August 2015 - Page 11 of 20

Managing provisionality in a fresh expression (Ben Edson)

Ben Edson explores how to manage provisionality in a fresh expression.

After eight years of pioneering and leading Sanctus1 in Manchester, I decided that it was the right time to hand the community over to a new leader. Three months ago I left Sanctus1 in the capable hands of Al Lowe and became the Diocese of Manchester's Fresh Expressions Missioner.

However, I continue to reflect on my experience of Sanctus1 and one area that I've been thinking about is provisionality. I was recently told that the city centre residential community of Manchester has an annual people turnover of 30% – almost the entire community changes in a three year period. This was something that I observed during my time with Sanctus1 – approximately every two years 50% of the community would change. People who had been part of the community for more than four years were a rarity.

This transience created a fragility as people moved in and moved out. New people bring new energy and new life, but losing more established people all the time is draining on established people within the community. It is hard when you build community with one group and then that community disappears around you and a new one forms. Comparisons are always made with what the previous community was like and memory can be rather utopian.

A further reflection is how draining it can be for people who have been part of the community for a number of years, when they are dealing with the same questions that they have dealt with a few years earlier. Questions of identity, faith, purpose, belonging, etc, that they wrestled with before are revisited. This is an important process for the current community, but slightly frustrating for those who have been part of the community for a number of years.

It's the tension of catering to the new people whilst nurturing patterns of spirituality that sustain those who are more established

It is also often the case that those who have been established for a number of years carry a lot of the responsibility of the community. When they do not see this level of commitment being shared by others, who are relatively new to the community, frustration can occur.

These are some of the challenges of church in a transient culture. I think that one answer is to develop a corporate patterning of spiritual life – patterns that allow for the instability of a transient context and church. I don't think that we got this right in Sanctus1. It's the tension of catering to the new people, the mission field, whilst nurturing patterns of spirituality that sustain those who are more established.

Where are the rural fresh expressions pioneers? (Klynn and Susan Alibocus)

Klynn and Susan Alibocus wonder where the rural fresh expressions pioneers are.

Go to any number of talks, read the plethora of books available, watch the latest DVDs on fresh expressions of church and you will no doubt get a taste of the excitement surrounding pioneer ministry. Delve into the situation a little deeper, though, and you will discover that instances of pioneer ministry across the UK are, very definitely, not an even spread.

Where more urban environments are equipped and ready for the challenge that instigating new fresh expressions brings, in our experience, many rural areas are somewhat lagging behind. The reasons for this are many. It may be with limited resources it is right to focus on large populous areas. After all, didn't Jesus draw large crowds together to hear God's word? On the other hand, how precious were his moments spent one on one with the people he met outside the city walls.

Perhaps on the surface there appears more need in the city – where homelessness, alcoholism and drugs are clearly apparent – than in the quiet, quaint and often well-heeled villages of the British countryside. Jesus knew, however, that human need isn't restricted to boundaries of poverty and circumstance and in many cases it is where people seem to have the least material need that God is needed most.

Klynn says: 'I know from personal experience just how effective efforts to bridge the gap to the unchurched can be. Back in the nineties I fell comfortably into that group and, it was through involvement in an early suburban fresh expression of church that I came to have a meaningful relationship with God.

In many cases it is where people seem to have the least material need that God is needed most

'A recent news article highlighted the record number of people that are leaving cities to relocate in rural areas. This week our own fresh expression, Food for Thought in Winterslow near Salisbury, celebrates its third birthday – and we continue to face the challenge to serve everyone in our community, no matter how long they have lived here.'

The heart of the Anglican faith has always beaten strongly in rural villages; perhaps it's time we put that commitment to good use and reach out not only to long-term residents but also to those who move to the countryside at any time.

A fresh expression of amnesia (Nick Brotherwood)

Nick Brotherwood cautions against a fresh expression of amnesia.

If we are to become a church shaped by and for God's mission in this world, the last thing we need is a fresh expression of amnesia.

Two hundred and thirty three variations of the word 'remember' appear in Old and New Testaments. As poet and philosopher George Santayana has it: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' So as we immerse ourselves in talk of being sensitive to the multiplicity of different contexts and cultures around us, and of the need to connect appropriately with those contexts and cultures, it is salutary to be reminded that we haven't always thought, much less acted, in this way.

History is replete with examples of a dominant group misguidedly imposing its own cultural perspectives on another, while being ignorant or simply dismissive of those of the other.

A notable exception to this is Robert McDonald, the nineteenth century missionary, and translator, of the Yukon.

