Author: fewebadmin

Why I’m not totally comfortable with emerging and emergent church (Brian McLaren)

Brian McLaren explains why he is not totally comfortable with emerging and emergent church.

Brian McLarenPeople often associate my name with the emerging church or emergent church. It's actually a term I'm not totally comfortable with because in my mind the last thing we need is to slice the pie up: 'We have all these different kinds of churches, and now we have emerging or emergent churches too.'

I actually look at it differently. Instead of thinking of a slice of the pie, I think of a tree. If you think of a cross-section of a tree, the outermost ring of the tree is the part of the tree that represents its current life in relation to today's weather conditions. So if you think of a big historic beautiful tree, maybe this part is the Catholic part of the tree, and this part is the Anglican part, and here's the Presbyterian part and the Pentecostal part. There are all these different parts of the tree.

But the whole tree in today's world is living in a time of great change. We don't even know how to describe it, so we stick the prefix 'post' on things. We say post-modern, post-colonial, post-enlightenment, post-Christendom. We use this word 'post' because we can tell it's changing, but we don't exactly have a handle on what the change is and means. But it's putting stress on the whole tree.

So a Catholic who's part of that outer ring in a certain sense has more in common with a Pentecostal on the outer ring than he might have with a Catholic who's dealing with the issues of the institution that are two or three rings in. So … I like to talk about the emergent conversation. It's a conversation among Christians in many sectors of the church about what it means to be faithful to Jesus Christ in this time of change.

The beautiful thing about a conversation is it's not a programme. We're not saying: 'Here's the way to do church. For £40 we'll give you the programme.' We're saying, 'No, let's get together. Let's talk. Let's experiment. Let's share our ideas. Let's look for fresh expressions and what it means to be followers of Christ, and let's learn from one another.'

Another thing I like about the idea of a conversation: it's not a monologue. More than ever before we need to get out of the idea of the big hero, or the big model in this or that place and everybody will imitate it. There's a place for that, but the kind of creativity we need now means we need to listen to our brothers and sisters from Africa, Asia, Latin America. In the west we need to listen to the folks who are working in poor neighbourhoods and rough communities and people with high unemployment rates and high poverty rates. What are they doing to live out the kingdom?

More than ever before we need to get out of the idea of the big hero, or the big model in this or that place

There won't be a 'one size fits all' answer in this, but what we will find then is the growing edge, the green edge of the life of the church. And that's not against what's happened before. It's being faithful to the tradition of the church. If we were to think of a cross-section of a tree, each of those rings represents the emerging church of our various eras and we're just continuing that tradition.

This blog is an extract from an exclusive interview Brian McLaren gave Fresh Expressions during a recent visit to the UK.

Where is the place for pain within Messy Church? (Lucy Moore)

Lucy Moore asks where the place for pain is with Messy Church.

Lucy MooreMessy Church is far too much fun to be proper church! Where's the endurance? Where's the grind? Where's the discipline? Why aren't my Puritanical masochistic itches being scratched? Can we really be truly church and still enjoy it so much? (I shall try to remember this jollity when I'm down on my hands and knees grimly scrubbing off glass paints from the hall parquet floor or sweatily frying up half a dead cow's worth of mince.)

While I don't have an issue with enjoying church, one question I have been musing on recently is: where is the place for pain within Messy Church, or indeed any form of church with children present? Given that the UK is statistically one of the most miserable countries in the developed world for being a child, there is a mass of suffering out there among the under-twelves as well as the more-often-acknowledged pain of teens and adults: bullying, loss, self-doubt, fear, peer pressure, life.

If Messy Church is only a place we can bring our thanks and praise to, if it is simply a place of creativity and bonhomie, surely it can't be a true church? We need to learn to paint with the colours of Good Friday as well as those of Easter Sunday, to model the thorny crown as well as the Easter bonnet.

Crafts can be a space to place our pain: we have made 'God's tears' out of acetate and hung them with silver thread from a cross, drawing on them what makes God cry. We say 'sorry' as well as 'please' and 'thank you' in our prayers.

But where do we find the place and courage to tell the stories of suffering from our own lives that release the stories – and pain, and tears – of others, young and old?

The use of new monasticism as a model of church for some fresh expressions (Ian Mobsby)

Ian Mobsby explores the use of new monasticism as a model of church for some fresh expressions.

Ian MobsbyIn the last five years with the Moot Community, and in the previous ten with the Epicentre Network, I have been on a journey attempting to do worship, mission and community in the context of post-modern spiritual tourism. You will have come across this every time someone says the mantra: 'I am not religious; I am interested in spirituality.' It has been a journey where this context has really changed me quite profoundly.

