Changing Seasons

‘Sometimes it can feel like you’ve been buried, but actually you’ve just been planted.’ Ali Herbert (Gas Street Church, Birmingham).

'Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.' Jesus (John 12:24 MSG).

Moving into September marks a real change of season here. August was Summer time for Birmingham and though a slightly different degree of heat compared to Bangkok, it has been relentlessly fun. We even had a little family holiday (caravan in Norfolk by sea without WiFi!) and enjoyed our daughter Amy visiting from Australia. Ministry-wise too we saw the joy of neighbours and urban leaders coming together to build a deeper sense of community and change through all kinds of crazy events, trips, gatherings and meals. (See ‘Aint No Time for the Summer Time Blues’ below for more details).

 We’ve also been preparing for the season ahead. September starts Autumn and the harvest season here. After a season of feeling buried, we wonder now if we have actually been planted for a new time of fruitfulness. We would especially appreciate prayers for new local, leadership and global opportunities that will be taken up over the next month or so. These include our first local Fresh Expressions church service, first league football matches for Soho Albion and first local discipleship events as well as work around the world. Starts are always vulnerable, but these ‘first fruits’ could be significant moments of destiny for us. (See ‘A New Season of Fruitfulness? below for more details).

And yet fruit is not simply for the tasting. The reason an apple tree produces apples is so that more apple trees will grow and multiply. For us multiplying more compassionate, resilient and innovative urban leaders and their ministries is an important focus. We are especially praying for our first cohort of Urban Change Makers who will have their first residential this week-end. Not many urban leaders have access to key resources, frameworks and connections to make their dreams for change come true. Yet, these leaders are the very best people to see real change happen in their communities from the inside out. This piloting of an emerging urban leaders program has been a dream for a long time and it starts tomorrow. Please pray that God’s impact would multiply even as it begins.

Thank you for standing with us through the seasons. We have known dark and lean times, but are so grateful that God is using us together to see so much growing now.

Shalom, 

 Ash Barker

NewbiginHouse.uk

PS. If you would like to support the piloting of Urban Change Makers please give here.

Aint No Time for the Summer Time Blues

We had an amazing Summer in so many way. Here are some highlights:

Amy visiting us and going away on on holidays.

Anji and Aiden having their UK visa's renewed and friends raising the ￡5,200 required to do this! You have no idea how much of a relief not getting a bank loan for this is!

Art and Soul in prisons with Mick and Michelle Saunders. Using the arts brought more joy and breakthrough with both the men and women’s prisons than we have seen before.

Nearly 500 people enjoyed our second Winson Green Summer Festival that included face painting, football competition, food, games, rides and animals held at the Oasis Foundry Field.

Twelve CMS missionaries participate in a nine-day immersion course based in Winson Green in preparation for overseas service. To help Christian workers be ready for places of service like Nepal, Rwanda and Uganda was a real joy.

Thirty neighbours travelled to Northern Ireland to stay in a friend’s self-catering cottage, driving the Oasis buses and going via ferry! Amazing 5 day experience in binding us together.

130 neighbours celebrate Eide in Newbigin House. Hosting a Muslim celebration with jumping castles, face painting and BBQ helped us connect with new neighbours.

Social Media workshops for neighbourhood works included launching The WInson Green Blog The Winson Green Blog to promote the good in our neighbourhood.

Hosting various meetings with ‘Friends of Black Patch Park’ and Sandwell Council to resurrect our local park and re-populate its surroundings. The Council has now begun renewal work on the park.

Beautiful (if chaotic!) ministry began with many local children who have special needs and their parents supporting each other here. With the 7 week long school holidays, bad weather, small home and little money to go anywhere else Newbigin House was inundated most days.

Anji seems to have had the Oasis buses full of neighbours going to free events, parks and outings most days too! 

Ash enjoyed sharing our new dreams on the radio airwaves. Listen here for Ash being interviewed by Tony Campolo on Red Letter Christians and Andy Peck on Premier Radio.

The Newbigin Summer Institute was held at Cambridge’s Westminster College and Ash presented to the international gathering on ‘Lesslie Newbigin’s Ongoing Legacy in Winson Green.’

 A New Season of Fruitfulness?

Please pray as we see so many firsts happing over the next few months in terms of local, leadership development and international ministries. Could this be a new season of fruitfulness?