Born of mixed parentage – his maternal grandmother was Ojibway (Gerald H Anderson ed, Biographical dictionary of Christian missions, Grand Rapids, 1999, p.447) – McDonald travelled extensively, visiting native camps throughout the area. He had a natural empathy and respect for their culture and concerned himself with teaching them to read in their own language so they would have access to the teachings of the Bible during his absences. Two years after his arrival at Fort Yukon, he baptised the first Gwitch'in converts. Over the course of his 42 years in the North, he baptised 2,000 adults and children.

In North America, the confluence of First Nations people with the Christian faith has produced some distinctively First Nations expressions of the faith. One example is the continuing American Indian hymn sing tradition, in which people gather towards dusk for a communal meal, followed by storytelling and hymn singing which could continue far into the night.

History is replete with examples of a dominant group misguidedly imposing its own cultural perspectives on another

Bishop Mark McDonald tells us these have often been looked at by some white Christian leaders as being inferior or inappropriate expressions. This propensity to judge one cultural expression of Christianity by the standards and through the lens of another is a danger that will need to be avoided if fresh expressions of church in all cultures and contexts are to flourish and to receive the respect which they deserve.

The apostle Paul offers us this model for a different way of proceeding:

'Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process.' (Philippians 2.5-17, The Message)

We are being offered the exciting opportunity of engaging with God's mission in a post-Christendom context, but this will only be realised fully if we have the courage to face the mistakes of the past, taking appropriate responsibility for them, and taking great care not to repeat them.

So what about some Transition Churches? (David Muir)

David Muir wants to know where all the transition churches are.

Do you know about the Transition Movement? Its central aim is to help communities restructure the way they live in a way that uses very little oil, partly because our oil use is warming the planet too much, and partly because the oil is anyway running out. The whole pattern of modern life is centred around cheap and available oil, and we have become comfortably dependent on it. But we have passed 'peak oil' and we need to start thinking creatively about how we are going to live after it is gone. So the buzz words are resilience and sustainability.

Now I know we have eco congregations, although they are still largely about lightbulbs and churchyard gardens. You might fondly think that using a bit less electricity is doing your bit for turning the tide of global warming. It isn't – not even close. And it's great if Christians can get involved in the Transition agenda, not least because it calls for significant personal change in local communities, and the Christian faith has a lot of wisdom and power to bring to that.

But don't our churches themselves need a Transition agenda? Just as oil is running out, isn't Christendom running out too? Our churches have long been dependent on the power of Christendom, making all kinds of things possible that local Christian communities could not have done on their own. Christendom made church a very comfortable place to be. As Christendom runs out, many of the ways we are used to 'being church' are becoming unsustainable. We can improve our welcoming processes, we can take out the pews, we can use PowerPoint in the sermons, but these are lightbulb measures. We need to help our churches become resilient and sustainable Christian communities, not dependent on the structures and support of Christendom for their future.

We need to help our churches become … not dependent on the structures and support of Christendom for their future

The danger with the 'mixed economy' is that our existing church communities are being assured that they will continue to have a parallel existence much as they are. But if Christendom runs out, most of them won't; and they will run into the coming era ill-equipped to be resilient and sustainable church. In the present battle over resources within the mixed economy, fresh expressions are already beginning to feel the heat. Here in the Diocese of Exeter, out of the 40 or so 'mission posts' promised in our restructuring five years ago, only a handful have seen the light of day and now there is a moratorium on them because of lack of resources. The future of the church could fall between two stools.

In a word (Phil Potter)

Phil Potter explores the importance of the words we use.

As I move across churches to encourage, teach and discuss the vision for fresh expressions, I'm increasingly aware of the importance of the words we use and how we use them when describing what we're trying to achieve.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the 500 most used words in the English language each have an average of 23 different meanings. Hardly surprising then that phrases like 'fresh expressions' and 'mixed economy' come to mean very different things to people, depending on their involvement and level of understanding.

The development of anything new will always demand, in time, a new kind of language to clarify it. We need to welcome that new vocabulary, whilst working hard to explain it and, where possible, improve on it. So how are we doing so far?

'Fresh expressions'

When this phrase was first introduced, the broadest interpretation of its meaning was encouraged, so that as many as possible felt able to include themselves in a movement that was seeking to do mission in new ways. As the phrase took hold, however, anything from a full church plant to tea after the service was considered to be a 'fresh expression', and for some this began to devalue the phrase itself. The definition was then helpfully tightened up, emphasising the process from new beginnings to something mature and established. However, I still find that people want to define more clearly exactly where they are in that process, and who still ask the question of their project: 'Is this a fresh expression of church?' The simplest answer may be yes, but how might we extend the vocabulary to reflect the process?

