The project is known as six8nine and consists of two strands: a community hub and the planting of a worshipping and discipling community within it. The project is close to the A689 and the name of the project links to the BB hymn, ‘Will your anchor hold?’ - 689 in Hymns and Psalms.
The listening and discernment process began when the former Westbourne Methodist Church congregation in Hartlepool ceased to meet. As the building was used by a very large Boys’ Brigade (BB) company, initial conversations involved the idea of a partnership to create a community hub. The instigators of this idea were the BB and when the congregation ceased to worship, the circuit looked at ways of gifting the building to the BB. Further discernment, however, led to the idea of replanting a new worshipping and discipling community within the context of a community hub. A combined circuit, district and BB team was set up to start developing this idea. A community audit was conducted, and conversations took place with a variety of different community support organisations. It is clear that community space is needed in the area to meet a variety of needs and to address local issues and problems in a deprived area of Hartlepool.
The core value is inclusive hospitality - ’Everyone is welcome’. Our vision is to provide the local community with opportunities to meet, grow and unite; a space where value is placed on human life through activities and engagement that support the mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing of the individual and the community rooted in the Christian faith and ethos. Our prayer is for six8nine to be a base to participate in God’s mission in Hartlepool and to be witnesses to God’s love through loving, caring and service in a broken community. We started testing the needs in the community by creating an online survey for the parents/carers and families of the boys in the BB. The response was overwhelming and identified the key needs as kids’ holiday activities, UC and PIP guidance, food provision and uniform exchange, adult craft groups to combat loneliness and teen mental health support. From this starting point we have begun to develop a response to those needs. The idea of place is important in this context: many people that come along appreciate the space being in their community and at a walking distance. When our Deacon handed out 300 lockdown anniversary gift bags, many returned their ribbons to the railings of the church and the social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) increased in the number of hits by 120 that week. Our vision is that a pioneer would work amongst the various user groups and the local community with the intention of planting a worshipping and discipling community, training and mentoring local leaders to take this worshipping part of the project forward into the future.
Watch the video here.
Phase 2: Generative Projects
We want to harness our experience from the past year working with the Evangelism and Growth Team to develop new circuit based projects and a diverse portfolio of NPNP experience across the district. We want to allocate part of our funding as ‘seed’ money to create a self-replicating project structure for the future. We hope to identify 4 projects in total with ‘seed’ development money c. £10,000 per project to enable e.g. community audit work. We also hope to allocate some practitioner time to support the six8nine pioneer and emerging projects at roughly 0.2 FTE.