Naturally, Journeyers’ pastors are clear about their wishes for the church to be recognised in the local sphere firmly within the terms of the culture which they advance of themselves:
I wouldn’t want to look at goals, I wouldn’t want to put too much on it, but you know I’m part of a church which I believe is going to grow and grow. That’s the desire. Because growth means reaching people. So I want to be part of a church which continues to stretch the boundaries of church culture, if you like: just reaching into the culture of our city, really. So I want to be a part of that, that conversation in the city I want to be part of. It’s good for the church to build a name for itself as a place of love and acceptance.
The impassioned vagueness with which this pastor articulates his ambitions for the church is highly typical of leaders’ accounts. But so too is the curious confusion of the traditional goal of conversionism with a kind of secular corporate ambition – which often idealises
Journeyers as some kind of public service enterprise:
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[We want to have an impact on mass culture], but not just in Folkfield, beyond that as well. In the city is where we go and decide to specifically do things; but Hillsong is phenomenal in a sense because it’s got a kind of worldwide church renown, if you like. But in the cities that we’re a part of, in Folkfield, I’d like to see the profile of what we do raised so that people go, “Yeah, we know those guys at Journeyers,” whether they go to Journeyers or not, “We know those guys, they’re the good guys up there, if you need anything you should go there”... [so that] when the city is looking to do things they think “Well actually, we should speak to someone at Journeyers about this, they’ll have a good perspective, they’ll have an understanding.”
I understand that the references to “Journeyers” in remarks like these is a reference to a company of people: that is, a people of exteriorised character, knowledge, and ability, but necessarily “standardised” in a commercial sense – as if one could say, with a consumer’s confidence, You know what you’ll get with a Journeyers member. Then of course, this narrative stipulates some imagined recipients. Core members, when automatically refuting the charge of self-absorption amid Team participation, are fond of saying “It’s not about what you can do for you, but for other people”; similarly of the Sunday service, “It’s not what you take away from it, but what you can give to other people.” They would typically be speaking as individuals seeking out other individuals in church: these accounts are microsocial narratives, evidencing (interior) conversionistic motives clothed in (exterior) altruistic behaviour. The longer quotes above, however – pitched as they were at the corporate level; spoken from the pastors’ eye-view – invoke quite clearly “the city” itself, and seeme to allude, apparently very approachingly, to the affairs of “Folkfield City” as something to which Journeyers could offer some answer.
Again, examples of specific action are seldom forthcoming; these utterances typically segue effortlessly to the familiar phrases. “In this way, we will be a church of influence, a large church, the church where people are connecting with God all the time” – which in any case are the objectives to which the leaders refer, both specifically and generally – encapsulating the futility of obtaining any easy insight here.
The executive pastor, however, does pronounce a narrative of personal ambition for the church. He wants to be
right at the centre of that... I’m not saying at the top of the pile, but I want to be right at the heart of everything, I want to be part of making that happen, I want to see my friends and family here in church, and a place where other people can bring theirs in. I just want – you
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know, it’s about building the Kingdom you know, and seeing people added to the Kingdom of God.
The sense of this ambition became more pronounced in our conversations as time went on. He says that Pastor Roy had explicated his plans for a leadership succession when he retired, perhaps within ten years. The executive pastor has been tipped to take over, and he is clearly advancing his own thinking for the church moving into the future. And a considerable portion of this thinking communicates something of the “local business model” inferred above.
Remarks like “reaching into the culture of the city” speak of some general need among the leadership to substantiate for the organisation the “relevance” that is routinely invoked for the religion they advance. (Recall though that neocharismatic members, perhaps especially in Journeyers, never used the word “religion” in reference to their own activities.) One could speculate at will what precisely is the sense of “culture” implied here of “the city” that the church wants to connect with, or be known to; but in any case, that would mean going beyond what is understood by “relevance” in this context: and this I did not have cause to complicate beyond the actions observed of Journeyers’ corporate planners as they set up shop at The Place. I will move then to an account of this.
A church seeking growth among the mainstream of Western society – as Journeyers does – would be expected to construct an ideology that conforms to the doctrines of the dominant economic paradigm. Any socialistic impulses in the church’s institutional programmes, for example, would reckon with their broader public profile to some extent. Both the description already given of Journeyers’ congregational programme, and the popular theological critiques that follow neocharismatic and megachurch movements assert this more or less explicitly. At its most forceful this assertion begets judgement about institutionalised attitudes to money, commonly voiced by those suspicious of any church of the growth- focussed variety: especially of Journeyers and Hillsong, then, which practically open the worship service with a direct appeal for cash. When it comes to obtaining revenue from members, Journeyers’ pastoral discourses attempt to consolidate a central theme: How to “manage one’s finances” in the context of a life lived in and for the church. Journeyers’ acquisition of The Place in 2010, however, enabled an additional, secular source of revenue: from “conference room” hire.