One way is to break down the three key components of church, namely worship, community and mission, and to identify which of the three is our starting point. A new project, for instance, may simply begin as a fresh expression of community, and may look as though it is a long way from being fully 'church'. Add the other two components, however, and the fully grown 'fresh expression' of church will begin to emerge. On the other hand, a fresh expression may never move beyond the first component, and its value then must be measured in terms of its connection to the wider church.

'Mixed economy'

This phrase has been helpful in communicating the importance of embracing both inherited and emerging models of church. Stand up in front of an ordinary congregation, however, and mention 'mixed economy' and eyes glaze over and ears may become deaf to the vision of a new future for the church. No wonder, then, that for many, 'mixed economy' means a smattering of the new, with 95% of the way we've always done it (hardly a mixed economy!).

Let's ensure that our vocabulary communicates that the church is very much on the move

In my own setting, I was anxious that the whole church should not only understand a 'mixed economy' strategy, but come to embrace it as an exciting and viable vision. Eventually, we developed and adapted the language and imagery of lake and river, emphasising both the contrast and connectedness between the two, and my own church now calls itself 'the Lake and River Church'.

Whatever words we use, let's ensure that our vocabulary communicates that the church is very much on the move and is pioneering a new future!

Failing forward in 2010 (Cid Latty)

Cid Latty explains why he wants to fail forward in 2010.

'We have failed,' said the panic-stricken voice of a café church leader on the other end of the phone. 'Our church has withdrawn their support of our café church because the people who come are not going to church.'

This raised all sorts of questions for me. How could we help them survive? What was it that quantified failure for the church? Why did the café church leaders want to give up? It led me to think about failure – is it a bad thing?

Everyone must face failure because the reality is everyone fails. Although it can be embarrassing, debilitating and lead to misunderstanding, it can also hasten maturity and bring breakthrough. It all depends on the way you look at it and respond to it. Thomas Edison famously once said: 'I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that will not work.' It is not that he avoided failure, rather he never let it stop him.

Wisdom came as a result of failure, not because of success. Is this what the Apostle Paul meant when he said: 'when I am weak then I am strong'? (2 Corinthians 12.10). Setbacks may have acted like 'push backs' of an aeroplane, simply ushering him to greater levels of usefulness. Maybe we too should embrace failure like a friend.

This is not something we want to hear when we set sail in pioneering ministry. We want instant success with little or no risk. So we gravitate towards 'success stories' thinking that they will help us avoid failure. However, this 'quick fix' type of success is seductive and seldom lives up to our expectations. Maybe we fail to realise that the key to achievement is in our own hands. The question is will we learn from failure?

Cafechurch Network has been helping café churches set up in high street stores all over the UK. Most of these café churches are set up as a way for local churches to reach out to local communities. However, increasingly we have found people who share our values are asking for our help to form what I call 'café church congregations'. This is not just outreach, this is church.

So we have begun to respond. When one of the café church leaders called to say they had failed, we began to turn 'failure' towards forming a congregation. Their failure has become failure in the right direction.

If you want to be the kind of pioneer who rises after setbacks happen, here are a few pointers:

Be ready to learn on the job

Take a risk because you know it is right, not because you have all the answers.

Don't run after 'success'.

Don't leave prayer and personal Bible study behind.

Always ask: 'What can we learn from this?' or 'What is God teaching me?'

The Cross of Christ may look like failure to some but it was failing forward, for greater things came as a result of this event than could ever have been imagined. For the believer, it is this that gives us audacious pioneering hope that impacts history. At the end of a long presidential campaign full of setbacks, controversy, highs and lows, Oprah Winfrey stood in support of Barack Obama and said: 'I am standing on the right side of history.'

I wonder where failure will enable you to stand? Will it hinder your ability to pioneer or will it drive you onto greater things?

The Sunday Sanctuary (Mark Rodel)

Mark Rodel describes The Sunday Sanctuary.

One month into our great adventure in Portsmouth. What has been going on? What have we learned?

On 22nd November, the tiny congregation who met in the parish church building of St Luke's, Southsea, said goodbye to that place. In a special service, we moved around the building, stopping at various points – the main entrance, the font, etc. At each 'station' we marked some feature or character of the church's life, symbolised by that particular piece of church furniture. We committed ourselves to carry that aspect of our common life forward into our new future.

Why did we do that? Because from then on, we were putting a stop to the 11am Sunday service in the church building and instead meeting in the community room attached to a nearby tower block. But it's not just a matter of geography. We haven't moved our Sunday service of Anglican liturgical worship. We've ended it.

