Days like this are at the heart of Fresh Streams. We believe the Lord has been leading us to make a call for Fresh Streams to gather both regionally and nationally to pray and fast, coming together and intentionally crying out to God.

We fast as a spiritual discipline, on this one day putting our need for God’s presence above our need for food! We want to be a people hungry for God, coming together for the Kingdom: a Word and Spirit encounter with God that leads to engagement with the world.

The day will be led by members of the Fresh Streams leadership team, with worship led by Duncan Akehurst and input from guest speaker Mark Bailey.

We are hoping to gather leaders from across the England from within Fresh Streams, New Wine and other denominations and networks.

We see these times of gathering to be times of…

• Encounter with God and with one another
• With time for mutual encouragement / praying for one another / hearing good news stories of what God is doing
• Standing together in Spirit-led worship and prayer for the church and nation(s)
• Listening to both Word and the Spirit, including the prophetic
• An encounter with God that leads to our engagement with the world

Please join us! Forward this invite on to others you know in your networks, denominations, cities, towns and villages.

• This flyer includes information about travel and parking.
• This version is suitable for A4 printing

Fresh Streams linked up with St Thomas’ Church Philadelphia to encourage church leadership teams to join a Learning Community, “formed with the aim of supporting and resourcing church leaders and their teams to live the dreams and visions God has placed within them.”

The first three-day meeting was held in February, with the theme of Creating a Discipleship Culture, the first of four such gatherings over two years to help guide fifteen churches to become more effective in mission, through the use of missional communities,  How have those who took part reflected on the first step on the journey?

There was little doubt the initial impact was thought-provoking:

“We all came away with our minds bursting with ideas and thoughts and honestly we were exhausted by the end of it,” says Mike Wilson from Chester. “However, that was what made it worthwhile because we had been truly stretched to think through in real detail what was, what could be and what will be in terms of discipleship.”

Spending three days together as a leadership team was also really valuable: “It was a great opportunity for four of the five members of our leadership team to spend three days together learning, discussing and planning on the theme of discipleship; something that is at the heart of all we are, and aspire to be, as church, reports Graham Hooke, of Calvary Christian Fellowship.

Chris Bird, from Fleet Baptist Church, noted that “having just recently established our first eldership, it was hugely timely for us in terms of growing together as an eldership as we had time for structured reflection on where we are at as a church, and then where we are going, and moreover, how we are going to get there. This first learning community came at a perfect time, with the church in a time of very rapid change currently, due to recent growth.”

Sharing the time with other leadership teams was also fruitful: “Not only was it good for us to talk and plan,” added Graham Hooke, “it was so helpful to be sharing with other church leadership teams who were on the same journey as us. Knowing that we have 6 months to implement our plans builds a healthy accountability into a time like this!”

Ah, the six month gap before the next gathering! “I have been encouraged and challenged by what I learnt,” commented Ashley Hardingham from Altrincham. “But I wonder how I will get on in October, when we are called back to account for what we determined we would do?. Will we have achieved the targets we were encouraged to set, and more poignantly, will St Toms be able to coax me from the self-evident truths of a missional culture, to the pragmatic models of missional communities?”

But there is clearly enthusiasm and determination to make the most of this opportunity. “We have already put into place our first huddle,” says Chris Bird, “and I am full of anticipation about how God is leading us forward in terms of a discipleship culture, and imparting an intentional missiological ethos throughout the church.”

Graham Hooke was equally upbeat: “So many conferences are inspiring one-offs but quickly forgotten with no lasting outcomes. Instead we know that in October we will be feeding back and then building on what we agreed in February!”

Other churches with Fresh Streams connections have been engaging with LEAD Academy. Their reflections chime in closely with those above. Phil Deller from Chipping Campden says “We have really appreciated the time away together as team; it acts as a sort of retreat, really refreshing.

It has been energising to learn with and from other church teams. It has been really beneficial to intentionally / deliberately spend time on the bigger picture of what the Lord is calling us to be as a church, dealing with issues of breaking the growth barriers, changing the culture of the church to be even more missional. I can honestly say that from the very first meeting it challenged us and gave us fresh impetus as a church.”

And there is that same recognition of the value of accountability: “Having to also think practically in terms of executing plans and being accountable to each other every six months has motivated us to be proactive in implementing the things the Lord has shown us. It is also a time to dream dreams but also to earth them in the now.”

“It has been a very positive experience,” says Martin Hodson from Worcester, “helping us frame, face up to and explore key questions about the missional purpose of our congregation, and letting us do this in a community of leaders who have similar contexts and ambitions.”

