Month: December 2013

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

As a new season of mission shaped ministry begins, it is worth reminding ourselves why we do what we do.

Fresh expressions of church are not primarily for the sake of the church! They are not so that we can:

• demonstrate better attendance figures than last year;
• show some return for the investment churches and denominations have made in us;
• have some good news stories about the church for a change.

There is nothing wrong with any of these things, but we plant fresh expressions because the church exists to announce salvation, to call disciples and to work for the transformation of communities – all for the glory of God. The emphasis on planting and maturing fresh expressions of church, is so that fresh expressions of church can put the emphasis on Jesus, and all that God intends through him.

We are to announce, and offer, salvation which he alone has secured. To be able to do that, we have to go to the people who don't come to us. We have to plant communities who demonstrate what that salvation looks like, and provide a hospitable space it can be explored. This salvation was achieved at great cost so we should not be surprised that it is costly to move out of our comfort zones, enter the day-to-day world of people who know little about it, and create new communities of disciples there.

Church is above all a community of disciples. The salvation we proclaim is simultaneously a call to life-long discipleship because the offer of Christ's salvation is inseparable from his call to follow. Fresh expressions of church are to be those communities of disciples – not just events. We are more interested in followers than attenders. If making disciples is not intentional from the start of a fresh expression, it is much harder to develop later – something I have explore more deeply in making disciples in fresh expressions of church.

Discipleship is not a solo project. Church is a community, an extended family of faith – something which is profoundly counter intuitive and counter cultural in our individualised society. We build people together as we build them up in Christ. We commit together to Christ and his cause.

Neither salvation nor discipleship adequately fulfils the purpose of a church, unless there is also a commitment to serve and transform the community or network for which it is established. Churches exist for the kingdom. Churches, fresh expression or inherited, are 'future in advance' communities, engaging their localities with the promise and first taste of heaven and earth made new. Sometimes this results in real visible change. Sometimes it is demonstrated by a persistent presence that will not give up on a locality – but either way it lies at the heart of a fresh expression's vocation (find out more in Ancient Faith Future Mission: fresh expressions of church and the kingdom of God).

Fresh expressions of church also exist to worship. Worship is as central to their vocation as is mission but what gives the worship real authenticity – as glory is given to God in praise and prayer – is that the worshippers are equally part of a community which proclaims salvation, makes disciples and seeks the kingdom in its locality. Church is not about church. Fresh expressions are not about fresh expressions. Let's keep the main thing as the main thing!

+Graham Cray

Both publications mentioned in this article can be purchase from our online shop or following the links within the text.

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

Disciple making is not an inevitable consequence of church attendance – irrespective of the mode of church, fresh expression or inherited!

Attending once a month or once a week, sitting in pews or around tables, listening to a sermon or taking part in an interactive discussion about the Bible, even taking Holy Communion regularly, does not automatically lead to growth in discipleship. Disciplined participation, word and sacrament are all vital ingredients, but something more intentional is needed. Discipleship can't be an afterthought introduced once the fresh expression has been established; it has to be a vital ingredient from the beginning.

The 'fresh expressions journey' suggests the sequence for the planting team to follow as they develop the fresh expression from the beginning. Although the journey outlines a direction of travel by which the team engage with those who might become disciples, the whole journey must be intentional from the outset. You are planting a seed which has the potential to grow into a fresh expression of church, but only what is in the seed at the beginning can be expected to grow when it is planted. The listening, serving, forming community, evangelism and disciple making, and the church taking shape are all intended from the beginning. Each is intended as the previous step in established, and each needs to be established before it is clear just what shape the next will take.

Although the dominant Western culture which shapes our lives is one of individualist consumerism, the key to discipleship in a fresh expression of church is the local context. That’s why it's important to ask the question, 'What global, national and local forces shape a locality, whether that be a neighbourhood, a network or a combination of the two?' Disciple making involves a process of inculturation.

