Category: Graham Cray

Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, sees the planting of several thousand fresh expressions of church as one of the major achievements of Archbishop Rowan's time in office. As the Archbishop addresses the movement for the final time in that role on November 22 in London, Bishop Graham says it is an ideal moment to take stock of what has been achieved and what lies ahead.

The Fresh Expressions day conference – running from 11am to 4pm on Thursday at HTB – is called 'Following the missionary Spirit', because, in the years since the Mission-shaped Church report was published in 2004, the Holy Spirit has been leading the church in new approaches to mission. It has been an experience of 'seeing what God is doing and joining in'. In effect we have been given a gift of the Holy Spirit, a charism. My predecessor Steven Croft called it 'building ecclesial communities out of contextual mission': the planting of fresh expressions of church, be they new congregations or full church plants, appropriate to their context, to draw into Christian discipleship those who are not active followers of Jesus or part of any church.

That is the purpose of the charism, but what is its nature? What constitutes the gift we are being given?

It is a gift of faith. Ordinary local Christians have been taking small cross-cultural risks, for the sake of Christ. They have been stepping out of their comfort zone, out of familiar patterns of church life to plant something new, for those untouched by these familiar patterns. They have been empowered to take a risk of faith. This lies at the heart of the gift of the Spirit for mission, through which we are empowered as witness beyond our familiar setting (Acts 1.8) 

It is an incarnational gift, a gift for contextual mission. We are learning to follow the Spirit as, by his power, Christ's body takes appropriate local shape. It is a gift for contextual mission, a gift for our times and for each locality:

• for our times because both our national culture, and the relationship between church and culture have been changing fast;
• for each locality because we are taking more seriously the uniqueness and complexity of each context.

It is a gift of discernment and of missional imagination. We learn to listen as we allow the Holy Spirit to direct us. The fresh expression takes shape as we listen and serve. We are unlikely to know what it will finally look like when we begin.

It is a gift of diversity. The Holy Spirit gives varieties of gifts (1 Corinthians 12.4-6). One size does not fit all. A recent study of two dioceses revealed 19 different models of fresh expression in each. Some models appear frequently, as is appropriate for a branded society. The reason for diversity is appropriateness to context, not the uniqueness of the model.

It is a traditioned gift. At its heart is our call to proclaim the gospel afresh in this generation. It is not a rewriting of the claims of Christ to make them more amenable to a consumer age, but a more faithful embodiment of the historic gospel for our times. Fresh expressions are an integral part of the Church's mixed economy approach to mission. It is a gift which honours inherited church approaches for their faithfulness to the gospel and seeks to complement them by equivalent faithfulness.

It is a vocational gift. It cannot be exercised without pioneers, those who take the lead in the small and large cross cultural steps which are the inescapable starting point of any fresh expression. One of the most striking features of this movement has been the number of new leaders it has generated. There are Ordained Pioneer Ministers and Methodist VentureFX Pioneers, but the number of these is dwarfed by the hundreds of lay leaders in expressions who were not in any form of leadership before.

It is an ecumenical gift. This involves the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, the Congregational Federation and the Church of Scotland, with other conversations taking place. This is a unity which God blesses because it is a unity in weakness, as we all have to learn new approaches to mission in a changing world, and choose to learn together.

It has proved to be an international gift. Requests have come from many parts of the world. The Fresh Expressions mission shaped ministry course is now being taught or planned in Australia, Barbados, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, and the USA.

Finally it is a gift of hope. It demonstrates the life of the Spirit through the church, showing that the Church in Britain can grow; that it is not condemned to inevitable decline because of the average age of many of its congregations. The Holy Spirit is restoring faith in the power of the gospel here and now!

The future then is a matter of keeping faith with the missionary Spirit and of remaining open to whatever new riches might be revealed in this gift. It is also a call to perseverance as we maintain our commitment to the re-evangelization of our land. To serve the churches, this call and commitment will see the Fresh Expressions team continue to network the pioneers, gather the learning, publish the stories, and provide the training needed.

* 'Following the missionary Spirit – going forward with fresh expressions' will take place at HTB, Brompton Road on 22 November from 11am to 4pm (arrivals from 10am). Contributors include Martyn Atkins (General Secretary, Methodist Church), Val Morrison (Moderator of the General Assembly, United Reformed Church) and Graham Cray. Places cost £15 (including lunch and refreshments).

Graham Cray comments on the story of Abide in a column originally published in the CEN on 26th October 2012.

The terms 'sodal' and 'modal' can be confusing to some, but missiologists Ralph Winter and George Lings speak of the church in these two forms:

• modal – the local, well established, church, with a mission open to all (at least in theory);
• sodal – the mission community working more flexibly and seeking to reach those untouched by the modal.

