Linda is a minister, an Anglican priest, based in Halifax, Yorkshire, a town which has areas of high deprivation. She is curate of two congregations in this town, and also co-leads  Saturday Gathering, a Saturday evening church which emerged from a Food and Support Drop-In and other services. In conversations with Martin Robinson and Mary Publicover Linda reflects on some of the challenges of this ministry, and her dependence on God to find a way through.

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Vancouver housing has become so expensive that only the very rich can afford to live in a private home. About a quarter of the city have a more insecure existence in social housing, or for some, on the street or in shelters. These populations do not naturally mix. Tim Dickau, Joy Banks and Mark Glanville are ministers at Grandview Calvary Baptist Church and describe how their church has sought to be part of reshaping the city by living into signs of Shalom...

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Ruth Rice, minister of a Baptist church in a Nottingham suburb, pioneered a high street wellbeing café called Renew 37. This café has turned out to be helpful for the mental health of the local community and for the church- and a place where both can encounter God in prayer. Ruth’s story is one of amazement at every turn because this café was not part of some long term plan but has emerged from relationships within the neighbourhood and a compassionate conversation about some lonely people.

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My family moved to our neighbourhood three years ago and began the work of connecting and making our home here. It has been a slow and humbling time. I have been confronted with my own agendas and baggage - a need to be someone who comes to help, start something, improve life and offer my own ‘awesomeness’ to the street. I have had to (and continue to) learn to slow down in order to show up, let myself be seen, let go of my agendas and be open and ready to participate in the common good as it is named by my neighbours. Following Jesus in my neighbourhood has me on a strange and disorienting journey in which I believe I am called to be a supporting cast member.

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We were becoming convinced that a missional God who attends to us in person and in place was calling and empowering us to do the same. What might it look like for us to live among our neighbours as neighbours, community stakeholders alongside them. Could we be neighbours...

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Can God be found on the streets of Munich? Munich, of all places, a city of wealth, pride and power with its designer stores and business headquarters?  It was Father Christian Herwartz SJ who encouraged us, a group of men from all over Germany, to believe just that. So we met in St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, slept on the balcony of the sanctuary, met for breakfast and prayer in the mornings and then set off individually into the bustle and noise of the streets.

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This article describes the journey of a congregational minister in his or her search for the essence of missional leadership. The journey led to a research project for a PhD at the University of Pretoria under supervision of Prof Nelus...

When I arrived as vicar of Hodge Hill four and a half years ago, again and again congregation members asked me, ‘why on earth do you want to come here? We haven't even got a building!’...

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Rapid Response

Joshua T. Searle - A Rapid Response to 'Community Building as Spiritual Practice'

Abstract Lord Glasman begins by organizing his thoughts around three key TMN concepts. Discerning our common good takes relationship and time. It has to be located in and with in our local communities. Forming happens inside a shared imaginative space that has been shaped...

It was early September 1997, and as Britain was mourning the loss of its favourite Princess, I was moving into a far-from-palatial council house on a rather unsavoury street in south Manchester. At 24 years old I was actually one...