It involves a process of discernment and the reading of a local culture. We are not rushed consumers who take 'models of church' off the shelf. We follow the Holy Spirit who issues an invitation to improvise. If discipleship is not contextual, applied to the actual circumstances of a place and its people, it is not likely to be discipleship at all because it does not touch real lives.

If people are to become disciples, they need to see what discipleship looks like. The lives of the planting team, the way in which the fresh expression is planted, and the culture it develops, all serve this purpose. Only disciples make disciples. If the planting team are not serious about their own discipleship they cannot expect to make disciples of others. It is only people who are allowing Jesus to teach them how to live their lives as he would, who can expect Jesus to do the same for others through them.

Build sacrifice and service into the culture of the fresh expression from the beginning. Don’t mistake welcome, hospitality and cultural relevance for comfort with no element of challenge and don't create an environment so comfortable that it gives no hint of the cost of discipleship or the call to serve. Becoming part of a fresh expression involves joining a community of disciples, not just attending a culturally relevant event; this is a community on the move, a community whose DNA is that it serves others.

The community life of a fresh expression needs to provide staging posts, opportunities for people to take a step nearer to Christian commitment or deeper in their discipleship. Fresh expressions are often catechumenate communities at the start: comprising people who are exploring faith and are on a journey towards it. They need to belong before they can believe. These days many of them know very little about the Bible or Christian practice, but they are shaped by a culture where they expect to participate, rather than sit and be told.

Once a fresh expression has reached the stage of a regular public gathering for worship, there is no need for all who attend to move forward at the same pace. The gospel meets people where they are and draws them deeper at the pace they can each sustain. The key is to provide regular unpressurized opportunities to go deeper. Fresh expressions of church lay a path to Jesus and to the whole of life as Jesus' disciple. They provide a series of steps along the way; steps in which baptism, renewal of baptismal vows, and confirmation – or however commitment to Christ is publicly expressed in different traditions – have a natural place.

+Graham Cray

This material is drawn from Graham's new booklet, Making disciples in fresh expressions of church, available now.

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

Fresh expressions of church have become an established feature of the UK church landscape, involving now a wide range of denominations. Many thousands attend these fresh expressions, most of whom would not otherwise be part of the life of the church.

Some of the fresh expressions are properly seasonal. They exist for a period of years while an opportunity continues, and then a new one can be begun at an appropriate moment. Many are long term congregations, developing a particular model of church for their context, while others morph, changing their approach as their context changes or as new opportunities arise. In all, this is proving to be a fruitful contribution to the re-evangelisation of our nations and the reshaping of the church for a changing context.

The Church Army's Research Unit is producing some in depth statistics about the development and impact of fresh expressions of church. Work with six Anglican dioceses, in research part-funded by the Church Commissioners, reveals fresh expressions accounting for 14.6% of total church attendance with 39% sharing Communion and 32% holding baptisms regularly.

Leaders of fresh expressions in the six dioceses reported that there are four new people involved for every existing church member in a planting team. Of every 5 people who belong, they say:

• one is Christian;
• two are de-churched – having some previous history of church attendance (31% of the adult population);
• two are non-churched – having no previous connection to any church (34% of the adult population).

There's no doubt about it. Fresh expressions of church, planting new congregations through contextual mission, are here for the long term.

But, if this is the case, they require long term investment and resourcing, not start up funding, short term grants, or funding dependent on occasional or peripheral sources. This needs to be at national level, at diocesan district and synod level, and at parish, circuit and local church level.

I am quite aware of the straitened financial circumstances in which we live. However, the key question is not about the scale of our resources but the appropriate allocation of them. We are invested in many things which we cannot easily change, and some that we should not change even if we could, but we are also in danger of investing the vast proportion of our resources in a shrinking mission field. The Archbishop of Adelaide told his diocese, 'More of the same just means less of the same'. We need to invest in growth more than maintenance or the management of decline.

