Sowing the fields

The seasons of a missional church in the suburbs.

A reflection on 11 years of ministry by Rev'd Mark Hewitt

Although presenting the seasons flowing in a linear fashion one after the other which they did in a fashion. In reality there was a degree of overlap as one season was ending the seeds for the next season were already planted and beginning to grow.

Season One: Establishing One Church

Formation of The Corner Complex

The Corner Uniting Church's formation began way before this building. Before construction of the building commenced in 2008 the UCA SA Synod approached all the UCA churches in the area (6 or more) to close and create a new South West Ministry Centre. Two accepted – Oaklands Park & Wesley Warradale forming one church that worshipped on Sunday morning. Soon after this a third church who were not location based and had a younger demographic were asked to join the Centre, they were Fishgate UC they worshiped separately on Sunday evenings. The first year went great. Enthusiasm was high, an onsite Café & multiple playgroups started. It was looking good. Things soon started going sour. It was complicated, 3 years after opening you had 2 distinct Churches with a third entity, the building. The differences between the two churches, stemmed from different understandings around mission focus and how mission was to be resourced. These differences were lived out through tensions on the ground. Rev Wes Howland, the minister who had a pivotal role in bringing the South West Ministry Centre into being, left. At this point SA Synod/Presbytery stepped in and formed a management group of Presbytery/Synod officers with Church representatives to manage the centre. September 2011 the church called me to be the new minister of the Sunday morning church – Crossways.

The departure of Fishgate Uniting Church

It was clear the moment I took up placement that the two churches using the site known as The Corner UC needed to be one church if any ministry & mission were to be successful from that site. After conversations with Fishgate UC leadership (Sunday evening Church) it was also clear that was not going to happen. My initial thought was that there will be one church at The Corner site but that will be a few years away. I began an informal process to prepare the ground for change. Observed relational dynamics. Listened to stories. Researched history. Listened to dreams. I had no part of recent history and worked hard on being neutral. I laid no blame to what had taken place. Built rapport with the leadership of the evening Church. It was evident that they were in the wrong place. Their mission really did not fit the mission that was needed at our site as this building required a specific type of mission. Local Mission. I began conversations about them being in the wrong place. I asked the question, What if they could just walk away? What if they were released and we were to take on their mortgage?

The conversations I had, the questions I asked were with anyone who would listen. As many conversations as possible. These conversations were then had with Fishgate's Church Council. I then had these conversations with Crossways Church Council. The morning church discerned a clear direction from the Holy Spirit and so took the bold and courageous decision to take total responsibility of The Corner Uniting Church Complex. The process then became formalised. We agreed to take on their mortgage and release them from the Memorandum of Understanding that bound them to the building complex and the partnership with the morning Church, Crossways UC. Fishgate were given permission to leave and sent with the blessing of the morning congregation. At this time the morning church comprised of around 90 people attending each week of which 43% were over 80, 28% 70-79, 12% 60-69 (NCLS 2011) The morning Church took on Fishgate's mortgage along with their own. They became responsible for the management of the whole centre releasing Synod/Presbytery, taking the name of the complex and becoming The Corner Uniting Church.

Creation of The Corner Uniting Church.

At the time we were a congregation holding our own. With growth of around 3%, having 13% of the congregation new to the (any) Church (NCLS 2011) We adopted a Mission & Ministry approach to budgeting so that the real costs for each aspect of ministry & mission could be determined. This helped informed decisions made by leadership & the congregation. A 3 to 5 year budget was created revealing a 3 year window to make this church thrive. It became clear our gradual growth would not be sufficient to create a thriving church.

Two things needed to happen;

a big increase in numbers to get a critical mass & fill talent gaps in our leadership.
as we needed a different outcome, things needed to be done differently. We would only get more of the same by doing more of the same.

So we took a two pronged approach.

we approached other churches in the area to see if they would join us in ministry.
Created a Sunday worship to be more inclusive of multiple generations.

While we were doing the above further south and up the hill Seacombe Uniting Church developed a 3 to 5 year budget/plan. From this they saw a crisis looming with increasing building costs that drained resources from fulfilling their vision & mission. That rather than wait to close in 3 to 5 years time, having exhausted everything they choose to close earlier & put their collective resources towards new Ministry & Mission.