For too long the church has been bound to unhelpful binaries: lay and ordained, Catholic and Protestant, activist or personal piety, radical and mainstream, and so on. The truth is, if we stand a chance of ever making an impact with the de- and unchurched who are interested in spirituality as a mission imperative, then we will need to draw on variant elements of the wide traditions of our Christian inheritance.

We need to get away from this ridiculous 'them and us' which finds its foundation in misunderstanding, lack of love and fear. I think practitioners of emerging and fresh expressions of church in a post-modern context understand the post-binary holistic need for this more acutely than their predecessors. So, as practitioners, we can draw on 2,000 years of resources of the church to assist us in this task.

The prevailing church culture remains cognitive and propositional rather than experiential

Many people interested in spirituality today trawl the internet seeking spiritual communities that do – and are – what they say they are. They seek communities of integrity where there is love, openness, honesty, inclusion and participation. Unfortunately, too many churches feel like incredibly dysfunctional families where few of these qualities are evident. They are, in effect, spiritually impoverished. The prevailing church culture remains cognitive and propositional rather than experiential.

At the same time, many people are seeking something that goes beyond materialism, consumption and technology. Many have become aware of this need through personal tragedy, addiction, life stages, illness or study. So the challenge is: how to provide opportunities for authentic worship, mission and community for people who are seeking to become more deeply human, unaware that this is a spiritual quest. Such people often do not know who they are, let alone that they have a need for God!

How do you engage with spiritual tourists whilst being authentically Christian? Well, I would encourage people here to really consider models of church. Why? Because if you don't your project will end up with something that is dumbed down, individualistic and consumptive as a default position. This is where the new monastic or new friar model can really help if you are engaging with spiritual tourists.

One of the main mistakes we made with the Epicentre Network is that it was held captive to deconstruction, consumption, individualism and was somewhat anti-theological. Yes, it was very participative, but the lack of a model made it difficult to have a healthy basis. It was a collective of individuals that was never fully able to become a community because of its inability to re-envision or reconstruct. We ended Epicentre after ten good years of exciting and innovative mission activity because it was impossible for it to grow into being fully church. This was a painful lesson.

With Moot in its early days, we focused on the need to balance hospitality and inclusion with the authentic practice of the faith. Yes, experimental and contextual, but authentically Christian all the same. We were struck with the question: 'How do we have a community that allows people to belong who do not believe; that allows them to experience the community; that is authentic and life-giving without dumbing down on the faith?' It was Steve Croft who suggested to me the use of a rhythm of life as a focus to the community, so that it be Christ-centred.

Moot, inspired by the monastic pre-modern rules, crafted a rhythm of life through a communal bottom-up process to form an aspiration for how we wanted to live. Its language was not churchy but spiritual and embodied the gospel. So now we have a mixed community of both committed Christians and those who are spiritually searching, all desiring to live out these aspirations as a form of discipleship, where people are at different stages of the journey.

The pre-modern model of the monastics – and in particular the friars who had a spiritual rhythm of life and were sent to service particular localities – enables us to reframe new monasticism as a helpful model for an open, accessible Christian community with a focus on experience and exploration, that assists people to shift from being spiritual tourists to communitarian co-travelling pilgrims. Moot has developed sacramental (focusing on God's presence with us) and experiential forms of worship, mission and community drawing on this new monastic basis.

So, ancient forms of Christian contemplation reframed into post-modern language and sensibilities become the resources for prayer that work in terms of bringing centredness and peace. Mission then becomes seeking to catch up with what God is already doing in loving service by the whole community through social justice projects, the arts and other imaginative pursuits, and worship becomes an event of encounter of God and other pilgrims as a place of inspiration and hope-sharing.

If you are interested in going deeper with this, check out my two books: The Becoming of G-d and Emerging & Fresh Expressions of Church.

Two challenges for fresh expressions (Mark Russell)

Mark Russell poses two challenges for fresh expressions.

Mark Russell and Desmond TutuI hope this post will be an interesting thought from my perspective as CEO of a church organisation. Church Army is at the forefront of the fresh expressions agenda and our people all over the UK and Ireland are establishing fresh expressions of church, seeking to connect the transforming good news of Christ with those who would otherwise never enter a church. You can view some short films of them doing this. I love seeing how God is releasing his people to pioneer new things to help people to come to faith through creative new Christian communities.

I am a huge supporter of the fresh expressions agenda, both personally and as the CEO of Church Army, but (yes, you've guessed it, there is a 'but' … two, in fact!) I have two worries that niggle me. Nothing I can prove, but I wonder if this is what you think as well?