We also need faith combined with patience. Pioneering and breaking open new ground takes time. The church in the UK has grown apart from the culture of much of the population and reconnecting takes time, patience and committed people. It also takes faith. Either we fatalistically believe that the decline of the church in the UK is inevitable and that we have no future other than as a peripheral memorial society to western Christianity with a lot of heritage for the tourists – or we believe that God is alive in his church and that it is normal for his church to grow when we take the gospel to people and sow it into their concerns and contexts. That faith has to expressed institutionally, through the commitment of resources, as well as personally, by the growing number of pioneers and teams planting fresh expressions.

We have to choose between investing our resources according to priorities shaped by the past, by what we have already done, or investing an appropriate part of them in the future. As far as possible, local church budgets and priorities have to focus on the as yet unreached or there may be no future beyond decline. At the diocesan or district level, the same principles apply.

In terms of the allocation of resources and personnel, we should not spread diminishing resources thinner and thinner over existing work. It is a guaranteed contribution to further decline. Invest enough in the new. At national level, denominations involved in Fresh Expressions need to support those who provide much of the envisioning, training and support for the practitioners on this particular front line.

The flow of resources between inherited approaches to church and fresh expressions of church is not one way. Fresh expressions ministry has inspired several thousand new lay leaders, it has made many new disciples who are able to learn the habits of Christian stewardship. It is creating the resources for the future, but to continue to do that it needs appropriate long term support.

+Graham Cray

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

The whole point of fresh expressions is to extend the missionary reach of the church by planting new congregations to reach those untouched by our existing ones, for the sake of the kingdom of God. Bridge projects, designed as a half-way house to 'real' church, are a perfectly proper mission strategy, but, by definition they are not fresh expressions of church.

But planting a new congregation can be easier said than done!

Because the whole point of the fresh expression is that it is for 'unreached' people, the process to planting one has to begin with prayerful listening and building relationships. It is not possible to create church for a context without knowing the people and listening to God in and about the context. So the fresh expressions journey advises beginning with listening and loving service. But practitioners often find it difficult to get beyond that stage.

Do you tell people you hope to plant a church? Yes, normally you do. It is vital to be honest and transparent. Any sense of deception or being partial with the truth undermines the work before it has really begun. But equally vital is that you don't give the impression that you are only serving the community because we want something, or that we have an ulterior motive. We love and serve because it is what Christians do, irrespective of people's response. We seek the wellbeing of people in the light of the kingdom of God anyway. We don't want any sort of church in their context. We want a Christian community which proves itself to be the best news the people of that context have. Just as God has put his love in our hearts for this neighbourhood, network or locality, so we want a Christian community from the locality, which is motivated by the same love. There needs to be a kingdom perspective to the whole thing from day one.

The shift from loving and serving to forming community and exploring discipleship has twin elements. It involves both what we do – serving the kingdom of God in the locality to which God has sent us, and why we do it – because we have encountered the love of God in Jesus. So community can form to notch up the service and draw others into it, while offering opportunities to explore the faith that motivates us to live in this way. A fresh expression of church is above all a community of disciples, making disciples as they serve Jesus in a particular context. So as the serving continues we invite people to join our journey of discipleship. We are not the ones who know, telling the ones who don't know what they need to know! We are people who have been surprised by Jesus, and have responded to his call, sharing the little we know; inviting others to responds to that call, and to join the journey of discovery.

The fresh expressions journey paces the forming of community and exploration of discipleship ahead of church taking shape. This also has twin elements. In part it means church taking public shape. A fresh expression will often be church before it stages public worship events. As soon as there is a community of disciples engaged in mission in a place, there is church in that place. But the shape of that church, including its public worship, comes out of the interaction of the traditions and practices of the Christian faith which the planting team bear, and the relationships which they form in the locality. Church is shaped with others not just for others.

