Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team today welcomed news of the appointment of the Bishop of Durham, Justin Welby, as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
He said,
I am delighted with the appointment of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury. Throughout his ministry he has been committed to the growth of the church. In Liverpool he was part of a church deeply committed to fresh expressions. I look forward to working with him. Our church has a missionary leader.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fresh Expressions last year (which you can listen to below), Justin outlined some of the key challenges facing the Church and development of fresh expressions of church:
Need to grow numbers in the Church
I think one of the things that for many years has worried me about churches is when people look for shortcuts to growth and we have to be in the business of growth, by which I mean lots and lots of things and widespread growth, but in this context I mean growing numbers. And the reason we need to grow numbers is that if the Church is to meet the challenges that it's facing in terms of the State withdrawing from large sectors of society we have to have more people on the ground. I mean it's Jesus' thing of praying for people to go out into the harvest; the fields are white for harvest and we haven't got enough people to get out there and start harvesting and that means more people which means more numbers, it's not complicated.
Fresh expressions should not be done 'ad hoc'
Fresh expressions of church are something that need to be calibrated and thought through very carefully rather than just done ad hoc as a sort of knee jerk reaction when we need to have a fresh expression. You need to ask yourself, 'What do I mean by that?', 'Is it genuinely a fresh expression?' 'What's it trying to achieve; in what way does it add to the work of the Church and the Kingdom of God in the area?'
He also warned against inappropriate use of fresh expressions language saying,
Fresh expressions is increasingly a technical phrase and it's a misused one. It's one that's being used so widely that it often becomes meaningless. You end up… where everything is a fresh expression of something and therefore nothing is.
Praise for 'mixed economy' working
He explained why it was so important to him,
I think partly because historically the church has always operated mixed economy when it was at its best. If you go back to the Middle Ages the great growth of the monastic movement was essentially a mixed economy, Benedict was a fresh expression in his day. So there's nothing new about the mixed economy idea. Mixed economy is essential because it gives the balance between what Benedict called stability – a location in place and nature – with the catalyst of an openness to the Spirit of God doing new things. And we need both. Without stability you end up just following fashion, Benedict knew that very well, and without the catalyst of the Spirit you end up just becoming utterly embedded and unable to move in what you've always done.