There's a lot of interest these days in 'Fresh Expressions of Church'. The Archbishop of Canterbury has even appointed a special ambassador, Steven Croft, to promote the notion! He came to Over Community Centre one day in November to explain it all to worship leaders in the Diocese of Ely.
The idea of 'Fresh Expressions' is that the traditional ways in which we worship God in the Church of England no longer work for everyone and so we should look for new ways in which to offer prayer and praise. And we're not just thinking about new patterns of words and music or even about exploring ways of opening up our spiritual side by contemplating pictures, video or whatever. Perhaps in our modern 24/7 world, Sunday isn't the best day to meet for worship. Or again, perhaps not everyone finds that our mediaeval churches provide the best setting to help them encounter God.
What's the alternative? Who knows? Over the years many Fresh Expressions of Church have been tried and developed and the churches of our four parishes are going to explore some of these during 2006.
I don't suppose we're going to try anything too radical - there is no proposal to pull down one of our churches and replace it with a state-of-the-art, multi-media worship centre open seven days a week. Thoughts of babies and bath-water come to mind. (Though, come to think of it, perhaps it's not such a bad idea after all!)
But what we are going to offer is a space for worship called Sunday Sanctuary. This will be opened up on the third Sunday of each month at 6.30pm at St Andrew's in Swavesey. This will be instead of Evensong at St Mary's, Fen Drayton, which for the moment will be suspended.
We will begin on Sunday 19th February with worship in the style of the Taizé Community. Over the years the ecumenical and international community at Taizé in central France has developed its own distinctive style of contemplative singing and worship which has become widely popular throughout the world.
Not that Sunday Sanctuary will always offer a Taizé Service; there are many other Fresh Expressions of worship for us to explore. If anyone has suggestions or requests, please have a word with me. The future of our churches could begin here.
John-David Yule