  1. Many stories of fresh expressions of church seem only to be about Christians who are disaffected with church. OK, so all of us know people who dislike church, but my fear is that sometimes fresh expressions are set up by these people just to satisfy their own needs and the needs of people like them. The great purpose of church, though, is mission, not congregation, and I wonder if fresh expressions are at their best when they reach out to new people outside our church walls.

  2. Many fresh expressions are for middle class, educated white people. I am hardly one to talk – most of those in my church are white and middle class. But I recognise the major need for the whole church, not just fresh expressions, to be more respresentative of our communities. Running through Church Army's DNA is the call to reach those on the margins of society. Our founder said: 'Go for the worst' – those on the edges.

Fresh expressions are at their best when they reach out to new people outside our church walls

I passionately believe fresh expressions are the best way to engage the poor, those on the edges, those in marginalised groups. Colleagues working on estates in London, Sheffield and Belfast are discovering that fresh expressions enable church to happen with the poor in a way that traditional church cannot. I passionately want to see more fresh expressions on the edge, and I dream of them reaching different ethnic groups of people as well.

So, the two buts become two challenges for us.

Let's together ask God to raise up more pioneers, more evangelists, people who want to help us create relevant Christian communities that reach those on the edge, and help disciple people beyond the reach of traditional church.

We have come a long way with fresh expressions. Let's catch a fresh vision and keep pressing on towards the goal!

The credit crunch will change the church (Graham Cray)

Graham Cray, incoming leader of the Fresh Expressions team, gives his thoughts on the future of the church.

Graham CrayI think the church over the next few years is going to hear the word of the Lord through the credit crunch. A former diocesan secretary in Canterbury used to say:

The Church of England as it is now structured cannot afford the Church of England as it is now structured.

And my guess is, that is true for almost every historic building with plants and churches and manses and so on.

The critical question then is, if we have to be a more lightweight church in terms of plants and bureaucracy – not in terms of theology and spiritual vision – then will we find the way to live the mixed economy in the new realities? I'm quite convinced that means a townwide partnership of every church willing to take part; that we dare not compete with one another. We do need to complement one another's strengths. And one of the threads that runs right through that sort of ecumenism is actually fresh expressions.

The real changes will be renewing of imagination to do church with less of the very costly historic resources

So it may be that in God's economy – and having been taken by surprise by what he's done already, I'm just having a guess at how he might take us by surprise in the future – that this becomes critical in enabling the energetic partnership of churches together doing lighter weight church in serious mission and involvement in their communities. Hope08 gives a hint of that. I think fresh expressions gives a hint of that.

The real changes, I think, will be renewing of imagination to do church with less of the very costly historic resources. That doesn't mean the mixed economy disappears, because we will still in historic denominations do beautiful liturgy, do dignified worship. But I am convinced that there's got to be some significant change in the use of our available resources.

Is it really Church? (Rowan Williams)

Rowan WilliamsRowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, asks 'Is it really church?'

The "strength" of the Church is never anything other than the strength of the presence of the Risen Jesus. And one thing this means is that, once we are convinced that God in Jesus Christ is indeed committed to us and present with us, there is a certain freedom to risk everything except those things that hold us to the truth of his presence – Word and sacrament and the journey into holiness. These will survive, whatever happens to this or that style of worship, this or that bit of local Christian culture, because the presence of Jesus in the community will survive.

Fresh Expressions, I've suggested, has helped us see something of this liberating vision. It's true, from one point of view, that this takes us beyond a concern with denominational identity; and for some this is worrying. Is it really Anglican, or Methodist, or Baptist? What I hope is that, in the next phase of the work of Fresh Expressions, as it continues to enter more fully into the bloodstream of the churches, we start asking instead – of Fresh Expressions, but also of some of our inherited patterns – 'Is it really Church?'

Mixed EconomyThe remainder of this article can be found in the debut issue of mixed economy, a new journal from Fresh Expressions, which is available free of charge from the Fresh Expressions website.

Other articles include Howard Mellor (on evangelism as parable), Steven Croft (on milestones on the journey), Brother Damian SSF (on mission and spirituality) and Ian Adams (on international perspectives and developments).

An encouraging blog (Jonny Baker)

Jonny Baker concludes a recent blog with this heartwarming sentence: 'it's very encouraging'. What is he encouraged by?