This is an income that obviously does not demand any biblical justification before its clients. Hire of The Place to local organisations for their own purposes is a form of “non- primary purpose” trading for Journeyers Church under charity and tax law; at the time of my
118 visitations with the group, income from the business had grown to about £50,000 a year. This is not enough revenue for The Place to require incorporation as a separate trading subsidiary, and thus all the revenue from the The Place – free from any corporation tax – is money for the church. Legal requirments being satisfied, though, promotion of The Place as a local business requires some strategic moral decision-making by the church leadership. “The Place” is not “Journeyers Church,” leaders are keen to emphasise, but it does exist to advance it financially. The leadership is morally bound to make known this purpose for The Place. But at the same time, the church recognises that its operation of a successful local business – one whose “product,” moreover, serves the business of other organisations – is an
opportunity to promote Journeyers in the secular local realm. Journeyers, in this way, can be a participant in the local economy, not just another religious organisation.
The pastors – particularly the young executive pastor, who was to be the primary “public face” for The Place in its local promotion – understands that the secular business and non-profit sectors share expectations for what a local institutional service body should provide the social socio-economic realm. Responding to this, the acquisition and
development of The Place as a business was, it seems, pre-formulated as itself an expression of the leaders’ re-conceptualising of “the local church.” To them, warehouse and multi- roomed premises could be made more than a circumstance of contemporary large church organisation, which of course does not possess the buildings erected for the purpose in former times. The Place connects the church to the real conditions of the local domain on terms they – Journeyers – are comfortable with. In their efforts with The Place, both as a local business and as a headquarters for neocharismatic activity, the church was to acknowledge the secular local economy and its expectations for what any modern, socially-conscious private organisation should provide, “Christian” or not.
Before the building’s procurement The Place was invisaged as an asset for revenue generation for the church. This was not a novel organisation in Folkfield. City Life Church, to be discussed in the next chapter, has been marketing its city centre premises to local
companies for several years already as “conference facilities” for hire. I myself, during an unsatisfying year-long stint working for a local insurance company, attended a staff training event in CLC’s worship hall several years ago; I had come and gone that day with no idea that the premises was the headquarters to one of Folkfield’s largest evangelical Christian groups, such was the professionalism of their operation, not to mention the pastel neutrality of the building and its interiors. Journeyers, then, is merely following a very modern, but already well-tested economic organisational model for the large local church.
119 Any newly-founded Christian congregation, not old enough to have inherited a premises from congregational forbears, desires its own “home.” Realising this ambition is not dependent upon establishing a subsequent “working” premises, though – it is the income from congregational tithing that determines the point at which a church can move from its rented Sunday accommodation (for example a school hall, or a hotel suite, or even a cinema as in one case I came across) to a building over which it has its own control.
The size and type of the building procured, however, is a pretty reliable indicator of the leadership’s expectations or pretensions. A premises acquired that can host many more people than the congregation currently numbers suggests something about the degree of “prophetic insight” at work among its leaders and core membership. From this reason alone then it can be adduced that contemporary church leaders’ common public refrain upon moving – “We’ve outgrown our old premises!” – is not to be taken at face value. There is, naturally, an indispensable prophetic edge to such a significant event in the life of a charismatic church which pretends to an “early church” pattern of congregational growth – from house, to hall, to “All the nations.” Money is identified with God’s “blessing” for this church and its aims, which is thence inferred as a sign of imminent growth and advancement.
Of course, the intensity of this prophetic interpretation is not the same across churches, but depends upon many factors, all specific to a given church, its history, and its imagined future. For example, a Charismatic group in Essex whose members number several of my own family itself recently moved to its own fully-leased premises, a former church building. This congregation, still no more than forty strong, had been renting its worship space for thirty years; its recent move was thence narrated, in the local press, as a well-earned and well-suffered reward for local Christian service: Witness this long-established, respected local church that has “finally found” its own home after thirty years serving a city and a loyal congregation. But theirs was never invisaged as a narrative of “growth” in the exponential sense. Journeyers, by contrast, planned from the start for “massive growth” and “awesome” spectacle. Subsequently, the institutional “vision” here had to be incommensurable with reliance on exernal providers, for premises as for anything else.
The “prophetic” discourse in any case then, is merely an underlying rationality: the taken-for-granted possession of supernatural blessing and divine encouragement for one’s church, regardless of any other details – for local programs, for example. But this in turn satisfies the logic by which a church and its leadership can embark upon whatever
institutional strategies it sees fit to embark upon, including those driven by the most profane economic logics, and developing the core discourse of the church accordingly. This discourse
120 may then be critiqued as “bad theology,” “not biblical” or otherwise “worrisome” by its (local) religious peers, always “traditionalists” by definition on this account. But as far as the “awesome,” “innovative” church is concerned, its divine mandate was self-evident before it even launched, and on precisely the same prophetic rationality that sustains New Testament churches of far more modest ambition.