The transition from stage to stage in planting a fresh expression of church is not easy or automatic. It has to be intentional. It should always be transparent. Above all it is for the sake of the kingdom, of all that God intends in Christ for the locality to which we are called.

+Graham Cray

You can read more about moving from 'loving' to 'exploring' in the Guide.

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

The word 'pioneer' appears regularly in discussions of fresh expressions but it is worth remembering that it is only in the last few years it has become so commonplace.

Fresh expressions have been planted all over the country because the Holy Spirit has been stirring up new imagination for mission in place after place. At its simplest, those who have had the courage to respond to the Holy Spirit's initiatives are the pioneers. There are pioneers because the Holy Spirit is calling them. There have, of course, always been missionary pioneers, but something which was rare is becoming more common, and something which was often 'exotic' – someone doing totally unexpected things far away – is becoming local. This is all because the Holy Spirit has been on the move, taking the church by surprise again.

Some are called to be full-time, ordained or licensed lay pioneers, but they are only the institutional tip of the iceberg. The great majority are not ordained: doing their pioneering as part of already full lives, reaching to people who are otherwise beyond the reach of the local church, as they set out to plant a fresh expression of church. There are thousands of them and we need thousands more.

So what makes a good pioneer? If pioneering is rooted in the initiative of the Holy Spirit, then obedience to the Spirit of Jesus is at the heart of pioneering.

We obey a call. It may come in many different ways, but in the end we need to be convinced that we are being called. Pioneering can be costly and isolating because we are doing something new that many of our fellow churchgoers may not understand. We need the assurance that God has called us. Ego-driven people, contrasted with obedient people, may try this – but not for long. They will burn out either themselves or others.

Risk taking also lies at the heart of pioneering, because obedience to the Holy Spirit takes the form of risk taking faith. Almost certainly we will not know the final shape of our fresh expression when we take the first obedient steps. A bit like Abraham we set out in faith, not knowing where we are going to end up, because God saw no need to tell us! By definition, pioneers enter uncharted territory and, by definition, they risk failure – but set out anyway.

Discernment is another key characteristic. We set out in obedience to the call of the Spirit but also in the conviction that the Spirit has gone ahead of us. If mission is 'seeing what God is doing and joining in', then discernment lies at its heart. The problem is that discernment is not a gift given fully formed to pioneers as they set out. It is a spiritual capacity, which includes a gift of the Spirit, but which only develops as it is used, and often only develops to maturity through the mistakes we make as we use it. Discernment grows with the journey.

Another essential is love for people. Love for God and love for the people God loves is the core motivation. Pioneers who are going to lead a new initiative – and it is perfectly possible to be part of a pioneering team without being the leader – need to be self-motivated but they are not rugged individualists – whatever Hollywood movies may imply to the contrary! They are community builders at heart. Their skills are in creating contextual community through mission. Their instincts, from the beginning, are for a team, not a solo effort and their aim is to be part of a new community of faith in which many others play a part. 

Much more could be said, but these essentials lie at the heart of a true pioneer.

+Graham Cray

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

What does it mean to be a fresh expression of church? Four major characteristics can be identified:

• missional – created for those who have no significant contact with Christ's church;
• contextual – taking appropriate form for its context through incarnational mission;
• formational – growing as disciples and as a community of disciples;
• ecclesial – a new church or congregation, rather than a bridge or pathway into an existing congregations.

These have often been described as the DNA of a fresh expression, and DNA is a fruitful analogy for a number of reasons:

Our DNA is a gift from previous generations

The DNA of a fresh expression may have been 'discovered' through pioneering mission (once it had become clear that existing forms of church left an increasing proportion of the population unreached) but it is also a rediscovery of elements of the Church's fundamental identity – those elements which have always come to the fore in new missionary situations. In following these principles the Church is being true to itself.

Our DNA is permanent

The information in DNA is held in a sequence of repeating units along the DNA chain. These are not just start up requirements or principles for planting a fresh expression of church; they are core characteristics – characteristics of a mature fresh expression of church.