To belong to the first, you only have to turn up. Membership of the second involves commitment to its specific mission. This framework creates space to innovate within the existing structures of the church and highlights that innovation has always been part of the character of the church of God.

Just over 12 months ago Ben Edson became Vicar and Missioner to a parish in south Manchester. He had been in the city for 10 years, during which time he pioneered Sanctus1, a fresh expression of church, and helped set up the Nexus arts café.

A few months into his appointment at St James and Emmanuel, Didsbury, he found himself asking,

How can we affirm the modal yet at the same time search for something more sodal within it?

Graham Cray comments on Quiet Days in an article published in the CEN on 1st July 2012.

Professor Eddie Gibbs of Fuller Theological Seminary once took a sabbatical from his work as an academic to be the Associate Rector of a parish in Beverley Hills where the congregation were primarily high powered business executives. He had to rethink all his mission strategies because what these people needed, to find Christ, was symbolism and silence. Steve Tilley's imaginative use of his home shows that this is just as relevant to other groups.

The central challenge for mission in Britain today is to make disciples, rather than just increase the number of church attenders. The chief obstacles the church faces in this task are the seductiveness of consumerism and the sheer pressure and stress of contemporary life. The opportunity to stop and to be still opens up the possibility of re-evaluating personal priorities, seeing beyond the superficiality of the consumer lifestyle and hearing the call of Christ. St Paul wrote,

But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?

Romans 10.14

Today, perhaps the only way they might hear, is when we offer the sort of hospitality that makes it possible to pause.

Relationships between generations in – and outside of – the Church can be complex. However, Bishop Graham Cray argues that our faith is a 'generation to generation' one; we need adults who will teach and encourage, and get out of the way when the time is right, and young people who will listen, learn and lead.

It is a tragedy when relationships between generations go wrong. I do not assume that they always go wrong, they often work well. But, while recognizing that each situation is different, and that these issues are easy to caricature, I'm looking to address what can be done – when there is frustration or tension – and to identify a better way. My fundamental conviction is that Christianity is a missionary faith, which makes it a 'from generation to generation' faith, irrespective of the degree of cultural change.

The relationship between older and younger generations in the church is complex. Older people can hang on to leadership too long, while younger people (if they stay) get frustrated. Well-intentioned, but often token, appointments of young people are made to church bodies whose meetings can frustrate – or bore the life out of – those same young people. Yet there are also older people looking for someone younger to take on roles they have fulfilled for years – and they can't find anyone to take their place. The problem is essentially one of power: who has a say and who does not. The issue is also vocational: is each generation respected and released to obey God's call and trusted to trust God's promises?

Young people often feel that their church is out of date; that they couldn't invite their friends and feel powerless to make changes. Or an older generation wonders why people no longer come to church while a younger one knows we have to go out to the people rather than wait for them to come to us. They are operating from different models; one is attractional – wanting to make church more attractive – and the other more incarnational in seeking to engage more with the everyday lives of non Christian friends.

Technological change means that a generation accustomed to listening to an authoritative teacher respectfully is encountering another which has been taught to question everything with the capacity, in a moment, to check multiple media sources. In today's culture respect for the wisdom of the elders has largely been lost. In some communities older people are even afraid of younger people.

But no generation of Christians is meant to start from scratch as they serve Christ in the world. We have to test things out for ourselves, or they remain theoretical, but we are not meant to ignore the wisdom of previous generations nor recycle their mistakes out of ignorance. Unless we want to learn for ourselves the truth of Christian writer and poet Steve Turner's lines, 'History repeats itself. Has to – nobody listens.'

Sometimes the problem is that we confuse particular forms of worship or discipleship with the eternal truths they convey. An older generation finds it hard to imagine a different, perhaps more informal approach to worship, while a younger one fails to see the beyond the form to the truths being expressed.

A lot of this is evidence of fractures within our culture, which inevitably impact the church. But that is no reason to give in to them. There can be a better way. Each generation can pass on the truths of the faith and the callings and promises of God to the next. Each can learn to recognize and bless God's calling on the others. Each can play their part in releasing each generation for their calling. There is plenty to do. Without effective youth and young adult ministry the church has no future, but given the rapidly growing proportion of the population over 65, ministry by – and to – that generation will be essential in the coming decades.

The stories around the birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus in Luke chapters one and two provide a model for relationships between the generations. We are even told that John will 'turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord' (Luke 1.17). God wants to sort out inter-generational conflict.

Three generations are involved. The oldest Elizabeth and Zechariah, Simeon and Anna have faithfully kept God's word and trusted his promises in their generation. They deserve respect and are afforded it by God's choice of them, and by the whole way Luke tells his story. (Even if Zechariah has a late in life lesson in obedience.) Their ministry is not yet over. They still have the task of blessing the next generation, and continuing to serve God, as they have been. There is no suggestion that Zechariah is to stop being a priest, or that God has finished with his generation now that his wife is expecting John the Baptist.