The “official opening” of The Place, in 2011, was circulated in local press releases by the lead and executive pastors, as notice of this Folkfield church’s “new venue,” done to publicise a new facilities for business conferencing. This comprised some interesting public communications as the pastors naturally were seeking to market Journeyers Church alongside their commercial product. Accordingly, the “open day” at The Place was not a business-only affair, but included “a host of fun activities for all the family, from The Place Giant Scalextric Challenge and an F1 Simulator to a pamper room with free massage for all” (Folkfield Evening News). I was not present at the event, so cannot comment from observation. However, conversations with the The Place’s subsequently appointed “Centre Manager”, Claire, indicate that the leaders have no particular policy on promoting the church through The Place. She claims that she and other the managers on site never offer to reveal The Place’s erstwhile identity to paying clients; but that there is no need to do so – for the topic routinely arises without prompting. Clients and companies – “guests,” as they are called by Church members in their Centre Manager guises – were mostly brought to The Place by word of mouth in these earlier days (the business was being run by Christian church leaders, not professional marketeers). Secular clients’ curiosity on arrival, over the building, its unadorned facilities and its sparse and personal staff, easily induce conversations about its origins, says Claire. Friendly and softly-spoken, and employed several days a week as manager, receptionist, website editor, greeter and coffee-maker all in one for The Place’s slowly-accumulating client base, she gladly reveals “It’s actually a church on Sunday” to the surprise and, she likes to say, the positive intrigue of guests.
Claire is no evangelist, but a hard-working clerk who resigned her old job when the pastors offered her a paid role at The Place. She took the job for no reason other than that she felt she would be advancing the church and the gospel by doing so, on much the same terms I had become familiar with from the lead pastors themselves. Providing “service” to people who needed it, politely, graciously, non-judgementally (that is to say, there were no
121 publicised conditions on the kind of “guests” accepted39) is, for Claire, to demonstrate without reproach the kind of Christians they are, and the kind of church they advance to the world. For her, every opportunity to serve them is to demonstrate Christ’s love, and every chance to share The Place’s full story with them is evidence of God’s favour over the enterprise.
The leaders are keenly aware of the institutional social capital to be earned by promoting The Place locally. The church’s leaders are careful to emphasise the provision that The Place’s facilities offers to all “groups” in Folkfield – not just those of the private sector. The local Christian press had earlier reported that:
Folkfield church Journeyers is opening the doors of a former retail warehouse which it has transformed into a church facility and conference centre – for use by local businesses and organisations.
With several bookings already under its belt, The Place, on R— Road, promises to become a key conference and meeting venue for the region and prospective hirers can look around at an open day with a difference on April 14.
The Place was officially opened in January and is now available for hire. Thursday April 14 has been named as an open day where business and community leaders, people involved in charity and vountary sectors and anyone else interested in taking a look, can visit The Place to see the facilities and spaces available for hire.
“Senior Minister” Pastor Roy spoke up then their creation of “flexible space that we believe will become a real asset to our city,” and that they were “looking forward to hosting a huge variety of events” there. The mainstream local press, too, received notice from the church of its launch, reporting its account similarly – but with noticeably less of an outright
endorsement:
People have had their first look around a former warehouse which has been developed for use by community groups and business in Folkfield by members of a church.
The Journeyers Church used to hold its services in the R— hotel, but has renovated the former F— Warehouse, on R— Road […] to create a new venue known as The Place which can hold up to 500 people.
39 This was her intimation only, of course. One could only wonder what would be their reaction if, say, Norwich Gay Pride sought to book a conference room at The Place.
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The Place, which was developed by the church as somewhere large to host its Sunday services, is made up of a series of flexible spaces and can be used as a venue for other groups and businesses […]
P— B—, centre manager, said in addition to making something that worked for the members of the church they also wanted to create somewhere that would work for most businesses, charities and community organisations.
The spokesman identified as “centre manager” was actually Journeyers’ executive pastor, who commented that “We feel we’re offering something a little bit different and appreciate how people have responded. It was a good day.” The quality of public response was evidently of significant concern to The Place’s designers; even though for them there was in principle no religious rationalisation to explicitly declare upon the church’s “business” enterprise. Had there been of course – and, in fact, to the extent that there was in
conversations, because I pressed it – it would, I assumed, have arisen from the fact of there being a profit-making enterprise “attached” to a church. Cash revenue for Journeyers the church (in law, the “charitable company”) is The Place’s raison d’être, of course, even though the pastors express a willingness to lease facilities to local charities free of charge, and I believe do so on occasion.
In respect of that, I had wondered about the guard that the church may find it