About

Having spent the past 30 years of my life attending a local United Reformed Church I thought we had tried everything to bring the place and the people into the 20th century. Everything up until now had failed and they refused to budge. Then we tried this.

The Concept: The aim is to make the Christian story as accessible as possible. There are issues with the way we currently run our churches with both the timing and the content of the things we do. This means that people are finding other ways of exploring what it means to be a spiritual being. We need to do things differently and at different times. Diversity is the key. BCLC in it’s current form is that first step on that path for Edgeley Road URC.

The Context: Our church is not unlike a lot of other churches. We have some buildings that are almost beyond repair. We have an aging congregation that has grown up and grown old together; that is in a steady decline in both health and numbers. In addition to this we have a group of very committed younger people. This group have strong leadership skills and an even stronger sense that they don’t want the church to just die. Equally, this group could not envisage supporting the church in the future if it were to try carry on doing things in the way it currently does.

The Content: So we started BCLC and structured it thus:
We meet each Sunday morning at 10am to share in breakfast. This is open to everyone and is an important time of fellowship. We are not starting a breakaway church here, just recognising that we have different needs.

Then at 10:30 we split off and go to BC or BCLC.

Each month we pick a theme that we will explore in various ways. We are currently looking at the spirit, next month prayer etc.

The first Sunday of the month is all-inclusive worship, for this Sunday we all meet together in the main sanctuary. This was originally going to be the introduction to the theme for us but in practice this has been hard to manage with visiting preachers so we just take what comes.

For the next 3 Sundays we will explore the theme in 3 ways:

Each Sunday will begin with a time of sharing about things that have happened in the past week or may be about to happen.

1st Sunday through the Worlds eyes (’Head’). We will use popular media - film, music, newspapers etc. to see what the world’s take on the theme is. This is generally followed by a discussion for some of the group and another style of activity for the rest (usually the children, but not always)

2nd Sunday through God’s eyes (’Heart’). We take a more spiritual view of the theme this week. We will tend to use what most people would regard as more traditional worship elements on these weeks. It is more meditative and contemplative that the previous week. We are trying here to get a feel for the subject and connect with it in a different way. This Sunday coincides with Communion Sunday in Big Church so we will generally join up together to share the sacrament.

3rd Sunday through our own eyes (’Hands’). This is our response to all that we have thought about and felt in the previous weeks. We will be creative in whatever way we want to. We may share the product of this creativity with the rest of the group or we may just take it away with us.

There are 4 spare Sundays in the year, these are holidays. We use these to do something to enhance our fellowship together. We might take the opportunity to invite other people along to this activity as it is generally an easier way for people to dip their toe in without having to fully immerse themselves in something that could be wholly unfamiliar to them.

And that is about it. As I put at the beginning this is the start of something. The format and timing work for us now so we continue to use them. We know that we need to do more if we are to realise the vision that we set out with.