Mary comes to stay with Elizabeth. Separated in age by the equivalent of two generations, and receiving the hospitality of her older cousin – who is a direct descendent of Aaron the first high priest – the younger would normally have paid her respects to the elder. But Mary is not given the chance. She is barely through the door when Elisabeth greets her prophetically as 'the mother of my Lord'. The older generation rejoices over God's call on the next generation.

Mary's response shows no arrogance. She is awe struck and amazed that God was using her, that he fulfils his promises and shows mercy 'from generation to generation' (Luke 1.50) Later, Mary and Joseph bring Jesus, who together with his cousin John, forms the third generation, into the Temple. Simeon blesses them and prophecies over them and their child. Anna also speaks about this child. Once again the older blesses the next generation, seeing in them the fulfilment of God’s promises.

A fine example of this was seen in the Methodist church at Polzeath in Cornwall. The chapel was down to two members, aged 85 and 90. They did not want their church to die, and warmly welcomed a proposal that it should be developed as a church for the surfers on the adjoining beach. The new focus would involve changes in both the building and in worship, but these two were thrilled to see what God wished to do in the next generation and blessed it, – just as Elizabeth blessed Mary. The new work was released by the faith, prayers and permission of those two.

So how can we release the next generation?

Identify leaders

I chair the Soul Survivor trustees so I am a guardian of the values of that ministry. It is a prime value of Soul Survivor to equip young people so that they can take responsibility for the ministries to which God is calling them. That involves a discipline of spotting potential as early as possible, giving  opportunity for appropriate ministry and then mentoring as you go. Just as Jesus invested in the twelve, following a time of prayer, discernment and listening to the Father, so pastors and youth leaders need to identify the young people with leadership potential whom they should mentor and release. That's how the Church identified and supported Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Andy and Beth Croft – as well as the many, many others who do not have such 'public' or high-profile names.

Release them now

Instead of telling young people to wait until they have more experience, we need to release them to do what only they can do. Christian leaders, whether pastors or youth leaders, have to make a choice. Is their role primarily to protect the young people of their church or to equip them for mission? Is it to educate or to release? Where young people have a vision from God about serving him at their school or in their neighbourhood, give them support but do not take responsibility for that ministry from them. If they have heard it from God, then they are mature enough to lead in it, with prayerful support.

One of the ways in which churches with well established patterns of mission and worship can become 'mixed economy' (inherited styles of church and fresh expressions of church in partnership) and reach people their existing work does not reach, is to release young people to reach their own generation by establishing a fresh expression of church for them at school, college or a leisure centre. The point is not just that young people can hear God and act on what he says, much earlier than cautious churches allow. It is that the rapid pace of change and the average age of many congregations (the average worshipper in the CofE is 14 years older than the average age of the population) creates mission opportunities which only young people can engage in.

If they are still looking for their calling, create an environment where they are helped to hear God for themselves. Support them as they take risks of faith so that to risk in faith and find that God is faithful becomes instinctive. Provide counsel and feedback but do not take control.

Let them rise to the challenge

Set the bar high with worthwhile challenges. Young people are required to make potentially vocational choices early as they select exam subjects. So set the challenge of the kingdom before them. The kingdom of God involves the salvation of men and women and the healing of the whole creation. That leaves plenty of scope for discernment and plenty of challenges to tackle. My experience of this generation of young people is that they rise to a challenge and are prepared for sacrifice. When young people are trusted to take initiatives in this way, they become much more open to the wisdom of former generations because they know they need all the help they can get!

Let them shape the church

It is not the calling of young people to preserve or continue the church as it is but to engage in God's mission in a way which will inevitably shape the church of tomorrow. If we are to engage with the UK as a mission field with its sheer scale and diverse complexity, we need the missionary gifts of young people today – not just tomorrow.

Christian faith is a 'from generation to generation' faith. Young people must be released into mission and older people respected as the faithful stewards of God’s promises. If the generations fail to communicate with, or to understand one another, they can miss what God intends. What all three generations have in common is the promises of God. They provide the link. Each generation sees in the next a further stage of fulfilment of the same promises. The forms which faith and obedience take may change, but the common thread lies in God's promises. The generations are not so much linked by the way they do things, especially at times of rapid change, but by a shared commitment to God's will, and to trust and act on his promises. This is the DNA that passes from generation to generation.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

Ephesians 3.20-21

Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, Bishop Graham Cray, says there is often a reality gap between the language of pilgrimage and the experience of sitting in the same place doing the same things inside a church building each Sunday.