The Leadership at the Corner had already decided that a new approach to church mergers was necessary. Mergers whether they be Churches or businesses either did not work or took years to sort out issues before they could operate as a single cohesive entity. That we did not have 3 years to sort stuff out. "We didn't want an 'us and them' situation." To achieve this it would be necessary to close both congregations and start again. Close programs, leadership positions & structures in order to start afresh as one new congregation. Conversations between the two ministers, (Rev Richard Winen & Rev Mark Hewitt) & UCA urban mission planner (Beth Seaman) began early in 2013. It was originally asked of the Corner, if Seacombe could rent at The Corner. The answer was 'No' but Seacombe were invited to start a "New" single Church at The Corner. On Sunday 5 May 2013, Seacombe and The Corner decided to join together – not by merging the congregations, but by forming a new church. It was agreed to by both congregations to keep the name 'The Corner' as it was an established name in the local community.

The closure of the old Corner Uniting Church took place on the Reign of Christ Sunday 24 Nov 2013. The Corner UC began in June 2012. We closed to start again 18 months later. The 24th was the end of the church calendar year and a celebration of all that we had been and achieved over our short 18 month life. We made a big public acknowledgement of all who had held positions of responsibility for many years as both The Corner - Crossways - Wesley Warradale/Oaklands Park UC. As they were now retiring to make way for new positions – structure & people.

Creation of the NEW Corner Uniting Church

On the 1st December 2013 on the first Sunday in Advent the (new) Corner UC began. We began then for a few reasons,

It is the beginning of the Church calendar Year.
It's a season of great celebration where we journey together towards Christmas.
With such a great celebratory focus as Christmas, worship will be what brings us together as a single congregation.

Worship brought the new church together. A season of celebration. It worked brilliantly. We had 250 attend worship on the Sunday before Christmas. 200 attended Christmas Day. There was a heightened sense of new possibilities.

The Corner had an established reputation as a community centre. The new church seeks to move from being recognised as a community centre to be also known as a spiritual centre. For this to happen everything in new church had to fit God's vision & mission of the new church. Only programs that did, got across the line. The old Corner had a vibrant Playgroup program, with 100 families a week attending 5 playgroups. We were a service provider as most playgroup families attend multiple playgroups each week. We closed the program. We sought to be a church not a service provider. We reopened a single Playgroup in 2014 with a culture that is congruent with God's vision and mission for us. It has Christian content, volunteer run and everyone is expected to be involved and engaged. We put time and energy into building links between Playgroup families and the church. Something we were unable to do in the earlier model as all energy went into service provision.

General Change management at The Corner

Lots & lots of informal conversations with stakeholders and anyone who will listen. Conversations about change, why the need for change and what that change with entail. Conversations at Daily lunch with volunteers. These people then have conversations with their circle. The ripple effect. These conversations take place over week & months before hand. By the time we get to have formal decisions made at congregational meetings. The decision had been made beforehand, through earlier conversations. At the formal meeting next to no questions are asked as the answers are known.

Season Two: Creating Culture

Being intentional with a Vision

The church we wanted to be was not going to just happen, if we wanted to be welcoming we had to be intentional about being welcoming. As part of becoming the NEW Corner UC we began an assets based visioning process. Members of both The Corner & Seacombe churches were invited to be part of a combined discernment process seeking God's direction and calling for this new Church.

We had a clear vision;
Faith Intersecting Life.

With the Mission;
To foster an intergenerational community offering spiritual depth and growth through relationship with Jesus.

Inspired by his mission …

To bring good news to the poor, (to bring love of Jesus into all our relationships)
To proclaim release to the captives, (to create spaces for becoming)
And recovery of sight to the blind, (to develop opportunities for a deep daily relationship with Jesus)
To let the oppressed go free, (to offer compassionate care)
To proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. (to provide worship as an encounter with God)

Luke 4:18-19

This was to be an intergenerational community with an Arts culture. We are excited, The Spirit of God is seen flowing through our Church. A lot of time and energy was then put into creating a culture that was congruent with our Vision & Mission. Bad behaviours were disciplined and this was seen. The people knew the leadership was serious what lived up to what they said. Culture had changed.

Culture of the new Church Council

At our first meeting the agenda was put aside. The regulations of the Uniting Church that related to the responsibilities of the Church Council were read and discussed by the new Church Council. We then watched a video of governance best practices. A discussion was had about what was needed for best practice.

