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A Second Interview with David Redbond: (30th September 2013)
Over the past three years as we have endeavoured to cover all aspects of life in Rochford and Ashingdon, we have sought to include the various churches, when they have been willing to share, and particularly to see the part they play in the local community. This time round we decided on the slightly contentious title “Is the church still there?” in order to allow each leader to share how they are still very much part of the life of the community. This is the second interview in this series, the first being with Richard Iles, minister of Hawkwell Baptist Church. It is interesting to note the similarities in what they both said, all the more as neither knew what the other had said.
Over the past three years as we have endeavoured to cover all aspects of life in Rochford and Ashingdon, we have sought to include the various churches, when they have been willing to share, and particularly to see the part they play in the local community. This time round we decided on the slightly contentious title “Is the church still there?” in order to allow each leader to share how they are still very much part of the life of the community. This is the second interview in this series, the first being with Richard Iles, minister of Hawkwell Baptist Church. It is interesting to note the similarities in what they both said, all the more as neither knew what the other had said.
Talking with David Redbond of Ashingdon Elim Church
Rochford Life: David, you have a number of roles in church life. May we start with the South East Essex Local Evangelical Fellowships.
David: I am still the Chairman of SEELEF
RL: Just for the record, what does SEELEF do?
David: SEELEF’s primary action is bringing together leaders from across streams and denominations to pray together, to support and encourage one another, and to seek to have a prophetic understanding of what God wants to do within the South-East Essex area. It is also an overview charity for Route One which is a bus that goes into schools and also for the Love Southend charitable group which is based in Southend where primarily the Southend church leaders work together ministering to the homeless, ministering to kids on the street, which includes Street Pastors, and there’s a whole wealth of stuff that Love Southend does that comes under the charitable status of SEELEF.
RL: How many churches are affiliated to SEELEF and what area does it cover?
David: Probably about 40 to 50 and the boundaries cover Southend, Castle Point and Rochford District. That is still alive and strong and the leaders of what we call the Leadership Forum meet together roughly every six weeks and come from across the denominational streams, so it includes New Frontiers, Vineyard, Pentecostals, Anglicans and Free Churches. One of the newest developments is that the leaders who get together to sense what is on God’s heart, felt that God was calling us to “reopen old wells in order that there might come a new overflow” and so we have just recently launched something called Revive, and its primary purpose is to walk together into establishing and creating the environment and the openness for revival to come within the South-East Essex area.
RL: Now you are also, we’ve noted in the past, a senior leader within the Elim Estuary Group of churches. Is that still alive and kicking?
David: The Estuary Group is very much alive and kicking. We’ve just this year taken on another younger leader who is on the team with responsibility for Rayleigh, and Keith who was the leader there has switched roles and is part of the chaplaincy team at Southend Hospital. In terms of the group which is Rayleigh, Southend and Ashingdon, Rayleigh has probably trebled in numbers now, Southend has doubled, and Ashingdon has probably held its own, but overall there are a lot of signs of good activity. The team itself is very committed, very united, and the vision is to continue to develop Estuary and that includes fresh expressions and church planting. There are avenues opening up to us way outside of the area we anticipated and so we now have contacts and the possibilities of doing things in other parts of Essex, but we are just waiting to see how God develops that and that opens up.
RL: What do you mean by ‘fresh expressions’?
David: “Fresh expressions” means, rather than doing normal style of church, which many people associate with being held on a Sunday with singing and Bible reading and preaching, we look at ways of creating an environment whereby people can go on a spiritual journey and discover more about the good news of Jesus in a way that it not necessarily perceived as being church so, for instance, now on a regular basis we have what we call cafe church and it is in effect creating the atmosphere where you come in, sit at tables and there will be refreshments, so it is food and chatting around the tables and in the background there is multi-media stuff going on and it is a very different environment from traditional church. We are also creating groups now that are based on mutual interests. For example, we have an art and craft group that meets and the idea is that when they meet together they do arts and crafts but, as part of that group, there will be discussions about what Christians believe. From that there can be opportunities to join things like Alpha to search further. It is trying to be creative so that people who may not feel comfortable or not feel that they can identify with the traditional church, have an opportunity to go on a spiritual journey to find out what Christianity is all about in other ways.
RL: I think you have already started to answer the question I would want to ask in this series about how you touch the community.
David: We are trying to really ensure that the Estuary Church group and the people in it do not become people who are insular and inward looking but, instead, we are people who recognise that the Gospel and its central aim involves, “Go!” We realise we need to connect with community in order that we might converse with the community, so we encourage all of our people to build relationships with other people who perhaps have no faith or who have little faith or no understanding of Christianity, to build real friendships very often based on mutual interests.
RL: But you still use ‘events’?
David: Yes, we will also put on events that are what we would describe as ‘non-cringe’ events, so on a regular basis we will have things like ‘Chinese in the church’ or ‘Curry in the church’. Basically what that is, is that we have arrangements with say local Chinese restaurants or Indian restaurants and we will put on an evening where it will be Chinese or Indian food and then following a meal we will have entertainment. A number of our people are connected with music groups of different types – some who are involved with orchestras and we will invite people in to come and have a meal with entertainment and its purpose is again to build relationships so reveal people with a faith as ordinary people but who have found that their Christian faith adds something to their lives and not detract from it. The qualification for coming is that you bring a friend who is on a spiritual journey, and we end up with about eight, sometimes with about sixty being people who have never put their feet inside a church.
RL: This is still all about making people feel relaxed?