The Church is intended to be a pilgrim people, continually on the move in response to the call of Jesus to deeper discipleship and missionary engagement. The Church of Scotland report Church Without Walls described it as people with Jesus at the centre travelling wherever Jesus takes us.

Now Wood Green Mennonite Church, London, is giving this theological language new meaning by piloting a 'walking' fresh expression. Phil Wood, a member of Wood Green, explains how the monthly church is a mixture of walking, talking, prayer, liturgy and meditation.

We've had to take a close look at what we understand by the term, Walking Church. There are plenty of organisations for Christian walkers and many churches have walking groups but we are not looking at an ecumenical 'fellowship' made up of Christians who walk in their spare time but a church that walks! Imagine a congregation where the essential elements of church – mission, sacraments, worship and the Word – primarily take place on the move or in the context of hospitality along the way. The idea is to create a community of faith where the heartlands of 'church' happen in the course of walking.

My congregation at Wood Green caught the vision and, following an Epping Forest taster last autumn, we pulled on our backpacks for a full-blown 2012 pilot. We're walking four London locations this year with walks arranged for the final Sunday morning of the month, changing location every quarter. Every walk has a leader responsible for a theme and three or four reflections. We walk, eat, listen, meditate, pray and sometimes sing – though the latter is a topic of discussion. It also involves hospitality – whether in homes, pubs or cafes. Each time we learn a little more.

In February, I joined others on a walk between Highgate and Alexandra Palace. Wayne Hostetler led it on the theme of 'perspective' and there were some splendid views of north London to illustrate the point. We talked about the panorama from Alexandra Palace with the City skyscrapers to inner-city Tottenham and the 'smudge' of Epping Forest – all that poverty and power cheek by jowl. Since then, we have also tackled the 4.5 miles Parkland Walk in London's largest nature reserve following the old railway line from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace.

Where do we go next with this idea? We are trying to get our priorities right and inclusiveness is a challenge. How do we accommodate 'serious' ramblers, not-so-serious amblers, exponents of 'walking meditation' and pilgrimage and those walking for health and ecological awareness? Also, how do we go about youth and children's work and what provision are we making for those with limited mobility?

I see Walking Churches as having enormous mission potential. According to the Mission-shaped Church report, 20% of the UK population is involved in walking as a leisure activity – a figure just slightly lower than that of the entire British churchgoing constituency. There are 139,000 members in the Ramblers (formerly the Ramblers Association) alone. In large areas of Britain there are more people out walking on a Sunday than going to worship.

Of course, there are a number of potential pitfalls for Walking Church – with one of the most obvious being the weather! Although the main activity would obviously be walking there is clearly a need for some time indoors as well as outdoors – as long as this doesn't undermine the nature of the church. Hospitality is the bridge to providing this support, especially where a Walking Church is linked to an existing congregation. However, there's nothing to say that hospitality needs to be in a church building; it could be in a pub, a home, a youth hostel or any number of other locations. I believe the cell church model – with some adaptation – offers the best insights for structuring walking churches. I have been thinking too as what might be possible as Walking Church develops. Here are some of the early thoughts:

• a link with a Tourist Information Centre;
• launching Walking Church via a long distance path such as the Pennine Way or the Ridgeway, perhaps involving people from different churches along the route;
• offers a natural window into powerful expressions of social justice in identification with the stranger, the homeless and the refugee;
• Walking Church ‘guidebooks’ could be an exercise both in devotional and travel writing;
• play a significant role in extremely rural communities;
• could walk 'home or away' (i.e. near or far away from where most members live) or it might draw members from a wide area based on a network connection. So, a Walking Church might have a close association with one locality or much more of a network focus.

We're learning something about evangelism in the values driving this particular fresh expression. One of our walkers likes us because we don't 'proselytise', instead we 'reflect'. Are we too peaceable to share faith? I hope not – but our message isn't 'become like us and you will be saved'. We are 'peace church'. Yes, words are important, but mostly peace is in the pace. It's easier to listen at three miles per hour.

Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, sees how God is blessing imaginative, contextually appropriate, mission when churches take the risk of attempting it.

In most parishes clergy and lay leaders can be overburdened simply continuing their current work,

he said.

But if they are willing to stop something, so that they have the capacity to start something new, or – as the following story shows – to release a key leader for a new venture, the results can be out of all proportion to the sacrifices being made.

Café Lite, a fresh expression of church, meets in Droxford village hall, Hampshire. Launched in September 2011, it now attracts up to 100 people to its informal gatherings. The Rev Stuart Holt is the Rector and says,

My parish released me from services in Droxford, Exton, Meonstoke and Corhampton twice a month so that I could front Café Lite and a puppet ministry in schools. This means that I now have two fresh expressions of church in these ancient, rural benefices.