Jonny BakerJonny writes: 'i sometimes get asked about the relationship between fresh expressions and emerging church. it's all part of the wider change in response to mission in postmodern cultures. fresh expressions is the anglican/methodist initiative. emerging church was the name given to the earlier experiments at the edges that was not denominational that inspired the c of e to write mission shaped church. the edges are blurred and it's not really that important. i know of very few other mainline denominations around the world that have been so prepared to pave the way for newness in response to the changing mission context. it's very encouraging.'

Jonny's blog is in response to the announcement that the Fresh Expressions initiative is to continue for a further period of five years. The Rt Revd Graham Cray, currently the Bishop of Maidstone, is to be the next Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team. The Methodist Connexional Missioner for Fresh Expressions is to be the Revd Stephen Lindridge, currently Evangelism Enabler in the Newcastle District.

Manipulating people for the sake of church? (Andrew Wooding)

Andrew Wooding asks if we're manipulating people for the sake of church.

I've been revisiting a number of pages on the Share site recently, and was especially struck by Does the fresh expressions journey risk manipulation?

No entry to churchThe 'fresh expressions journey' is a framework offered on a number of pages on Share, but the page on 'manipulation' rightly points out the danger of treating this – and other frameworks – as formulas for success. That people will be seen as means to an end rather than having value in and of themselves.

Sounds obvious, doesn't it, but be honest: How many times have you been part of a group, a team, a community, an institution, where you have felt used or dispensible? Valued for what you can do to keep the machine going, rather than for who you are? And if you rock the boat you won't be missed, because the 'task' is far more important than the group being with you in your doubts and questions.

I am not talking in the abstract here. I have seen this far too many times, and continue to see it. To my shame, I have also in the past colluded with this sort of thing, justifying my collusion with that old 'ends justifying the means' argument.

How can leaders of fresh expressions prevent this happening? How can they retain the goal of forming church while at the same time making sure each step of the journey has its own integrity? See what you think about the suggestions on Does the fresh expressions journey risk manipulation?

Put out into deep water (Colin Brown)

Colin Brown challenges us to put out into deep water.

'God believes in creative experimentation' claims a page in the Guide. And Are there any dangers? Haven't there been scandals in the past? talks of the importance of taking risks and moving forward.

Sand and seaA thread running through many fresh expressions is God's call to take risks – to step out of comfort zones. Maybe the Spirit doesn't want us to become too settled or reliant on our own way of doing mission and being church.

Jesus did this when he called his first disciples – pioneers who helped God to build his church. To Simon the fisherman, who had caught nothing all night long, Jesus says, 'Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.' (Luke 5.4) Although he is sceptical, Simon does so and then experiences what it means to trust in the power of God. Perhaps he doesn't really understand why his net is full, but now the way he sees Jesus is changed through taking the risk.

The spirituality of fresh expressions is the spirituality of risk. We can sit on a familiar shoreline and gaze at the shallows where we have grown comfortable with the way things are. But Jesus offers a deeper invitation: to try something different; to see that there may be new ways of reaching people and finding some way to answer the question, 'what might the kingdom of God look like for them?'

As fresh expressions leaders have taken a risk, however, sometimes they find that this didn't work out. But that first step was important. God showed them one path, only for them to find that this leads to something else quite different. Yet, to get there, the first step was vital.

Simon Peter took the risk of 'putting out into deep water'. How might God be asking something similar of you, or your church? Ask him to show you, and to be the power needed for his kingdom come.

Follow the cloud (Colin Brown)

Colin Brown follows the cloud.

A number of pages in the Guide emphasise the importance of listening, particularly '360 degrees listening'.

Cloud and sunHave you ever wondered if the thoughts you have about helping God build his church are actually from him? I mean, how do we know that our idea is part of God's way ahead and will bear fruit that will last?

Many leaders of fresh expressions have learned that this 'discernment' is a constant challenge. Of course prayer plays a vital part. Not the sort of prayer that tells God what we want him to do, but prayer that is listening, as well as asking the way ahead.

The Israelites' time in the desert is a good example for us. Moses and the people had done everything just as the LORD had commanded them. They had built the tabernacle – the place of meeting where Moses really encountered the person of God.

Where do you go to be with God? Perhaps you have set aside a special time and place … to share your deeper desires … and to listen well to God, to get tuned in.

God gave the Israelites a sign. A cloud would show them when to move on and where to go. When it stayed over the tent, they stayed put. Only when the cloud moved, did they continue to the next stage of the journey.

What's the sign of God's leading for you? Maybe it's visible, like the cloud. Most likely it's more of a gut-instinct. Like the Israelites, there will be times of waiting and a time to move. It's a life-long lesson for all of us. Ask God to show you, and keep looking … keep listening.