We decided on what structure & practices we would need to make that a reality. It was clear – vision & mission were the import leadership role of CC. Business least important. On future agenda's pastoral began meetings followed by vision – mission and finally business. Early in the life of the Church Council all read the book 'Intergenerational Christian Formation'. Discussions were held at monthly meetings from chapters in the book. This was so church council understood what was meant by our mission to be an intergenerational community.

Being inspired by the spirit of the Basis of Union, where all are equal in ministry we decided not to have an executive but a revolving Chair where all took turns to be Chair of Church Council. By and large this has been successful and each year Church Council elects to do the same.

Our Second Anniversary

At the beginning of our second ministry year as the (new) Corner UC. We had an opportunity to take stock and reflect on all that we have achieved to date. What follows is an edited account of our ministry & mission journey that I shared with our Network (Community Outreach Mission Network) on the 28 January 2015;

We have a Sunday morning worshipping congregation with an Average Weekly Attendance of 120-130. With an emerging part of our Church involved in Messy Church, Average Attendance 80+, Wednesday Kids Performing Arts, (which was the main act Saturday night at last years KCO and will be the main act this year performing to about 1500 people), Pizza & Stuff and KCO. We have 100 volunteers involved in a wide range of programs, Café, Op-shop, Tuesday Playgroup, Wednesday Arts & Crafts, Corner Kids Performing Arts, Art Exhibitions, Garage Sales etc. Where 25% of our volunteers do not attend Sunday morning worship. If we did a traditional Church Roll we would have towards 500 who are involved or attend. This place is busy 5 days a week or often more. God is good & we are blessed!

Not a program church

The Corner at that time did have programs but were not a program church. Many of the successful programs began about 6 years earlier when the complex was first built. Café – Op-Shop – Playgroup – Kids Performing Arts. These has always had some level of success but by 2015 were really coming into their own. Generally speaking the mood at The Corner was upbeat & positive and it is so much fun to be involved in the church. But it hadn't always been that way. It had not always been smooth sailing. Difficult times have been part of the discipleship cost in being led to this point. With the Spirit's prompting bold decisions & huge risks have been taken. And change, always change.

Intergenerational & the Arts

Our Spirit discerned mission was to be an intergenerational community with an Art's culture. The Art's being a community asset revealed during the discernment process. Our intergenerational strength had been in our worship and it is there that we had focussed our initial energy. The intention being that over time more and more of what we were doing would be intergenerational. Where age was not the determining factor in whether you are part of a group or not. It comes from an understanding that faith and ministry is not age determined. So the default position of the church was where at least 3 generations are actively involved in any activity or ministry. It did not mean that age specific activities did not occur but they only occur when it is best for that group.

Although the whole congregation agreed to our discerned vision & mission. When change happened some struggled. Some found the new church further & further away from the Church of their past and they were not comfortable or were not happy with our direction. We were saddened by their loss but they left with our blessing.

The leadership of The Corner was driven in the knowledge that God had given us have a clear calling and vision to be a Gospel centred community being continually led by the Spirit to create a Church of & for the 21st Century. To be missional rather that comfortable. In creating a culture shaped by our vision and mission we had changed and like all discipleship it came at a cost. Also like all discipleship it came with rich blessings.

Rich blessings through the Creative Arts

The Corner's ministry and mission was lived out through distinct ministry expressions, each using the creative arts;

