Rev’d Joanna Lewis Burgess, Assistant Curate at St Luke’s Church Camberwell
This is a story about taking a step on the Fresh Expressions journey: from listening, loving service and building community, to exploring discipleship and church taking shape. There are three ingredients in the story.
The first ingredient was listening in church.
In 2023 we updated our mission action plan (MAP). We asked church members for their ideas about how they would like us to be, what they would like us to do, and where they would like us to go as a church. One of the themes that emerged was a desire to serve more of the practical and social needs of local people, and one of the ideas we decided to pursue was to explore starting a parent and toddler group.
The second ingredient was listening in our community.
As a pioneer curate, I spent a lot of time early in my curacy exploring our community and getting to know its places, people and groups. We re-opened our Community Café, which runs alongside the Peckham Pantry’s pop-up shop, and offers welcome, hospitality, warm space, a listening ear, and free food and hot drinks, in our church hall every Wednesday. The Café provided another space to meet local people, get to know them and build connections.
So, when we decided we wanted to explore a toddler group, it was natural to ask some of the parents using the café what they thought. Was there a need for a group? What should it be like? Were there already enough toddler groups locally? The people we spoke to told us there were other toddler groups around already, but what they would really like was a group where their children could learn about the Bible. Their families were busy on Sunday mornings, so something during the week after school would be ideal, so that their school-age children could come too.
The third ingredient was being ready and responding.
This idea was not what we had in mind when we put “toddler group” in our MAP. But it came out of it, and it was a response to the need people had really expressed – not the need that we had thought might be there. It was a result of a dialogue between the church and the community – hopefully with a little help from the Holy Spirit. The people we spoke to knew what they wanted and needed for their families; we at St Luke’s had the space, the tools and the skills to provide it.
We started our group with a four-week pilot in December 2023. We use Diddy Disciples materials and always have an interactive Bible story, singing and movement, and time for a creative response. Once or twice a term we try to share a meal afterwards to build community, get to know each other better, and continue the listening. We started small – and we are still not big. Some weeks, only one family came. One week, only the vicar’s granddaughter came! We kept going; our families stuck faithfully with us, and a year on we are still here: some weeks still small, but sometimes 15-20 of us now. We have grown in numbers, we have grown more diverse as new people join us, and most importantly, we have grown in faith as we enjoy time together with God and with each other.
This story has ingredients, but it’s a story not a recipe. Unlike a recipe, we didn’t know when we started what the end result would look like. Unlike a recipe, if you were to mix the same ingredients: listening in church, listening in the community, and being ready to respond, I don’t expect that your outcome would be the same as ours – or even, necessarily, that anything would happen at all. All the ingredients were needed, but not to make something happen on their own. They were needed, to provide a space where life and community and relationship with God could grow for themselves.
To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.
Luke 13: 20-21