It's really encouraging to see new people coming to Café Lite and they're bringing their friends with them. We've never seen these people before. The numbers have reached 96, which is quite something for a tiny little parish of 1,600 people in the middle of Hampshire. Our immediate challenge is that the hall is licensed for 120 people. If everybody in the Café Lite community turned up we would be over that! We're also having fantastic conversations. People have asked if I could do a wedding blessing for them because they were married in a register office; others have asked about preparing for baptism for themselves or their children.

Café Lite runs on the third Sunday of the month and we have Sunday newspapers, bacon rolls, worship and chat. I thought it important to offer excellence, which is why we've also got a professional Gaggia coffee machine for all those 'flat whites' we have to prepare! We have made it self-supporting with private individuals funding different components so – for instance – someone has sponsored the bread for a year, somebody else has paid for the bacon and another person buys all the papers.

When deciding what resources to use, I finally went for what was around when I came to faith in 1967, Norman Warren's Journey into Life – mainly because it's very clear and simple. For worship, I also returned to my roots to use Youth Praise because it really deals with key issues of faith; I found that it was as powerful now as it had been all those years ago.

We started from the beginning with the music because it's for the dechurched as well as the unchurched. I know it can seem strange to many people involved in fresh expressions that we would focus on worship and singing at such an early stage in the life of this community but the people really wanted the music to express some strong messages about God and Christianity.

It doesn't seem to be off-putting because we're drawing in a huge cross-section of people from all walks of life, including residents of a local social housing estate and those recovering from drug and alcohol addictions based at a nearby rehab centre. We are now also actively involved in Christians Against Poverty and have CAP money coaches on hand too.

Almost as soon as we started in the hall, I was asked, 'What is your strategy for these people?' My answer was, and is, 'Preach the gospel and be open to the Holy Spirit. That's it.'

When it became clear that people had taken up the idea of Café Lite, I was asked what my strategy was going to be for discipleship. I said the answer was definitely not to make them go on some sort of organized course; people wouldn't want that – especially as they had never been to church anywhere before and had actually turned up because we offered them a bacon sandwich! Instead we are now developing a nurture course to help them tackle some key issues in a way that's relevant to them.

We also have lots of children at Café Lite, usually around 29. It was suggested that we should 'do' something for the children as a separate entity but I said we needed to ban the words 'ought', 'must' or 'should' in our Christian lives and that I didn't want Café Lite to be turned into a Sunday school in the village hall. It's a church in its own right.

Interestingly some people got very indignant about seeing kids with iPhones at Café Lite. It doesn't bother me because that's what kids do, they text each other. What was wonderful was the fact that they were actually texting, 'I'm at Café Lite, it's brilliant.' Another girl filmed what was happening on her phone and sent it to a friend to say how good it was.

The churches here have been serving this stretch of the Meon Valley for hundreds of years and we are so thankful that Café Lite and Puppets in Praise are also helping to meet the spiritual needs of those around us.

I've no idea what will happen or who will come week by week but I want us to take some risks in spreading the gospel.

Are we spending so much time maintaining our churches that we've lost our focus on mission? Bishop Graham Cray explores what needs to be done to make the Church 'the right shape' for our communities.

Most Christians in Britain have never experienced the Church as the Church is meant to be.

The growing majority of today's mission field are those who have never had a connection to any church. We are in danger of being the wrong shape and in the wrong place. But this can change if we want it to.

Ten years ago, in his book Hope for the Church, Bob Jackson, a Church of England mission consultant, wrote that the decline of the Church was

ultimately caused neither by the irrelevance of Jesus, nor by the indifference of the community, but by the Church's failure to respond fast enough to an evolving culture, to a changing spiritual climate, and to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

The cultural climate is less friendly today, due in no small measure to the rise of such horrors as fundamentalist terrorism and sexual abuse scandals, but Jackson's diagnosis remains accurate, as does his remedy – 'the repentance of the Church' – as long as we remember that this means changing our ways, not feeling sorry for ourselves.

What Went Wrong?

So what has gone wrong? How strange is the Church, as far as ordinary non-churchgoing people are concerned, and does it matter? Is local church culture a kind of bubble, a world of its own, impervious to unbelievers? It certainly can be. The language of our songs, prayers and conversations can seem alien or just quaint. We 'march on the land', we 'claim the ground', we sing 'songs of Zion' and sprinkle every prayer with 'justs' and 'reallys' and we don’t notice that we do it.

More serious is what I call the whirlpool factor. The more you are around church, the more you are drawn into its maintenance. Its need for our money, time and talents pull us into another world. Maintaining church can become the central demand on our lives, rather than equipping us for lives of Christian discipleship. The centre pulls us in, but the key place for mission is on the periphery, on the interface with the world, where the needs of the community and the not-yet-Christians are. Most churches in the UK are not big, but take a large part of their core members' available time and energy to maintain. Something is wrong if running the church leaves us too tired for mission. We need to find ways to travel light. Even pastoral care can be overdone if there is an introverted culture. One of the best ways to keep a church healthy is to shape it so that most of its members are part of groups involved in mission. Relationships tend to be healthier if they are involved in serving others.