Sunday AM: worship utilizes music, multi-media, visual and performing arts to enable visual/aural/kinaesthetic engagement in worship, theology and faith development.
Prayerful Colouring: the contemplative practice of colouring in line drawings during worship or for personal prayer time at home. I find inspiration in the weekly scripture set by the Revised Common Lectionary and create a line drawing reflective of the theology and theme for worship and personal prayer. These drawings are used as a part of the intergenerational worship at The Corner Uniting Church. Aimed at people of all ages, they are designed to be coloured in within the timeframe of an hour of worship, with the intention of expanding the worship experience through visual, aural and kinaesthetic engagement. They are also available to take home, and for those who are unable to attend Sunday. People also use them for inspiration and recalling the worship experience during the week.
Messy Corner: provides the opportunity for relaxed child focused creative arts worship.
A Thin Place: uses music, multimedia and interactive Stations for contemplative worship.
Break Fast: uses the art of hospitality in a relaxed Cafe-church, sharing the breaking of the overnight fast, while breaking the greater fasting of spiritual stillness.
Corner Poets & other musings: gathering musicians and poets to sharing and converse.
Corner Kids Performing Arts: uses the creative arts as the vehicle for faith formation to school age children. They are full participants in The Corner's intergenerational daily ministry (Café, worship, concerts), within and outside the church.
Blank Canvas Café: for youth/young adults, explores faith through arts, welcoming community and hospitality.
Wednesday Community Art & Craft: open to wider community, offering faith/life conversation through traditional arts and crafts.
The Corner Art Exhibitions: occurred regularly offering local artists opportunities to exhibit.
The Corner Café: open four days per week, staffed by volunteers and well known locally as a place of good food and welcoming hospitality, surrounded by art.
faithintersectinglife.org.au: a web site specifically created as a faith formation digital space for connection & resourcing.

We were faithfully following the Spirit's calling on a journey of risk, change and cost but most of all, great Joy, a pilgrimage. Only some of those ministry expressions lasted the distance, at different times ministries were closed, each for a different reason but usually around our ability to resource them. We knew that when we started, we were going to take risks, have a go not be afraid of failure. As endings are not failures at the core of our faith is death and resurrection. Endings are ok as after endings are new beginnings. Death and resurrection.

Season 3: Community Engagement

A missional understanding

As a Missional Church we understood that people seek community first or need to belong to community before belief grows. We were exploring and rediscovering what it meant to be a Jesus-sent people. At our core we sought to be disciples and make disciples. Put simply we sought to have members of our congregation say to themselves "we are the church", rather than saying "we go to church". In light of that understanding of church the questions that we have been asking ourselves have been: How do we be missional with a building complex that cries out to be used but with limited resources? How do we do mission smarter? An answer is that we partner with others. That is what we sought to do.

Partnerships

Soul Food Café: Is a creation of Paul Whetham, psychologist. The aim of Soul Food Café was to deepen people's self-awareness, spirituality and practical listening skills as they share with others who are soul searching. Using spirituality and neuroscience principles, Soul Food Café seeks to transform existing community spaces like cafés into enriched environments where people "do life together", embark on the search for meaning and give voice to the deeper things of the soul. The conversations with Paul were around Soul Food Café having a physical base at The Corner UC, operating Soul Groups Friday mornings and then as a training centre during Friday afternoons. At the time Soul Food Café was being adopted by the Lutheran Church across Australia not only as a pastoral program but as a missional program where people seeking can join small groups, belong and be gently brought to belief. Conversations were being had with senior leadership of the UCA SA about how it may incorporate Soul Food Café into the life of the UCA. A pilot program was held at The Corner however circumstances had changed and nothing more eventuated.
Corner Kids Performing Arts: meeting Tuesday afternoons during term time for drama. The sessions encourage skills and confidence, explore biblical themes and children are encouraged to support each other and focus on their strengths. Their self-esteem improves with involvement and being able to work through understanding and coping with real life situations. The group is for school aged children ages 5-14, with older teenagers and young adults becoming drama leaders. Most children are from families who do not attend The Corner, who find a welcoming, inclusive and supportive environment. Many in the group have challenges such as speech difficulty, on the autism spectrum, under the guardianship of the Minister (trauma background), have a disability or health issues and do not always fit in with other groups and activities. We started the year with about a dozen children being involved in the drama group. CKPA had been performing Christmas musicals in local primary schools for over 6 years. Carolyn David–Bergin, as Children's ministry team leader, had built good relationships with several of these schools. From one such relationship, conversations were held and Carolyn and some of CKPA, with the Christian Pastoral Support Worker, were running a fortnightly lunch time Christian Club at Darlington Primary School.
Goodstart Child Care Somerton Park: They were looking for community groups with which to engage and The Corner UC was recommended to them. After several meetings with the director and staff, we decided to hold at the church in our Children's ministry space a fortnightly playgroup. Goodstart Somerton Park staff took the lead with an educational fortnightly playgroup program with Christian content from our Children's ministry team. On the alternate fortnights our team led a program integrated with our Corner Kids Performing Arts program. At Christmas time our CKPA performed our Christmas musical at Goodstart Child Care Somerton Park.
Eldercare: A relationship which could have been more. Over the years we had regular contact with the chaplain across the road at Eldercare. Many of our volunteers were volunteers at Eldercare. Families and residents were regulars in our Café. Most Christmas's our Corner Kids performed their Christmas musical that was also performed at local Primary Schools.