Here’s a final reflection from Ashley Hardingham: “If Missional Communities are the ‘scratch’, what is the ‘itch’? For me the itch was not primarily about mission, but about growth. I have this belief that when the history of the modern church is written, there will be a chapter on small groups which says that every church had them, but that they failed to deliver the discipleship growth they promised. We might have cared for each other, had interesting conversations and annoyed the neighbours with our singing, but we did not grow. The reason? We have surgically removed mission from discipleship, when the Gospels so evidently keep the two together. So my itch had been a desire to see growth amongst those in the church and yet this would also see the kingdom come and unbelievers become Jesus followers.”

That’s what these learning communities are all about. As one participant noted “This first time together did not attempt to give new descriptions or models with which to baffle our congregations. In a more faithful way and with great integrity, the time was devoted to describing and communicating what a missional culture looked like. It requires both high challenge and high support; it promotes ‘high accountability and low control’; it requires a constant processing and calibrating of progress. Throughout the teaching there was a sense of movement and progress underpinned by a close and imaginative reading of Scripture.”

From Monday 7 May they are hosting an online discussion that spends a week on each session of the resource (with a week off for half term), and gives you the opportunity to ask questions, discuss and wrestle with different aspects of what the Bible says. People are lined up to contribute to the discussion each week; but they’re not experts who will tell you what to think; they’re fellow learners who will explore the questions with you.

Here’s the schedule, for weeks beginning:

• May 7 – The creation story
• May 14 – Women in the Old Testament
• May 21 – Broken relationships between men and women
• May 28 – Jesus and women
• (June 4 – week off for half term)
• June 11 – Headship and submission
• June 18 – Silence and head covering
• June 25 – Women and authority
• July 2 – Paul and the women he called co-workers

You could get together with a group of people each week to discuss the sessions and then post your thoughts and questions online. Or simply join in the online discussion.

Here’s how you can join in:

1. Register for the course by emailing Jenny Baker to let her know you want to join in: jenbaker@btopenworld.com
2. Buy a copy of the resource from Proost. It’s £2.50 for a pdf version which you can download immediately or £5 for a hard copy which will take a few days to arrive in the post.

What are you waiting for?!

As convenor Jonathan Oloyede emphasised when he joined us for a Fresh Streams prayer and fasting day, now is the time for churches to be mobilised.

He urges every church to:

• Please put Saturday 29 September 2012 into your church diary and envision your whole church to come together on that day
• Appoint a Wembley 2012 Ambassador who can give regular updates and info to the church and book tickets/arrange transport
• Take up a collection or give a donation towards the stadium hire (suggested guide amount £250)

For more info visit www.gdoplondon.com and/or view the poster

*Jonathan is delighted to explain that Wembley have given full access to the whole stadium at a considerable discount!

Note also GDOP Night of Prayer events at Emmanuel Centre Westminster

• Tuesday 22 May
• Tuesday 11 September
• Wednesday 21 November

The first was to encourage churches to take advantage of the Big Society Bank – “It gives the biggest possible opportunity for churches up and down the country to have a real social mission as well as having a moral, religious and a spiritual mission. I think it’s a great opportunity for faith to show its power to move mankind, to move mountains, to get things done.” (If you do contact the Big Society Bank, please let Fresh Streams know how you get on.)

Stephen Rand was invited to the reception – but he has no idea whether this was linked to his involvement with Fresh Streams or Open Doors.

But he was encouraged to discover that the second challenge was for churches and Christian organisations to work with the government to ensure the Arab Spring didn’t lead to greater persecution of Christians and other religious minorities. The Prime Minister said this was “a really important moment to work together on agendas to persuade these newly democratising countries not to persecute minorities and to respect Christians’ right to practise their religion.”

Stephen recently visited the Algerian Ambassador on this topic and delivered a letter signed by those who came to his option at the Fresh Streams Conference. He has written a report for Open Doors on Religious Liberty in the Arab World and been spending some time discussing this with politicians and civil servants.

This is part of Open Doors new campaign Right to Believe Arab World, stemming from the conviction that this is a kairos moment for Christians here to join the prayers and cries for freedom of Arab Christians. Please explore this further and encourage your church members to add their voice.

“Can anyone here play the piano better than my wife?”

What an interesting question to start a weekend conference! The host thought he was just asking for some help with worship accompaniment. Another colleague, sitting next to me, audibly winced – and was still throbbing with anger when the session finished an hour later. He thought his question was a light-hearted way of solving a problem; she marked it down as yet another example of the crass insensitivity of male Christian leadership.

