Our new community house: could this be your next move?

Our Story

There are two ways to describe Firs and Bromford, within the Parish of Hodge Hill. The first is how others would describe us, as an outer estate, statistically deprived in a number of ways, forgotten and neglected by many, tarnished with a reputation of crime, drugs, scroungers, unemployed, and low levels of aspiration. Now there is truth in there! And it is important to recognise these barriers and issues, and the real-life experiences people have living in a low-income neighbourhood like ours.

But there is another story! Our way is to understand a community filled with promise, with gifts, skills, talents and passion, with care, love and hope. A place where people feel connected to each other and long for a community where all flourish.

Over the past few years the mission of Hodge Hill Church has focused on unearthing the treasure within our communities. This, alongside intentional community building, has unearthed a whole bunch of wonderful people getting on with being good loving neighbours. We have found people with gifts, skills and passion they're longing to share within community, people willing and open to welcoming the stranger, and ensuring the welcome is warm and open, and people who long for a flourishing neighbourhood for all. We are witnessing a community growing in their connections, in their confidence and in their shared passion.

Through this journey we feel we are beginning to seek and find where the Kingdom of God is present, is active, and people are experiencing something of God's Kingdom. There are also people beginning to explore faith and asking about the Christ we follow, love, and serve. This is all through deep trusting relationships and friendships that are continuing to grow. This has led to the emergence of FAB (Firs and Bromford) Church which is a community of people who are sharing a meal, exploring the Bible together, sharing life, and doing children's activities in school holidays sharing the Bible stories.

Through our journey the value of shared community space has grown. Spaces like The Hub (a converted shop front into a community run space), the Old Rectory (Community House), and open public space where street parties are hosted are crucial to the nurturing of community. They provide the opportunity to deepen relationships, do things together, and an opportunity for people to welcome the stranger, and to contribute their gifts, skills and passions.

All this together leads us to our vision for 'Church House'. The house on Ayala Croft began life as a vicarage when the estate was built in the 1960s. The ministry was far reaching with people to this day telling stories of Church House as a place of community, of relationships and love. In recent years the house has been one of two Community Houses of the Common Ground Community, and for the past 3 years the vicarage for the current curate of Hodge Hill Church. From the September 2020 we have an exciting opportunity to re-establish Church House, with a vision of a home that is a place for hospitality, community and spirituality. We are seeking residents to come and live in Church House, and help us write the next chapter of our story.

3 core elements of Church House

Hospitality

Sharing Meals Together:

A safe space

Sitting around a table together

Building connections between people

A place of welcome: The kettle is on & people are welcome

Growing Food:

Creating a link to the earth

Understanding the cycle of food

Skills Sharing:

Jam making

Bread making

Cooking classes

Cooking food together:

Providing an opportunity for a range of people to host, share hospitality skills, create rhythms around cooking e.g. bread making spirituality

Community

Creating belonging:

Being a homely space, bringing all together, inter-generational, all faiths and none

Building connections and friendships:

Beyond current horizons

Deeper conversations

All people contributing and all can contribute:

Serving each other

People having roles & opportunities to share

Sharing life together:

Through the ups and downs

Honesty and openness

Sharing hurts

Caring for each other

Being a different smaller space for groups – women’s group, cooking, small gatherings, family club, Flavours of Hodge Hill

Spirituality

Being a sign, glimpse & experience of

The Kingdom of God…..

equality, belonging, happiness, being welcome, celebration, banquets, feasts, LOVE, energy, being together, not being judged, Freedom, participation, being yourself, & hope

A hub of prayer: Providing a range of opportunities for people to pray & experience prayer, and opportunities for people to request prayer

A space to explore Jesus: Discipleship, study, and discussion.

Growing FAB Church – a more regular pattern of Bible Study, prayer & Children’s activities

Inter-Faith space:

Creating opportunities for sharing faith with each other

Prayer space for people of all faiths and none

The resident hosts - who are we looking for

Approach / Values

A deeply rooted Christian Faith

A conviction that the Kingdom of God is nurtured by people of all faiths and none

Passionate about building community

A longing to be grounded and rooted in community and in a neighbourhood

Open to connecting people and building community

Open to the gifts and skills of all

Open to learning and journeying with others

A commitment to a church community inclusive of all, regardless of age, class, dis/ability, ethnicity, gender and sexuality

