An experimental community is taking shape in Redcar, Sue Walker writes

A few years ago, the United Reformed Church’s Northern Synod spent some time mulling over the idea that there’s more than one way of being and doing church. The standard model which most of us would recognise involves a group of people gathering together on a Sunday, for worship in a church building and ordering their lives together as a Christian community.

But this is not the only model of church. Northern Synod didn’t need to look far to find tangible examples of what other forms of church could look like. The Synod had already birthed St Cuthbert’s Centre on Holy Island and the Keld Resource Centre in Swaledale. Both of these, in their particular ways, reach out to people with God’s love. Perhaps the experience with these different expressions of church, which were already up and running, gave the Synod confidence to do a bit of imaginative thinking.

The moderator at the time, the Revd Dave Herbert, noted that while some people will continue to look for congregation-based fellowships, some seekers of meaning and belonging are less attracted to this model. What these seekers are interested in is the wonderful Gospel message and in being involved in God’s purposes in some way…

Sue Walker is Redcar Missional House Development Minister. For further information about Number 84 or for an informal chat about the project, contact Sue Walker at Biblesusan@aol.com or 07873 354171

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This is an extract from an article published in the February 2024 edition of Reform

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