Research on why people have given up on church finds people whose Sunday experience did not make any difference to the main challenges of daily life. Many of us live stressed lives, working long hours. If church does not connect, it soon drops down the priority list – until for many it drops off the end of the list entirely. There is also a contrasting age profile; the average Church of England worshipper is 14 years older than the average in the population.

A Growing Distance

These and other factors contribute to a growing distance between the local church and large parts of British culture. But the scale of that distance is not just the Church's fault. British culture has been growing away from the Church under its own momentum. We are part of a multi-choice, habit-forming, individualistic culture. It is consumerist. Its role models are celebrities. Its purpose is 'my' (and 'my family's') happiness. Many of those who live this way have little or no knowledge of the Bible or the Christian faith – unless they watch Rev. It's the role of the local church to offer them something better.

There are different groups in society, of course. An increasing number who struggle to survive financially, and many others whose work consumes their whole life. Others who long for a better world, and protest and volunteer to bring it about. Few of these people see the Church as relevant to their longings, challenges or struggles. Nor do they have the slightest sense of an obligation to 'go to church'.

Much of the Church as it exists now was shaped by an era when, in theory at least, the population had a Christian world view. The Church was the centre of the community, ministers were respected, people came to the church for all the key rites of passage, and had a sense of obligation to attend worship. In other words, the Church just had to be there and people would come. When this faded, we worked on making our churches more attractive and welcoming and 'seeker-friendly', but still people had to come to us, largely on our terms. But now churches have to attend more carefully to the culture, and mission has to involve going to serve and planting churches where people are – culturally or geographically.

God’s Action Plan

What sort of Church is needed to engage with the world in which we now find ourselves? To answer that question we need first to ask what the Church is for. The Church is for the world. Yes, of course, the Church is for God, but that means being for God's purposes in the world. Mission lies at the heart of the Church's identity and calling. Wherever God has located his Church, however complicated and networked that locality might be, it is there for that complex community.

Jesus called God's action plan 'the kingdom of God'. Many denominations and Church streams use similar language when they try to unpack this. They say that the Church is to be a sign, instrument or agent, and a foretaste of the kingdom.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the local church is called to be an imperfect foretaste of the kingdom of God. People should be able to see among us what God has prepared for the future world. It will certainly be imperfect. It will be made up of people like us. But it will also demonstrate the continual grace and forgiveness of God and the possibility of a new start. The Church is part of the good news. If we want to share the good news locally we need to be good news – the best news our locality has got.

Language Barriers Five church words the real world struggles with: Sin – There's something uncomfortable about this word, no one outside of church uses it and it resounds with judgement. Born again – For a lot of people, this conjures up an image of a bizarre surgical procedure, rather than a story of redemption and a fresh start. Witness – A word that Christians tend to think of as a good thing, but most people instantly think of some kind of court case: 'We are all witnesses.' 'Really, what happened?' Worship – It just sounds a little bit too much like warship, or a complete mystery. Salvation – Let's be honest, most Christians struggle to understand this concept, so calling someone outside of the Church to 'salvation' is like inviting them to a dinner party in a foreign language. Jamie Cutteridge

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has described the Church as 'what happens when people encounter the risen Jesus and commit themselves to sustaining and deepening that encounter in their encounter with one another.' It is the presence of the risen Lord, the King, which guarantees that the local church can live as a sign, instrument and foretaste of his kingdom – a community which offers its locality a better way of life and a call to discipleship.

Jesus said that if any wanted to become his followers, let them 'deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me' (Mark 8.34). A church which is a foretaste of the kingdom cannot be primarily about 'me', or 'my' preferences and tastes. Most of the churches I know are determined by the religious tastes of their members. We are used to creating churches in which we are comfortable. We join and leave churches because they do or do not suit us. Sometimes we sit in church more like theatre critics than worshippers, and then pass judgement over coffee after the service. But a consumer church – for that is what it is – conformed to the dominant spirit of the age, will never fulfil God's plan in Christ.

Church Gathered, Church Scattered

Church is a community of disciples whose lives are interdependent. It is about 'us', not about 'me'. It is a mutually supportive community. Christianity is a shared life in God – all of life – 24/7. Its purpose is not to be a whirlpool, drawing people into another world, but a launch pad, equipping each member for whole life discipleship. Church gathered is for the sake of Church scattered. A better way of life requires real community, sustaining and deepening our encounter with Jesus through our encounter with one another.

