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reprinted with permission of www.emergingchurch.info

In the summer of 2009 Phil Durrant spent a month with Church from Scratch in Southend and recorded a thought provoking video diary of his impressions. It's a diary that captures the day to day life of this distinctive church and their mission. Phil is a trainee minister at Oxford University and Church from Scratch is a 7 year old Baptist church, planted by Peter Dominey. The church is now a network of 10 community groups across the area and is organised around mission and community rather than having a Sunday service.
Phil's video is at the foot of this page.

Peter Dominey answers questions on Church from Scratch

You describe church from scratch as 'dirt under the fingernails' sort of church. what does that mean for you?
It hints at us being a down-to-earth everyday experience. We don't do Sundays, having moved the focus away from services (which we don't have) to faith expressed through shared lives in missional christian community. It also hints at the ordinariness of our lives and the pain of a number of us dying young as a consequence of troubled lives. And lastly If we get engaged and don't back off there's got to be dirt under the fingernails, hasn't there?

How does what you do differ from the 'house church' movement stemming from the 70s?
Errr... apologies if the answer tends to stereotype what the 'house church' movement was about, I wasn't a Christian back then. We're multi-voice when we gather which may be a similarity, but our leadership works more as a resource that roves and guides the network rather than those who are the source of all truth. Maybe that's because our view of the Trinity is more social than the western hierarchical understanding of authority in the godhead which may have influenced some 'house church' streams. We're big on being incarnational and that leading to it being highly contextual and that means the culture we are planted in will deeply shape our practices. We don't see a blueprint for church in the Bible, the hope is that Church from Scratch will smell of Southend-on-Sea as well as Jesus.

In the video diary, Phil says you have the people but not the resources - a reverse of the situation some more traditional shaped churches find themselves in. Is this a creative tension?
I think Phil was referring to our ability to connect with people from beyond the church. The lack of resources is a pain. We see easy opportunities to reach more people if only we could resource that. You see lots of CFS are people who just about stay afloat in life. Not people with the stability, skills and wealth I've experienced in three previous churches as a Christian. We've carried out two secondment exercises as a way to recruit local christians with more capacity. Some local churches were generously open to that secondment exercise but it's going to be hard for any long-haul Christian to transition to our values and the way we express them when they've experienced many years in a different tradition of church. As a creative solution we're also exploring the possibility of offering internships with CFS and if anyone wants to have a conversation about moving to Southend for a self-funding internship we're up for that. White knights coming to save the day need not apply! www.churchfromscratch.org

There's a bit of a revelation moment for Phil on day 5 when he realises that the there's no need to 'get people to church' (meaning sunday morning worship) - the outreach already is church. Do you think the wider church would benefit from this theology?
What?! And move away from "Back to church Sunday" thinking? Surely not!

One of the 5 characteristics mentioned at the end of the video is fluidity. How does this sit alongside the need for continuity and a sense of stability?
At 7 years in it's increasingly hard not to congeal. Now a community of people is at stake when we undergo change; the risk of damaging what is encourages us to be risk averse. At the start there was no church, and it was far easier to embrace risk with just Jesus' mission to join in with and few people to get burnt. (Note to self: More courage needed.) And to answer the question, the hope is that our values are continuous and our practices can change. I just wonder if we need to develop some sort of rule-of-life in the future to give us the stability of a limited set of rhythmical practices so we can embrace other change without being disorientated. Those practices might be communal or individual, they would need to be missional. I like the way Small-boat-big-sea have started to explore that. That's just a guess at what might be needed to help us stay fluid.

Is becoming institutionalised a genuine fear? And how do you/will you avoid it?
Yes. The fear is of our increasing structures and mechanisms constraining our ability to be redirected by Jesus and us reducing our reliance on him. We need the structures and mechanisms to sustain and help us develop and at the same time they seem to be the thing that sucks life from us. A friend pointed out the "routinisation of charisma" thinking which I found a helpful Google. Though I get a sense of the inevitability of us institutionalising to some degree. Perhaps the answer could be controlled demolition! For each new structure or mechanism we believe we should put in place, we ask if there's another one we should knock down. My sketchy knowledge of church history tells me that jumping in the life boats and letting the old thing sink brings many new opportunities and is the way the church has often broken free from institutionalism. But to mix up the metaphors, if we become a turkey are we really going to vote for Christmas in CFS?

Video diary by Phil Durrant: 10 days with Church from Scratch >>>

Around 30 headed off from Southend for the spring Girls' Weekender in Suffolk. Checkout the pics and have a think about coming in 2011!

A weekend where we took over Blaxhall Youth Hostel in Suffolk: getting to know each other, chilling out and open to Jesus. It was lovely having a good number with us for the first time.

Checkout the picture of the hand - it's Jesus' hand, and we were exploring how he touches us and others as we put our own artwork on top of it. More than that, as we put our faith into practice.

Experience Easter like never before from your mobile

Follow the last week of Jesus' life, death and resurrection as it would have happened 2000 years ago. Follow the suffering, pain and joy in a series of 30 text messages from Sunday 28th March to Easter Sunday 4th April. There are a few places left so subscribe at our sister site: www.jesus.co.uk/easter/?church=cfs

Numbers are limited, the texts are free, and it would be a workable experience for you to subscribe up to about 30th March.

Jesus Live Time is a new system built by CFS. For Easter 2010 we are running a pilot scheme which 10 other churches are participating in. If it works well we can scale Jesus Live Time for 2011. (note added later: at the 2nd April there were 240 subscribers)

Dear Church from Scratch,

Well, we’ve done it! We’ve stepped out in faith and have appointed Ivan King as our second full time leader. This is a significant change for CFS and one that will help us to grow and develop into the church God wants us to be.

...it is a groundbreaking move with so many generously supporting this venture from beyond the church and it shows just how much they value CFS.

What I ask us in CFS to do is to look carefully at how we are investing the resources at our disposal, we have the added pleasure of not investing in somebody else’s venture, but investing in something that we ourselves are a part of already and benefit from personally. So the question to ask yourselves is “What resources do I have and how am I investing them?”...

Read the full letter and how to respond below:
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Video clip from when John spoke to the church before we made the decision to call Ivan as our second leader.