Derbyshire North East Circuit launched in 2020, bringing together two smaller circuits. One of the key drivers behind its creation was creating capacity for new mission. Visions to reach out to the post-industrial village of Barrow Hill and a group of interconnected estates in south Chesterfield emerged from extensive consultations with members across the former circuits. These are both “left behind” places, facing economic deprivation and isolation.
When a range of potential pilots were shared with our District Leading Team and circuits, this one emerged as our priority because there are so many communities across our district which have been left behind by government, wider society, and by our churches. More than thirty years on, the closure of mines and heavy industry still casts a shadow, further re-enforced by lingering impacts of the 2008 recession. Even before these economic shocks our churches had been losing touch with contemporary working-class culture despite our nineteenth century historical roots of rapid growth in many of these places. The result of this has been our inadvertent retreat from former pit villages and estates.
They are in many senses our Methodist roots, but as society has evolved we have struggled to relate to them. If we can carefully and painstakingly relearn what it means to be a community-led church in these places, this could be repeated, including with the involvement of new people from these new places, in many other communities.
We have spent the last year listening to people from within these neighbourhoods and in prayer, navigating evolving lockdowns. This has included Christians from other traditions who have also felt called at this time to these places. We have heard from them an invitation to be present alongside them, recognising the scale of the challenge and value of different experiences, skills and approaches.
We recognise that pioneering is as much an art as a science, particularly when not tied to any particular building or commercial venture. The balance and precise nature of the activities we undertake and the rhythms of the Christian communities which emerge will continue to be shaped by the confluence of relationships formed, the gifts of the pioneer and team, and the needs and interests of local people.
We will also place emphasis on identifying and nurturing emerging leaders from within the communities, which we recognise will require significant investment of time. We will model collaborative leadership by having the circuit youth worker, two presbyters with strong local connections, and circuit members workings alongside our pioneer.We anticipate that church in these places will come to look like a relational network of small groups and activities. Some people will engage with only one of these, others will be part of several. We will establish early a pattern of regular open worship, but without the expectation that we are building towards a single regular Sunday service that everyone attends together, e.g. for those who engage through a community gardening group, a forest church model may be appropriate.
Because activities will be community-shaped and relational, rather than centred around a building or programme, there will be no hard launch. Instead the delivery phase will begin with the pioneer and team being more closely present than during the research phase and then beginning activities in Barrow Hill and Chesterfield in response to need, opportunities and consultation. We will include publicly accessible regular worship and prayer from the start, to model that this is what we are and what we are about, but not necessarily expecting many people to join with us at this stage.
By the fifth year the pioneer team should be looking to draw back to mentoring and supporting new leaders from within the community where possible, recognising that support will continue to be required for some time. Members will recognise themselves as agents of change in their neighbourhood and will support each other in growing in faith. Working with the pioneer we will explore possibilities for the next places that God calls us to.
*illustrations by Siggy Parratt-Halbert