Church, as God intends it, is a worshipping community. The purpose of worship is to bless the Lord; any blessing received from him is a secondary by-product. If I have been truly blessed in worship I will be less concerned about myself and more concerned to please and honour him. When I worship as a member of Church scattered, my personal pattern of devotion will be to help me grow in the conviction that 'apart from him' I can do nothing (John 15:5).

Does your church draw people into a whirlpool or launch them into the world? How much of the effort that goes into your church is about maintaining the status quo? Does the shape of your services solely cater to the needs of the people currently attending? What does your church practically do to equip its members to bring Jesus to the world around them? How separate are the lives of your congregation away from Sunday mornings? Jamie Cutteridge

Church, as God intends it, is a missional community. The prayer life of such a church would be centred on discernment. In what ways at this time is this church called to be sign, instrument and foretaste? How should the Body of Christ take visible shape there? Where is God already at work? Evangelism in this context must be disciple-making, and dare not concentrate on personal salvation and initial responses alone.

The 'right way up' logic of Christian discipleship is that it is in losing myself to follow Christ that I find myself. Personal fulfilment and identity are not found in selfish choices or a journey inward, but in relationship with Christ, the community of believers, and the communities which we are called to serve.

We need churches which are real communities, and which are instinctively missional. Leaders need to construct church life around the ministry by the Church in the world, rather than ministry in the Church that is largely confined to the existing members.

There remains the question of the location of churches. Many are in the wrong place culturally, and sometimes geographically. In Kent there are churches a mile or more outside the village. They are where the village used to be – before the Black Death. Our commitment has to be to reach people where they are now, not where they used to be. In every community we need to ask 'Who will never be reached and what will never change if we only do what we are doing now?' We will need to church plant and to plant fresh expressions of Church – planting congregations with a different style and ethos to those we already have – to reach many unreached groups and untouched contexts.

One of the primary purposes of Church gathered is to sustain us for Church scattered: the mission and ministry of our daily lives. Teaching, training and prayer need to be focused on the actual places, responsibilities and challenges which the members face from Monday to Saturday. Church on a Sunday can become the launch pad for being Church, possibly even planting Church, in the workplace, school, leisure centre and shopping centre. Pastors need to invest in their congregations' capacity to live distinctively Christian lives. Prayerful attention should also be given to the call of God to establish ministry among sections of the community where no Christian ministry is present or effective. The heart of God for the poor, powerless and invisible should always be at the heart of any local church.

Whole-Life Discipleship

A common thread through all of this is that of whole-life discipleship. It is the quality of personal and corporate Christian discipleship which can offer our nation hope. If we are to make the most of the launch pad and resist the whirlpool effect, the everyday lives of Christians and Christian communities remain the vital ingredient in the transformation and reevangelisation of our nation.

In the 350th Anniversary of the Book of Common Prayer, how does Common Worship continue to shape the life of the Church of England and the wider church? With the rise of fresh expressions of church, is it still relevant and important to have common structures for worship? How can the resources that exist in the tradition be used creatively to enable worship that forms Christian people and communities today in their common endeavour to be the people of God?

These were some of the questions tackled by Graham Cray as one of the keynote speakers at the Diocese of Liverpool Liturgy and Worship day conference on Saturday (25th February 2012). Sharing the platform, and the discussions, was Alison Milbank – Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Nottingham, and Priest Vicar of Southwell Minster.

The event – for Clergy, Readers and anyone interested in liturgy and worship – took place at Liverpool Hope University Conference Centre and Chapel.

You can read Graham Cray's address below or download it at the foot of the page.

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Common worship – common mission

I am delighted to be back in the Diocese of Liverpool with its strategic commitment to the mixed economy church and with its own distinctive River and Lake vocabulary. The mixed economy approach sees the whole church as missional and encourages mission through both inherited models of ministry and through the planting of fresh expressions of church. There are 1000 fresh expressions of church in the Church of England according to the 2010 returns. The vast majority of these are new congregations in parishes; a small minority are deanery or diocesan initiatives.

I approach this subject as a missiologist, not as a liturgist, although I have taught some liturgy. I wish to address common worship in relation to common mission.

1. A doctrinal foundation and a practical template

Worship and mission are inseparable. Together they are of the essence of the Church. Each is an outworking of our baptism into Christ. Each is a gift received in Christ, as in two parallel statements by James Torrance.

Worship is the gift of participating through the Spirit in the incarnate Son's communion with the Father.

The mission of the Church is the gift of participating through the Holy Spirit in the Son's mission from the Father to the world.

Each is a gift of participation in Christ by the Spirit. In worship by the Spirit we have Jesus' word 'Abba' on our lips (Romans 8.15, Galatians 4.6) and the risen Jesus commissioned his church to share in his mission, saying, 'As the Father has sent me so I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit' (John 20.21) But these are not two gifts but one gift, Christ by the Spirit in two dimensions. Neither can be addressed apart from its relation to the other. Each is shaped in relation to the other. Each provides evidence of the authenticity of the other.

