What does it mean to be regional?

The first point to note is that people in Wharfedale Vineyard come from a wide geography, roughly scattered around the River Wharfe.

Something organic

Because this is a growing church, we started imagining this picture as something organic, like a plant with tendrils in lots of places, and leaves already growing in some of those places.

The leaves

The leaves represent the local expressions of church: housegroups, Minicabs, Youth activities. And we hope there will be more. Perhaps some of those leaves will become church “plants” in their own right.

The stem

The stem of the plant represents things that we do as a central resource that benefits everyone. Trustees, Office and admin, The Vine, Training, Festivals like Revive and Ashburnham. Richard Littlehales in his work has observed that in smaller towns and villages activities are defined by WHERE they are. Whereas in the more urban environments, activities are defined by WHAT they do.



In the urban area we establish activities for particular affinity groups. Students, youth, mums etc spring to mind. In the smaller towns we may do similar activities, but they will have a much more defined sense of geographical place. And in the smaller towns we don’t have the hard task of doing all aspects of church because we also have the central resources and events.

Growth in the near future

The final diagram shows the addition of weekly worship in Leeds. Also in the near future, people are actively talking about another housegroup in Leeds, and it looks like there will need to be at least one more Minicab as well.