wales Baptist College (Cardiff), but modules can be arranged anywhere. Contact or
4. Cross Currents: day seminars organised by the London Mennonite Centre and running on Saturdays in North London. The seminars cover theological, historical and practical subjects, with a particular focus on Anabaptism, peace and justice and issues of Christian discipleship. Contact
5. Peace School: a year-long training programme exploring 'shalom activism', comprising a summer school, three weekends and dispersed learning. More information can be found on the Peace School website or contact
6. Anabaptist Network: day conferences organised by the Anabaptist Network in various locations and on various subjects. More information can be found on the Anabaptist Network website, where there are also courses designed for group or individual study on four subjects: Taking Jesus Seriously, After Christendom, Becoming a Peace Church and Practising Church Discipline. These can be downloaded free of charge. Or contact
7. Re:source: a year-long training programme operating over five weekends based in different cities and covering the topics of mission, culture, leadership, church and transformation. For further details see Re:source or contact
8. Re:source, Bristol: another year-long course with the same name (!) but based in Bristol and involving two hours a week every Thursday morning as part of an initiative to offer resources to inner-city Baptist churches. For further details see Re:source Bristol or contact