The time for the intentionally Christian community's worship is now on a Tuesday evening as part of our home group. Each week we share a meal, a Eucharist and prayer and engagement with the Bible in my home.

On Sundays, between 10am and midday, we now open what we're calling the Sunday Sanctuary.

We provide breakfast and refreshments all morning and some sort of craft-based activity. Alongside that, we also offer one or two light, reflective activities. We've been describing it as a family drop-in in the publicity material. Is that what it's been?

We're not expecting people to come to us and do what we do without space for question or doubt or just exploration in conversation

Already, we have experienced a steep learning curve. I anticipate that our Tuesday night gatherings will include some lively conversations from now on! The first surprise was that people stay all morning. We had been working on the assumption that people might come for 30 or 45 minutes and then go. One or two craft activities are sustainable for that length of time, but not if people are there for two hours. So we are having to think pretty rapidly about creating a broader range of things to do.

But at the forefront of our minds is the need to ensure that all we do is intentionally spiritual. It would be easy in lots of ways to resort to 'entertainment', but we aren't a youth or kids' club. We're a church operating a family drop-in. We're not about forcing anything on anyone. Everything is optional. But everything we offer comes from who we are – ourselves and our faith.

The difference between what we're doing here and a regular church service is that we're not expecting people to come to us and do what we do without space for question or doubt or just exploration in conversation. The activities we offer share some of the things that we have found meaningful. They invite others to imaginatively enter into that world of meaning – to 'try it on for size'. But we will always respect people's freedom and if they find themselves taking a different point of view, it will not affect our welcome of them. Watch this space…

Dismissing the crowds (Robert Harrison)

Robert Harrison reflects on Jesus dismissing the crowds.

December is a time when we prepare to meet the needs of the crowds who flock to the Christian story over Christmas. It's relatively easy to get a crowd over Christmas, and so often have I asked myself: 'How can I keep this crowd? How can I entice these people to come back to church more often?' Equally often I have looked at the numbers entered into the service register with a contented smile on my face.

I have not been thinking like Jesus.

Jesus welcomed the crowds, he taught them and he healed them, but then he dismissed them. He never invited them back or suggested that they return to him. He sent them away and got back to the important task of teaching and training his disciples, trusting the crowds to God.

After being told by the Pharisees that he was attracting a bigger crowd then John the Baptist (John 4), Jesus left the area – I would have stayed for more 'success'. After the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6), Jesus dismissed the crowd, and moved on – I would have been on that same hillside the next week and the week after, while the crowd slowly dwindled.

We need to sit lightly to the crowds and resist being seduced by rising numbers

Wherever it is that we welcome our crowds this Christmas, we must remember to dismiss them afterwards. It is not in the example of Jesus to try to hold onto them. If our mission-shaped church is to have a Jesus-shaped mission, we need to sit lightly to the crowds, and resist being seduced by rising numbers. Yes, we must welcome the crowds and teach them. But we must also dismiss them.

That leaves the question: what do we do with these crowds when they are with us? In a Jesus-shaped mission, we will tell them stories – wild stories, crazy stories, funny stories, but stories that are laced with the 100% proof love of God – and then dismiss them. In a Jesus-shaped mission we will send them back to their homes, not with answers but with questions, not with understanding in their heads but with the love of God in their hearts. And, finally – if we really want to be like Jesus – we will do so without ever asking them to come back.

Woman-coloured spectacles (Lucy Moore)

Lucy Moore puts on her woman-coloured spectacles.

When I was asked to write up my thoughts on this subject, I thought I'd scan through the previous blogs to get an idea of length, style, need for wit, wisdom, searing theological insight, blah blah… and got as far back as the last 25 posts before I realised that only 5 of those 25 are written by women. In fact, casting your eyes back through the past 10 blogs, you'd be hard-pushed to see that women feature at all in fresh expressions. Does this matter to you? How would someone outside the church perceive fresh expressions as an organisation if they read the same part of the website as I did? More importantly, how would they perceive Jesus if we're his reflection, his ambassadors? And is this bias typical of fresh expressions as a whole?

It can't be that women don't blog. It can't be that women aren't reflecting on fresh expressions as they lead them and belong to them. It could be that this 'one-fifth representation', together with the lack of women represented at the core of fresh expressions, is symptomatic of something deeper that needs addressing – and not just by women themselves.

You can get spectacles that filter out colours and force you to see the world in a particular way. If you put on metaphorical spectacles and look at the world through the eyes of gender equality, it soon becomes apparent that in fresh expressions / church planting / emerging church leadership there is still a huge gender imbalance. Sorry. I didn't want to believe it either as I love fresh expressions, but there it is. And yes, I feel very uncomfortable about raising this point as I want to get on with the fun of Messy Church, not get sidetracked into being labelled a bra-igniting Woman's Hour feminist, but who will raise this issue if I don't?