Skills

Ability to host a space – good hospitality skills
Pastoral and relational – has the skills to build trusting long-lasting relationships with people of differing ages, backgrounds, cultures, and faiths
An ability to discover the gifts of others, and nurture people to share their gifts in community life
Social, emotional and spiritual resilience – an ability to reflect, to share, to be open to challenge, and understand the need for rest
A keenness to develop your own spirituality and that of others

Commitment

We are seeking at least one person, family, or couple willing to commit to Church House for the long-term. We are believe Church House is an opportunity for people with a shorter-term focus e.g. looking to explore mission, exploring ordination, student placement, gap-year.
We are conscious we are asking a lot! We do though believe the house will be a community. A community of many gifts, skills and passions of the residents as well as the wider ‘Common Ground’ community.
The house could have a mix of residents who have paid work outside the neighbourhood (to contribute money to the place) and residents who have more time to be present in the neighbourhood.

The Logistics

The House

There is space in Church House for up to 5 people to live (4 bedrooms + large living room upstairs), with a lockable door between downstairs and upstairs.

Downstairs there is a space for hosting (big open plan kitchen + meal/dining space, big common/living room, downstairs toilet, small garden, small outdoor space, and next to small green open space).

Income

Resident contributions: residents live rent-free, and the church pays the basic utility bills (for simplicity and continuity). To cover the running costs of the house (c. £500 pcm), we ask residents to make a financial contribution, based on their income and their level of community involvement (i.e. those who are in full-time paid work would be invited to contribute more than those who are unwaged and giving high levels of time locally).

Activity charges / donations: some activities & events hosted at the house will be charged a minimal amount to cover costs; other meals, activities and events will be run on a pay-as-you-feel donation basis

Wider donors / supporters: we will be inviting a wider circle of donors / supporters to consider contributing regularly to help cover the building’s running costs, activity costs, and help financially sustain the residents to enable them to be as active as possible in community life

Grant funding: there is a possibility of applying for grants for some of the activities based in the house

Common Ground Community and Hodge Hill Church

Church House is one of two Community Houses in Parish of Hodge Hill. The other is the ‘Old Rectory’ situated on Hodge Hill Common. When creating these two houses Hodge Hill Church established the Common Ground Community as an intentional, missional community, with ‘resident members’ living in the two Community Houses, and ‘local members’ dispersed across the wider neighbourhood.

Common Ground Community is part of the ‘extended family’ of Hodge Hill Church (an Anglican-URC ecumenical partnership, and a registered Inclusive Church). Common Ground has been crucial in nurturing what we call ‘homely’ expressions of church locally (as well as larger, more familiar Sunday services), and in developing a new missional expression of church (‘FABChurch’) in the Firs & Bromford (where Church House is situated).

Together we are seeking to learn and live out rhythms of life shaped by ‘shalom’ (peace, justice, & wholeness), and expressed in sharing activity, food and friendship with our neighbours, and reflecting, learning and praying together as a community. Common Ground Community is also about being active! We’re involved in community building, community cafés and multi-cultural women’s groups, street parties and forest spaces, community gardening and climate change protests. We learn together, from our neighbours, and from a wider network of travelling companions across the UK and the wider world.

Timescales

We are hopeful that new residents will begin moving in from September 2020.

This first round of ‘recruitment’ will work to roughly this timeline:

Informal exploration & visits: January – March 2020

Deadline for applications: early April 2020

‘Interview day’ (semi-formal ‘interviews’ & group exercises): April/May 2020

Discernment process

Living in residential community, as part of a wider local community-building journey, has the potential for many joys, but is also a vocation that is serious, and can at times have a spiritual and emotional cost. We now have six years of experience of ‘recruiting’ to our Community Houses, and our discernment processes have evolved through that experience:

Early exploration… Come and visit us! We encourage potential residents to do one or two ‘taster’ visits, coming to walk around our neighbourhood, see some of our church and community activities, have a look at Church House, and stay for a night or two at our ‘sister house’, the Old Rectory. If you then want to explore further, we will invite you to:

• Fill in an application form & supply at least two references
• Spend an hour with a psychotherapist, exploring together the areas of community living that you might find more challenging
• Come and have a couple of semi-formal ‘interviews’ – and (if there are several potential candidates) some group-work to test out the ‘chemistry’ between potential residents

To start the conversation, contact: Revd Al Barrett
(hodgehillvicar@hotmail.co.uk / 07738119210)