The Sheffield Centre, a research body looking at what the future shape of the church might be, has recently published a booklet about St John's in their "Encounters on the Edge" series. It's by George Lings. Here's an excerpt:-

"Come and go": beyond attractional church
Two meanings of "fresh expression of church"

This series deliberately tries to tell stories across the ever widening spectrum of ways that church is being re-imagined in the early years of this century. Some are called fresh in that they look pretty novel; cases would include those slowly growing among the subcultures of our day such as clubbing, extreme sport communities, or groups like Goths. What is both common, and indeed normative, across them is that they involve planting something that did not exist before and, as yet, they tend to be relatively small in terms of the numbers involved.

At the other end of the spectrum are existing churches making significant changes to their existing internal life. I am thinking of examples like churches truly transitioning to cells , those creating clusters as their normal gathering pattern and those reconstructing their Sunday worship into far more flexible and much more engaged patterns . By contrast to the first group, these are existing 1 2 3 churches with larger numbers of people. But because of the significant internal changes, they too deserve the epithet fresh. When writing . As my informal colleague Paul Bayes teaches, the terms fresh orange juice or a fresh cup of tea are meaningful statements. But do note that they are different drinks that refresh. This tale is about the guidance towards, the discovery of, and the young life in, a fresh expression in this second sense. It is about an existing parish, St John Hillingdon, undergoing what looks like structural change. Their Sunday morning is now a series of half hour slots from 08:00 until lunch time with people free to come and go to whichever ones they want, hence the name "Come and Go". However, that is merely the clothes on a change of values deeper within. It is the latter that makes it fresh.

You can order a copy of the booklet through their website www.encountersontheedge.org.uk and here's their description of it:-

Changing Sunday

Issue 35: Changing Sunday

"Come and go": beyond attractional church

Surely three services on a Sunday morning provides enough challenge and diversity; why change it to ten half hour sessions? This is a good example of spotting changes in background culture and shaping church around the needs of those who find its patterns don't fit. Deeper than that, what happens when existing churches are serious about discipleship, creating community and enabling lay ministry to the point that clergy cannot provide all that is needed? Come and Go is far more than a search for relevance and is turning this church inside out. We wanted to find out how it worked.