We can't pick and choose the elements of our DNA

Each is given and essential:

Missional locates the fresh expression at the heart of God's mission in the world. It prevents it from becoming self serving, or closed to newcomers and keeps it perpetually open to the leading of the missionary Spirit.

Contextual keeps the fresh expression focused on the locality or community to which it is called. It is a reminder of the need for continual discernment. It prevents the fresh expression from solidifying when its context is changing, or its calling expands to reach new groups.

Formational is a reminder of the call to Christlikeness and that the church is a community of disciples. It stops the fresh expression from being reduced to a mere meeting. Disciples are formed in community, over time, through daily habits of obedience to God.

Ecclesial gives the fresh expression its identity as a community of God's people with a vocation of its own – not just a means to the planting church's ends. It creates hope that this particular community of God's people will be given the gifts it needs to grow to maturity and sustain its ministry.

The distinct elements of our DNA belong together

These characteristics interact to enable a fresh expression to take its own unique shape. Formation requires involvement in mission. Mission lacks specificity apart from a particular context. Both mission and formation involve repentance from the sins of a particular context as well as the blessing of all that is good. An ecclesial community is church, a community of missionary disciples, for that context, but linked to the whole church.

But DNA sequences can mutate. Separated from one another these vital characteristics can mutate in unhealthy ways. If missional is reduced to 'activist' the fresh expression can exhaust its team, and undermine its capacity to form disciples. If contextual is distorted to 'blinkered' and unwilling to learn from other contexts or traditions, it makes it much harder for the fresh expression to be ecclesial, truly connected to the whole church. If formational is controlling rather than freeing and transforming it replaces grace with law. If ecclesial is reduced to 'church culture' it loses its missional energy and becomes an escapist religious subculture.

Where the analogy breaks down is that we don't tend to make daily choices based on a careful analysis of our DNA, whether we understand the science or not. But as churches committed to the re-evangelisation of our nations we can recognise the DNA of fresh expressions as a gift from God which equips us for the task and can be put to use both in our praxis and in our evaluation of our work.

+Graham Cray

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

We have emphasized all along our belief that the growth of fresh expressions of church is evidence of a movement of the Holy Spirit. For the Church of England, at least, George Lings sees it as dating back long before we created the current vocabulary.

The growth of church planting in the Church of England since 1980… is a discernible movement of the Spirit in our day.

David Goodhew (ed.), Church Growth in Britain, Ashgate Contemporary Ecclesiology Series, 2012

Movements of the Holy Spirit require dependence on the Holy Spirit. We have always emphasized this in developing the practice for planting fresh expressions, with its emphasis on discernment and prayerful listening, and with the understanding that mission is 'seeing what God is doing and joining in.'

But if fresh expressions of church are born in prayer they need to be sustained in prayer also. No Street Pastor team goes out unless there is a prayer meeting sustaining them the whole time they are on the streets. In the same way I encourage every fresh expression to develop regular committed prayer support. Just as God has called many new leaders and helpers into this work of mission, should we not also expect him to be calling others to pray? Regular focused prayer is one of the very best ways in which the mixed economy of fresh expressions and more traditional churches can be a reality and not just a theory. Most churches have their 'prayer warriors', their faithful people whose consistent unseen prayer is far more important than most people realize. Let them loose on our fresh expressions!

We are delighted to have 24/7 Prayer as partners in Fresh Expressions – check out their website for prayer materials available to help you in your prayer support.

+Graham Cray

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

Fresh expressions of church are intended to be communities of disciples; communities through which God brings the kingdom to bear on the neighbourhoods, networks and areas they serve. They are to be contextual communities of disciples. As we begin a new year of mission and ministry it is worth reminding ourselves of these priorities and how they are to be worked out.