A few years later I remember the moment I discovered – after being an elder for some time, mark you – that

a)    not only did the trust deeds forbid women members to vote on matters of finance and property

b)    not only had the church not been informed of this significant fact

c)    not only did the elder who did know make a private count of men only votes when relevant to ensure that the trust deed rules were not violated

d)    not only for years had it been considered too complicated to change the trust deed, and therefore right to continue with this remarkable subterfuge

e)    but it was not thought that many, if any, of the women would have any problem with this arrangement.

Then there was the woman I got to know because of Clive Calver’s insistence that Spring Harvest’s main seminars should always include a woman in the speaking team. She was an excellent, gifted communicator – and we invited her to speak at our church. At some point that morning I discovered that the leaders of the Baptist Church where she was on the staff had asked for her visit to us not to be included on their Sunday notice-sheet – they did not want the church to know she was preaching.

Years ago I attended a mission agency conference where the issue of women in leadership was the main topic. That was where I discovered that there were those (men) who could argue, apparently seriously, that the Bible taught that women could be allowed to speak to a mixed audience on a Wednesday but not on a Sunday.

Now in some ways it is quite impertinent of me to tell these stories, because while they made me angry I did not feel the pain; empathy is not easy for English white middle-class men. Women, especially those who have been anywhere near thinking of getting involved in Baptist ministry, will almost certainly be able to multiply these stories ad infinitum and ad nauseam.

I have only dared to recount them myself because I realised a long time ago that if men just let these things pass then they do not change, and we continue – by silence and default if not by intention – to hamstring the church by seriously hampering the ministry opportunities of over half its membership, and maintaining a significant barrier to effective evangelism among women.

So just to be provocative, here’s a short list of some aspects of this issue that frustrate me most about the difficulties Baptist churches have in allowing women to take God-given responsibility in leadership:

1. For people that believe in the ‘priesthood of all believers’ we seem often to have a curiously high view of ordination – and in practice we therefore believe in the ‘ministership’ of men. We partly get into difficulty because the denominational default is the minister who is the preacher who is the leader. So endless hours are spent discussing whether a woman can be the sole leader, rather than addressing the more significant issue: how are we  going to develop shared leadership – of men and women – so that it is practiced by leaders, understood by members, releases gifts, transforms the church and impacts the community?
2. Fresh Streams has a particular opportunity to actively counteract the all-too-readily accepted assumption that truly Biblical churches believe that leadership is male, and those with women in leadership have compromised with the spirit of the age. This argument has to be vigorously countered. And it has to be countered particularly by men. Men who are preaching need to preach it and men in leadership need to make every effort to counter it in practice.
3. Inclusive language in scripture is not about political correctness for its own sake; it is about making sure we have an accurate contemporary translation. Inclusive  language in church is not about political correctness, it is about a right and proper and holy sensitivity. If political correctness means trying to avoid unnecessary offence and speaking to and about people with words that demonstrate to congregation and community your respect for them – men and women, white and black, young and old – as human beings made in the image of God, then not only am I all for political correctness, I think God is too: we are talking about basic kingdom values.

**

I wrote the material above for a Mainstream magazine a few years ago. But in recent weeks I have discovered again that this is still a live issue. Churches facing a pastoral vacancy discover there are those who think the senior minister must be male; churches change from elders and deacons to a leadership team because it avoids the issue that some believe that women cannot be elders.

When Mainstream North issues the Blackley Declaration in 2007 there was some consternation. That was partly the result of a reference to ‘cultural sin’; but it was also because the issues of women in leadership were sensitive to many in Mainstream at the time. So there was further debate on the matters of biblical interpretation. We continued to wrestle with our own failings to demonstrate our beliefs in the make-up of our own leadership.

And I failed to get round to drafting the simple, positive, biblical ‘women in leadership’ document that I was convinced was potentially useful to have available for churches to counteract the problem I highlighted above, number 2.

So this article is, currently, the simpler alternative. At least the issue – and some of the helpful further reading we have provided in the past – is back on the website…

Previous material published by Fresh Streams (when it was Mainstream)

• The Blackley Declaration
• God’s inclusive story (Sean Winter)
• Emerging or submerging (Stephen Ibbotson)
• Following the trajectory (Stephen Ibbotson)

I have some considerable passion about this topic. Did I hear someone say, “That’s because you’re getting older, mate!?” I think that helps to stoke up my interest, but I’ve always felt strongly about it. I don’t suppose I could have led YFC for many years without a strong interest in it.