The lack of women represented at the core of fresh expressions is symptomatic of something deeper that needs addressing

No, I don't like wearing these spectacles, also because I soon become unable to see more important issues as I'm too distracted by gender questions (so busy fuming at the lack of female speakers, lack of stories from women leaders, the lack of pictures that show women as well as men, and so on), that I find I haven't listened to the wisdom of my male colleagues – you get the picture.

But if we, as practitioners of fresh expressions or more simply just as Christians, are concerned with justice, reaching the marginalised, giving outsiders opportunities to grow in faith, surely we should be doubly conscious of injustices in our own front room and challenge each other to right these easily rightable wrongs – from the point of view of witness to the rest of society if nothing else! And how much more gracious it all becomes if those calling for justice are not the ones being marginalised; how much more powerful it would be if it was a man writing this blog? (Ah, no, that would make it 5/26.)

At a seminar recently at a church planting conference, Penny Marsh and I were asking the question: 'Is church planting just for blokes?' We managed to lure two genuine blokes in to join the women. (How? Cake.) Between us, we came up with a lot of meaty ideas as to the possible causes for this perception and possible responses to the state of play.

Language, history, culture, having babies, leadership styles, structural blind spots and more come into it. Do have a gander.

And now, stamping on my smouldering underwear and grubbing around in the ashes for a pair of contact lenses, I shall return to the messiness of my real passion.

To maturity and beyond (Martin Keenan)

Martin Keenan goes to maturity and beyond.

What does it mean for a fresh expression of church to become mature?

Looking at this subject I thought about a word that in many Bible translations is translated as 'maturity', but in other translations is translated as 'perfection'. The Greek word in question is Τēλιος. Its basic meaning is 'the purpose for which a thing was designed'.

If a watch is τελιος it keeps perfect time; if a human being is τελιος, he, or she, is holy. But what does it mean for a church to be τελιος?

What is maturity?

What is the purpose for which the church was designed?

When is a fresh expression of church τελιος?

The purpose of fresh expressions is to reach people who are beyond the reach of inherited church. The reasoning is that we are in a missionary type of situation. So if we view the UK as a mission field and fresh expressions of church as the mission movement, how do we judge maturity?

Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn came up with the idea of the 'three selfs': self-government; self-support and self-propagation. A fourth self was added by David Bosch: self-theologising.

By that standard, a fresh expression of church is mature when it runs itself. It is self-governing. That doesn't mean when it has a fully functioning PCC or church council, complete with wardens or stewards or whatever. It's hard enough for inherited churches to find people to fill those positions. What it means is that there is a committee of sorts that is running the church and it has been recognised by the sending church as being grown up enough to make its own decisions – even if it makes a few wrong choices. The formerly unchurched are now running the fresh expression.

Self-supporting means that financially it can stand on its own feet. This doesn't lead to independence. It leads from dependence, through independence, to interdependence.

But it is mature when it is paying its own rent; providing its own resources, but maybe still receiving gifts from its parent(s).

I think there is no one answer to what maturity looks like, but I don't think it is achieved by giving up the purpose for which the fresh expression was intended

And self-propagating! Have we got that far yet? Do we have fresh expressions of church starting even fresher expressions of church? 'The life cycle of all living things includes the creation of the next generation' (George Lings). Of course reproduction doesn't happen until a certain level of maturity has been achieved.

Then there is David Bosch's extra: self-theologising. We don't create our own doctrines, but we do need to become contextual theologians – interpreting what God is doing in our context and applying ourselves to that.

Steven Croft, in the early days, talked about going from 'fresh' to 'stale' expressions. I have come up with an alternative. In East Sussex there is a little village with its own Anglican church. The village is called Ripe and the church is called 'Ripe Church'.

I like to think in terms of τελιος. What does it mean for a fresh expression of church to fulfil its purpose?

Does it mean settling down to conformity?

When we have enough people to call ourselves 'proper' church is that when we are mature?

Or are we mature when we have achieved the three selfs? We can sustain ourselves, but we are still maintaining our purpose of reaching people who are beyond the reach of inherited church.

I think there is no one answer to what maturity looks like, but I don't think it is achieved by giving up the purpose for which the fresh expression was intended.

Maturity in fresh expressions of church means that we are doing what we set out to do and we are doing it better. In the process we have become self-governing, self-supporting, self-theologising and, hopefully, self-propagating.