We are seeking to plant and nurture communities, not just events. Yes, events are essential and all Christians are called to the regular event of gathering for worship – but any community we plant and nurture is meant to have shared life beyond meetings and this life will show itself in gathering to worship or acting together in mission and service. Are we being church or simply finding new ways to go to church? To what extent are we building people together?

These communities should have a common core, made up of disciples and those exploring the possibility of becoming disciples. So the call of Jesus to discipleship underlies all their activities. We draw people into fresh expressions of church so that they will have a greater opportunity to hear his call. But we are not concerned with just the beginning of discipleship, but of its growth to maturity. So communities of disciples are communities on the move. They share a common direction, towards Christ, but they travel at different speeds, each person responding at the level of their understanding, ability and willingness. To what extent are our fresh expressions static, maintaining their status quo, and to what extent do they draw their members and seekers into deeper discipleship?

Discipleship has to be contextual or it is not discipleship at all. We grow in our understanding of and obedience to Christ in the place where he has located us. Contextual church is not just about fitting the local culture; it is about faithful Christian living in it. To what extent do we identify the challenges to life in Christ in our context? How can we strengthen the members of our fresh expression so that their lives outshine whatever goes for normal locally, and enrich the places where they live their daily lives?

Fresh expressions are called to be communities through which God's transforming kingdom is brought to bear on our contexts. Our recent book Fresh Expressions and the Kingdom of God is all about that. The whole point of establishing a fresh expression to bridge the gap between the church and the local community is so that our friends and neighbours can both hear the call of the King and so that his kingdom can engage local society. To what extent do our fresh expressions have a kingdom agenda?

It is easy to lose vision because of the pressure of maintaining all that we have established. The tension between mission and maintenance challenges both parts of the mixed economy equally. As we serve Christ this year may his kingdom take deeper hold in our lives and our contexts.

+Graham Cray

Graham Cray's monthly e-xpressions column.

Our society is short on hope. The one thing that truly contextual churches should offer is a glimpse of hope, a glimpse of a believable alternative way of life. The power of any social vision is at its height when it is seen to deliver what it promises.

Our consumer society promised increasing prosperity and happiness but has delivered austerity; it is vulnerable to a better vision. The power of any society is also at its height when it seems inevitable. It may not be delivering what it promised, but what else is there? People may be fatalistic, even cynical, but without a credible alternative nothing changes. Our culture is also suspicious of grand schemes and big stories. For an alternative to be credible, it must be local and visible.

How then can fresh expressions of church offer hope through an alternative vision? For Christians, faith in what Christ has already done is the foundation of our hope for the future. We believe in a future transformed creation, heaven and earth renewed, begun with the resurrection, experienced in anticipation and the ultimate destination of our journey as disciples. We assess the present in the light of that future. We can't live it perfectly now, but we make it our aim. Anything unacceptable in that future world is unacceptable now, even though we can't change it all. We are to be future in advance people. In each context we live for the future which Christ has won and which Christ intends.

As we plan or develop fresh expressions, part of our discernment should be to ask:

• what would hope look like here?
• who is excluded, unloved or powerless here?
• what makes people afraid here?
• how can we be an authentic community here?
• what would be a glimpse of the kingdom of God here?
• what could be transformed by the power of the gospel here?

These are large questions which need specific answers, bringing real transformation.

Hope is demonstrated both by the quality of the fresh expression as a Christian community and by the impact of its service to the wider community. What we are together and what we do for others are the foundations of this ministry of hope. We are not simply trying to cheer people up or make them a little less cynical. We are showing that the only true foundation for hope is Christ and we need to be prepared to say so, at the right time and in the right way. Both deeds and words are needed.

The newly published book Fresh Expressions and the Kingdom of God offers theology, good practice and inspiring stories, to encourage us to share in Christ's ministry of transformation. In this Advent and Christmas season we are reminded where our hope truly lies. Hope in Christ focuses our vision, sustains us for the long patient work to which we have been called and assures us that our work is not in vain.

+Graham Cray