There are three things about it that I want to comment on. The first is release. I’ve seen (and so, probably, have you) churches, organisations and whole movements flounder because old boys (we haven’t had enough women in ministry yet to be able to comment, but they’re usually more sensible) stay around in position too long. Insecurity rears its head and causes people to hang on rather than release others. No boasting here, but Marion and I made our decision that I should step down from being Senior Minister of Poynton Baptist, some years ago, and then recently from my leadership role with what was Mainstream, mainly for that reason. Oh yes, God did say something to us about it as well! We can become corks in the bottle that trap the energy and fizz inside. And release is best by design rather than default – in other words, a purposeful recognising, equipping and releasing as a priority.

The second thing is about that energy. It’s the vigour and passion of youth. I love to say that ecclesiological happiness is Brethren in your rear-view mirror! That’s the church background in which I grew up and, although have since realised what was missing there, will remain eternally grateful for release into leadership experience at a relatively early age. By sixteen I was participating in the Sunday morning meeting, leading services at other churches when older men took me with them as they were preaching, and was an assistant leader in a Crusader class. People were aware enough to give me the chance of channelling my vigour and passion in a direction of Kingdom priorities.

There’s a great quote in a book I’m wanting to read, ‘Practising Passion – Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church’, by Kenda Creasy Dean: “Teenagers are heat seeking missiles. They’re drawn to fire. They yearn for experiences that will channel their passions. And by and large they are not detecting many signs of life from the church…” That confirms my belief that we should be channelling the energy and passion of young Christians into leadership responsibility.

My role as Trustee/Director of The Message Trust continually challenges me in this area. It’s so inspiring to see so many passionate young people on the front-line of mission. Why can’t we attract these sorts of young people to local church leadership? Does it appear too safe and boring? Probably. Do we insist on too many hoops through which they have to jump? Almost definitely. Or is it that we think releasing that youthful energy is too risky? I’m certain that if we don’t take the risk we’ll find ourselves facing another risk, namely losing those young people who could rise to the challenge and give their vigour and energy to the local church.

What’s the BU doing to reverse this? We need some strategic leadership to lay down some plans, open up the possibilities and provide some finance. One of the things that I would like to see Fresh Streams initiate is teams of young aspiring leaders, released for a year, who could be exposed to about four churches in that time, learning through being given some leadership responsibility in those churches.

The third thing, which is obvious, when writing about this subject, is mentoring.  That’s where the big brother or sister comes in – and not the overbearing, patronising, voyeuristic kind, but a genuinely caring, overseeing, watchful kind. The subject of mentoring fills many books and conversations these days, and not least in church circles. Careful and meaningful mentoring is a major part of training and equipping a person for ministry/leadership. Done properly it offers encouragement, inspiration, checks and balances to the person mentored.

I believe that young aspiring leaders need planned mentoring treated as of equal importance with theological training. I’d like to see far greater emphasis put on mentoring, through the BU, in the journey taken by a young leader, from the moment of acceptance for training (hopefully even before) right through the academic studies and early years of ministry, and beyond.

If we can begin purposefully to recognise, equip and release young people of vigour and passion now, the mentoring process can begin at an early stage. And the relationship between mentor and mentored is so important that it can only work where there is a strong element of choice in who the mentor should be. In other words, it will only bear fruit where a relationship already exists or where it grows positively in a short time. It loses its point when, if part of a formal system, no meaningful relationship is formed between the two people.

[Rob wrote this a while back, but it is still relevant, especially in the light of Fresh Streams links with DNA. How would you/do you set about encouraging young leaders? Comments welcome!]

DNA50+ is targeted specifically at those aged 50 or over, with age appropriate training and input, aiming to bring those maturer in years into greater wholeness and greater usefulness for the Kingdom of God. It’s for those who for whatever reason cannot access the existing full year programme. For more info, go to www.dna-uk.org

He challenged church leaders to commit to:

• One hour a day of prayer in the ‘secret place’
• One day a week fasting
• Talking to people about Jesus on a regular individual basis

He gave a great description of intercessory prayer: standing in the gap so that heaven can kiss the earth.

Make sure you have future prayer and fasting days in your diary!

Do you have a passion and sense of calling for ministry in our tougher urban areas? We would love to hear from you. Find out more information on our web site at http://www.bristol-baptist.ac.uk/urban-mission-video