Dreaming Beyond - pruning for fruitfulness

A conversation for small and rural churches

Dreaming Beyond: Pruning for Fruitfulness

A conversation with Nel Shallow, Airedale Methodist Circuit

What does it take for a church to bear new fruit? Sometimes, it begins with bold pruning. Join us for an honest and hopeful conversation with Nel Shallow as she shares the Airedale Methodist Circuit’s journey through significant change—and the unexpected signs of life emerging along the way.

Over the past four years, the circuit has pruned deeply:

• Staffing structures
• Buildings and physical resources
• Sunday service patterns
• Governance—moving from multiple councils to collaborative hubs

This intentional reshaping has not been easy. It has brought sorrow, yes, but also utter relief—and the first buds of fruitfulness. Among them:

• new members welcomed into one hub community
• A growing culture of testimony and shared discipleship
• Increasing flexibility and a shift in mindset
• Community-based expressions of church, like relocating a long-loved coffee morning into local spaces
• Freed capacity as outdated buildings and burdensome management structures are released

Some fruit has come incrementally, through small but significant steps—like ending after-service coffee so that energy could be refocused into the community. Other fruit has been made possible only because of the pruning: the circuit’s New Places for New People initiative could not have taken shape without releasing an older building, a move that opened the door to something more fit for purpose.

As Nel describes it, the circuit finds itself living all the seasons at once—pruning, waiting, hoping, and celebrating small shoots of new life. In a church tradition that has rarely questioned its structures or asked about fruitfulness, this journey offers a compelling picture of courage, creativity, and trust in God’s leading.

Come and be part of the conversation.
Come and imagine what pruning—and fruitfulness—might look like in your own context.