David: Yes, but it is also creating an environment where there is a lot of curiosity and interest being generated and we can offer to help people find out a bit more. That is just one of a number of things we would do. We are looking to be both adventurous and inventive in fulfilling what we believe God has called us to do, which is to be salt and light. That means you get out there and you connect with people but you don’t put a shotgun to their heads and blast their heads off with the gospel. You love them and stand with them.
RL: And other stuff in church?
David: We also continue to have, every fifth Sunday, a commitment to both speak about and pray for the miraculous in terms of healing and wholeness and so we’ll have people bring others along who need prayer for healing. Again it creates the environment for God to do and work miracles. Although we want to see more we have experienced some real breakthroughs in a number of areas.
RL: Finally perhaps, I understand you have just had your sixty-fifth birthday. Are you still intending to carry on as before or are you slowing up?
David: Now I am sixty five there is that part of me that thinks I should be slowing up and I am clearly going downhill but when you go downhill you end up going even quicker and I just do not have time to stop! I mean as part of the Estuary group we have a day care nursery and I said many years ago that I would never have a nursery but God clearly has other ideas, so I now have a nursery in Southend, which I oversee, which has eighteen staff and fifty five children. It means I am now responsible to Ofsted for the way the nursery runs, being involved with interviewing staff and so on. Regionally with Elim I continue to be busy. Elim have changed its retirement policy to 67 so, therefore, at the moment I am more excited and more enthusiastic and keener to keep running with what God is doing than I have ever been and retirement is not something that features at all in my thinking. The younger ministers are not keen to have me step down so, all in all, it is a great time to be alive and a great time to see what God is going to continue to do!
RL: OK, I think you have more than answered my question. David, thank you for your time and for sharing so openly about all you are doing and all you are feeling.
David: I am still the Chairman of SEELEF
RL: Just for the record, what does SEELEF do?
David: SEELEF’s primary action is bringing together leaders from across streams and denominations to pray together, to support and encourage one another, and to seek to have a prophetic understanding of what God wants to do within the South-
RL: How many churches are affiliated to SEELEF and what area does it cover?
David: Probably about 40 to 50 and the boundaries cover Southend, Castle Point and Rochford District. That is still alive and strong and the leaders of what we call the Leadership Forum meet together roughly every six weeks and come from across the denominational streams, so it includes New Frontiers, Vineyard, Pentecostals, Anglicans and Free Churches. One of the newest developments is that the leaders who get together to sense what is on God’s heart, felt that God was calling us to “reopen old wells in order that there might come a new overflow” and so we have just recently launched something called Revive, and its primary purpose is to walk together into establishing and creating the environment and the openness for revival to come within the South-
RL: Now you are also, we’ve noted in the past, a senior leader within the Elim Estuary Group of churches. Is that still alive and kicking?
David: The Estuary Group is very much alive and kicking. We’ve just this year taken on another younger leader who is on the team with responsibility for Rayleigh, and Keith who was the leader there has switched roles and is part of the chaplaincy team at Southend Hospital. In terms of the group which is Rayleigh, Southend and Ashingdon, Rayleigh has probably trebled in numbers now, Southend has doubled, and Ashingdon has probably held its own, but overall there are a lot of signs of good activity. The team itself is very committed, very united, and the vision is to continue to develop Estuary and that includes fresh expressions and church planting. There are avenues opening up to us way outside of the area we anticipated and so we now have contacts and the possibilities of doing things in other parts of Essex, but we are just waiting to see how God develops that and that opens up.
RL: What do you mean by ‘fresh expressions’?
David: “Fresh expressions” means, rather than doing normal style of church, which many people associate with being held on a Sunday with singing and Bible reading and preaching, we look at ways of creating an environment whereby people can go on a spiritual journey and discover more about the good news of Jesus in a way that it not necessarily perceived as being church so, for instance, now on a regular basis we have what we call cafe church and it is in effect creating the atmosphere where you come in, sit at tables and there will be refreshments, so it is food and chatting around the tables and in the background there is multi-
RL: I think you have already started to answer the question I would want to ask in this series about how you touch the community.
David: We are trying to really ensure that the Estuary Church group and the people in it do not become people who are insular and inward looking but, instead, we are people who recognise that the Gospel and its central aim involves, “Go!” We realise we need to connect with community in order that we might converse with the community, so we encourage all of our people to build relationships with other people who perhaps have no faith or who have little faith or no understanding of Christianity, to build real friendships very often based on mutual interests.
RL: But you still use ‘events’?
David: Yes, we will also put on events that are what we would describe as ‘non-
RL: This is still all about making people feel relaxed?
David: Yes, but it is also creating an environment where there is a lot of curiosity and interest being generated and we can offer to help people find out a bit more. That is just one of a number of things we would do. We are looking to be both adventurous and inventive in fulfilling what we believe God has called us to do, which is to be salt and light. That means you get out there and you connect with people but you don’t put a shotgun to their heads and blast their heads off with the gospel. You love them and stand with them.
RL: And other stuff in church?
David: We also continue to have, every fifth Sunday, a commitment to both speak about and pray for the miraculous in terms of healing and wholeness and so we’ll have people bring others along who need prayer for healing. Again it creates the environment for God to do and work miracles. Although we want to see more we have experienced some real breakthroughs in a number of areas.
RL: Finally perhaps, I understand you have just had your sixty-
RL: OK, I think you have more than answered my question. David, thank you for your time and for sharing so openly about all you are doing and all you are feeling.
Churches
Ashingdon Elim Church
Ashingdon Elim Church
Ashingdon Elim Church
535 Ashingdon Road, Ashingdon, SS5 3HE
535 Ashingdon Road, Ashingdon, SS5 3HE
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