Winson Green Engagement

Pray we can see God’s kingdom more fully come in Winson Green as in heaven as lots of ‘first fruits’ are about to happen here in September. Including our firsts for: 

 Local Leadership Development: Our first week-end intensive for Urban Change Makers (Sep 8-10) for emerging urban Christian leaders course We have a team of at least 4 urban leaders from Winson Green (joining teams from Luton and East Ham). 

  Discipleship Event: We have our first Discipleship Special Event with Living 9 Beats to the Bar Saturday, Sep 16 at Newbigin House 10am-4pm. This will be led by US based author Mark Scandrette and singer-song writer Heatherlyn and will help participants engage Jesus’ beatitudes.

Mentoring Training: We have our first workshop to train up local Christians to stand with local families who need some extra support. We are partnering with Oasis, Gas Street Church and Worth Unlimited and hope it can be a model that others in the city can use.   

Local Worship: We hope our first ‘Church@5pm’ Fresh Expressions will start Sunday, Sep 17 at 5pm (not sure yet if in Bishop Latimer Hall or Newbigin House). We’ve been helping Gas Street Church be planted in the Birmingham city centre and bringing lots of neighbours with us there, but after negotiations with the local Parish finding its time to do it ourselves locally now!

Soho Albion Football Club (SohoAlbionFC.org) will play their first league matches on Sept 17. Over 1,000 kids tried out with 50 signed up for 4 teams. This is a West Bromwich Albion and local community partnership with training with top coaches each Saturday morning at Summerfield Park. Ash is one of the founders and Co-Director of the club! (See story on WBA West Brom's Media Department Story)

  Urban Leadership Development and Research

Pray we can help mobilise, prepare and equip Christian leaders for more fruitful community building, community organising and community enterprising. (See NewbiginHouse.uk)

The new academic year starts here too (starts Sep 2017 to June 2018). Our Newbigin School for Urban Leadership now has partnerships with various colleges and its really starting to take shape in developing urban leaders. Some firsts include:

Ash with Wes White leading at Nazarene Theological College (Uni of Manchester) with MA intensives to be run in Frankfurt (Sep 25-Oct 2), Manchester (Jan 2018) and Nairobi (June 2018)

Ash with Mike Pears leading at Bristol Baptist College (Uni of Durham) in with an MA intensive in Urban Ministry in Bristol (Dec 11-12 2017 and Feb 5-6, 2018)

Various immersion courses based in Winson Green with CMS, All Nations and OMS.

Ash has just been accredited to supervise PhDs as part of a research unit with Bristol Baptist College/Uni of Aberdeen. 

Ash will join a research project led by Chris Ives (Nottingham Uni) and Jeremy Kidwell (Uni of Birmingham) around urban sustainably that will include interviews with urban leaders at Urban Shalom Forums and hopefully published as an article in a major journal.   

Ash with Kate Amerod will lead a Wednesday night course ‘From Charity to Justice: Standing with the world’s most vulnerable…and doing no harm’ with Christian Aid and Gas Street Church from 7pm Wednesday 20th September at Christian Aid West Midlands offices.

Missio Dei Retreat for Christian leaders in Glasgow with Church of Scotland.

Global Urban Engagement

Pray we can see cities become more resilient, sustainable and inclusive around the world and that Christians play their part in seeing this happen. (See UrbanShalomProject)

A part of coming to Birmingham was to follow a sense of call to not just pull drowning people out of the river, but to go upstream see who is pushing them in. Advocating for urban Christian engagement and witness ‘upstream’ is happening now we have our International Society for Urban Mission and Urban Shalom Project merging to become ‘Urban Shalom Society’.

Some of the highlights coming up include: 

Our first United Nations accredited Urban Thinkers Campus and Urban Shalom Forum will be run in Singapore in November 10th to 15th. The theme is around what faith communities have to offer the cities we need.

Urban Shalom Podcast has begun. We hope they can help change the climate of opinion about what is possible by Christians in the urban arena. Ash hosts and does interviews with urban Christian leaders. They come out each month.

In October Ash visits the USA for conferences, colleges and churches (Detroit, Cincinnati and Philadelphia) including Urban Shalom Forums. We have run Urban Shalom Forums already in Bangkok, Melbourne, Birmingham and Sydney. There are plans for these in Bangladesh, Nairobi and Cape Town in 2018 too. 

New Urban World journal has been relaunched and is now available free of charge to help Christians thinkers, leaders and scholars engage in a global conversation about the challenges and opportunities of our cities face. It is released twice a year.

A new book ‘Urban Shalom and the Cities We Need' will be released in October. It’s our first book published as ‘Urban Shalom Publishing’ and includes a chapter from Ash.