The multiple partnerships I have mentioned above are a response to our immediate environment making use of our assets at the time. In these partnerships we were engaging in Public Theology. Public theology is an engagement and dialogue the church has with society where we seek to build upon a common interest to build community. This is theology (talking about God) that talks with society not just to society. [Day & Kim 2017, A Companion to Public Theology. Brill's Companions to Modern Theology. P14] This is done by presenting the Christian position in a way that can be publicly understood and thereby open to public debate and critical enquiry. [Forrester, Duncan B. (2004). "The Scope of Public Theology". Studies in Christian Ethics. P6] In these partnerships we were offering a range of ministries that were open to all, using language that is accessible to all, not church language, and in doing so living out our vision of Faith Intersecting Life.

Season Four: Finding New opportunities

As things were buzzing at The Corner UC the COVID virus was spreading the globe. Talk was beginning about a possible global pandemic something not experienced in living memory. While still only a possibility I warned Church Council that we would be in lockdown by Easter and we need to prepare. How can we do Easter in a Pandemic? Carolyn David-Bergin, Children's Ministry, Nina Luscombe, Youth Ministry and myself worked as a team to keep driving ministry through the Pandemic.

Church was no longer gathering for worship, there were significant restrictions on how we went about our daily lives. All our partnerships ended as the Head Office of each organization closed premises to outside groups. Cafés were also closed including ours and the Op-Shop. Closed.

As a ministry team we decided to find lateral solutions. Put our energy to new opportunities as it could take a year or more for the COVID pandemic to play out. We were not going to wait to restart business as usual. We somehow knew life was not going to be the same again.

Easter take aways

The question was, How could we adapt the Easter material that was already being put together? Whatever we did would involve significant resourcing so we decided to provide Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Day. That we would do a pre-recorded video for both Sundays along with having stand alone printed resources and activities for all ages. We purchased from online wholesalers brown cardboard takeaway boxes large enough to take A5 booklets. We had everything ready the week before Palm Sunday. Then advertised a drive through pick up of Easter packages.

Going digital

Sunday AM service. Vlogging not streaming, using the secular culture's use of the medium not making the medium fit our church culture. Nina Luscombe led her Blank Canvas team from Face 2 Face to digital. Blank Canvas went digital as well. Youth found the isolation during lock down very difficult.

We made a movie

In past years, The Corner Kids Performing Arts group work towards a Christmas drama performance, a contemporary take on the nativity story and they perform live for local schools, aged care homes and at The Corner in December.

Given Covid restrictions beginning 2020 the children and volunteers were unable to meet face to face as a group from March. When Uniting Church Synod advised we could return to children's activities in July 2020, preparation was made to create a short Christmas movie rather than the live drama production usually held in the second half of the year. This enabled the cast to be filmed individually with social distancing by family unit. Filming the cast over many "takes" has enabled people to present themselves in their best moments, where they are not held back and defined by their real-life challenges.

Although the children have not met as frequently as a whole group face to face, the movie has enabled others to join in as cast in the production. The cast with the biggest roles in the movie are the children who attend our drama program regularly. Casting call for cameo parts has included children and adults from other Churches (UC churches Bridgewater, Ascot Park and City View as well as Marion Church of Christ and Trinity Church in North Tce Adelaide), past performing arts participants who previously attended drama as a child, and youth who are part of Blank Canvas and young adults group at The Corner. Adults who volunteered in the past have also been involved. In total, the cast swelled to 45 and the volunteers and staff involved in filming, editing and other volunteer capacity have been about 25 people. The movie is estimated to have taken approximately 5 months of full-time volunteer work to date.

We were overwhelmed by the responses of youth and young adults wishing to be involved - this has triggered many warm spiritual conversations and opportunities for re-connection.

The movie style format now opens opportunities to share the Christmas message to a much wider audience than our traditional live performances. In a year when many carol singing, pageants and other Christmas events have been cancelled, this short movie provides flexibility to share the Christmas message with many more people, in locations that suit different audiences that are Covid safe.

Those requesting the trailer and accompanying script resource materials are:

Public primary schools – 70. By using an online resource instead of a live performance, we have been able to offer our Christmas nativity to schools we previously couldn't visit (some schools are restricted in space and our cast/crew for a live performance is too big and there are too many schools in the south-west region of Adelaide for us to visit all of them live).
Private Christian primary schools – 30. Whilst we have fostered relationships with the pastoral care workers within the local public primary school sector, we have not actively connected with the chaplains in the private schools due to limited resources. Providing a movie link online has enabled a connection to be made with local Christian schools. Our experience has found that many children who attend a private school are not connected with a local church. As private schools do not have the same limitations of faith discussions as seen in the public schools, we are able to more readily engage with these school communities across multiple Christian denominations - the Catholic schools are very enthusiastic about using new appropriate religious educational resources in the classroom.
Aged care and hospital facilities – 10. During COVID several members of the Corner congregation have transferred into aged care and several people in aged care are no longer able to leave the facility to attend worship in person. Whilst Carolyn David's role at the Corner is as a volunteer with children's ministry, in her professional background, she has worked as an occupational therapist for more than 20 years in aged care. Consideration was given in the script writing and vintage props for triggers in discussion topics with reminiscence therapy, feelings of isolation, loneliness and hope.
Other churches (both UC and other denominations) – 12 so far. Some Christian schools and churches have indicated they will provide the link of the movie for families to enjoy the movie at home or in small groups. All these other churches are invited to access the online and supplementary resources - several are planning their own events to use the movie at Christmas events e.g. Christmas families service and Christmas eve.
Chaplain and activities coordinators at aged care facilities and hospitals - for example the minister at Ascot Park UC provides a chapel service at Charles Young facility every fortnight and she will be presenting the movie to their residents (some of whom are members from the Corner congregation).
Via the national UCA children's and family ministry zoom meeting, we have advertised the availability of our resource. We have received several enquiries from Victorian Uniting churches keen to source the movie. Messy Church UK have just shared the movie trailer all over the world.

In summary, the Christmas movie is about inclusion with the cast dressed in costumes as traditional and non-traditional Christmas ornaments, waiting to be taken "out of the box" for Christmas. The cast were provided with their scripts and filmed in costume and professional stage makeup, mostly in a large box.

What we had in fact created was project Church. For the duration of the project it was church for those involved. Providing community and opportunities to worship and explore our relationship with God.

Season five: endings and beginnings

So many endings as a result of the 2020 COVID pandemic. What limited assets we had prior were now even more limited. Once the pandemic had passed we did not have the volunteers necessary to restart the Café. Our children's ministry partnerships were still some time off, if at all. There was though, plenty of enthusiasm and need for the Op-Shop. In fact we expanded the Op-Shop, repurposing the children's ministry space, three times the space of the old op shop as the new op shop (for now at least) while the old shop was being used for processing goods.

Evenings Service

For years we worked hard to keep all engaged in a single intergenerational worship service on Sunday mornings but the needs of various sectors of the congregation were diverging further and further apart. As restrictions eased the time was right for a monthly evening service. A space that embraces the LGBTQIA+ community. Leadership from young adults who had grown up in faith @ The Corner from Primary school to University and employment.

Living with COVID

Now living with COVID. Our situation had changed like so many, probably more so than many, as ours was a local partnership ministry model. With almost 3 years of some kind of restriction people's life patterns had changed. Partnerships had not restarted as various organisation's state or national bodies were not keen for engagement with outsiders. Volunteers were hard to find even amongst our own. Weekly Sunday morning attendance was around 65, while the Monthly Sunday Evenings were getting 30. Our weekly vlogs kept a steady viewing.

Time for a Change

Time for a change of the Sower. The field is fallow, time for new seed to be sown.

How this came about was complex. I could see what needed to happen, however with the congregation still suffering with a level of collective trauma from COVID, new beginnings, a new approach was necessary. Any change would be better received from a new leader and a lot less energy required by all to bring about new growth.

I had to learn to enjoy those missional moments for the time they occurred. They were not forever, they were fleeting in many ways. They might not have lived on but they certainly changed the lives of all who were engaged.

After 11 years it's an ending for this Sower.
While a beginning for another.

Sower | Digital image, 2020