Authentic worship leads to mission. Worship could rightly be called the sixth mark of mission, as we 'proclaim the Lord's death until he comes' (1 Corinthians 11.26). My colleague in York, David Watson often said

a praising community preaches to answer the questions raised by its praise.

To David Ford and Daniel Hardy,

Evangelism as the horizontal dimension of praise – the content of praise repeated and explained to others so that they can join the community of praise.

My neighbour in Kent, Robin Gill states that,

Worship makes strong demands upon us. It requires no less than we should go out into the world to love, serve and care.

To Archbishop William Temple,

The proper relation in thought between prayer and conduct is not that conduct is supremely important and prayer may help it, but that prayer is supremely important and conduct tests it.

Conduct in mission and other forms of discipleship 'tests' prayer and worship. The reverse also applies. Authentic mission wins worshippers. It involves initiation into the worshipping community, into the body of Christ. But there is a problem. Michael Vasey noted that

in much contemporary evangelism there is no mechanism or context in which the liturgical formation of the individual can take place. The result can be a profound alienation.

The transition, for example, between an Alpha or Emmaus course into the weekly worship of a congregation can be very difficult. Few today help new believers or enquirers to learn the language of faith and worship. A young man attended a baptism with the rest of his extended family.

He took part reverently and joined in as a member of the regular congregation guided him though the service. At the end she asked him, 'How much of that did you understand?' He replied, 'Not a word.'

Both worship and mission create questions of unity and diversity. How can each express the call of the gospel to people of diverse worldviews and culture, each of which comes to its fullness in Christ, and at the same time demonstrate the power of the Gospel to reconcile and to unite all in Christ in whom all fullness is to be found? In its life on earth the unity of the Church – its demonstration of the reconciliation through Christ, and the length of its reach, to all people with the good news of Christ, has to be held in a creative tension. Neither may exclude the other.

Therefore common worship has to be addressed within the template of creative tension between the demands of worship and mission and of unity and diversity.

Escape the tension and you avoid the issue. This involves local discernment within the diversity within unity of common worship and common mission. Is there also a creative tension between the cure of souls and the commitment to proclaiming the gospel afresh, and the use of services authorised or allowed by canon? Not necessarily, but I will return to this later.

Common worship raises the same creative challenge as catholicity. I love Miroslav Volf's saying,

All churches want to be catholic. Though each in their own way.

According to Paul Avis of the Council for Christian Unity,

Catholicity refers to the universal scope of the Church as a society instituted by God in which all sorts and conditions of humanity, all races, nations and cultures, can find a welcome and a home. Catholicity therefore suggests that the Church has the capacity to embrace diverse ways of believing worshipping, and that this diversity comes about through the 'incarnation' of Christian truth in many different cultural forms which it both critiques and affirms. The catholicity of the Church is actually a mandate for cultural hospitality.'

Note his concern for 'diverse ways of believing worshipping' and for 'cultural hospitality'.

Unless Common Worship means uniformity, rather than diversity in unity, it has to be shaped by the missionary encounter with culture.

2. Worship and culture

At its best, the fresh expressions movement is part of the Churches' current process of learning the practice of inculturation in the UK. There is no evading the encounter between worship and culture. The faith once delivered to the saints always takes a culturally specific form.

Christian faith is embodied faith; Christ takes flesh among those who respond to him in faith. But there is no generalized humanity; incarnation has always to be culture specific.

Andrew Walls

The eternal word only speaks dialect.

Pedro Casaldáliga

The York Statement on ' Liturgical Inculturation in the Anglican Communion' commends,

A willingness in worship to listen to culture, to incorporate what is good and to challenge what is alien to the truth of God. It has to make contact with the deep feelings of people. It can only be achieved through an open-ness to innovation and experimentation, an encouragement of local creativity, and a readiness to reflect critically at each stage of the process – a process which in principle is never ending.

To apply this to some aspects of culture within Britain today: We are a feelings-based society. A society which has turned inward. We have swung from the over-optimistic Enlightenment expectation of a rationally based provable truth that everyone could believe in, to a subjective scepticism that will only trust what we individually feel. Experience is the final authority and offers the only authenticity. This applies equally to spiritual experience. Spirituality in British culture is largely an experience to be had for its own sake, not as a pointer beyond itself. Acts of worship which do not take seriously this quest for experience, and address the loss of transcendence, or which seem merely rationalistic offering no sense of encounter with God will have little effect. The feeling culture also needs challenge. The consistent use of psalms, which, in daily prayer, rarely reflect the mood of the person saying the office, is an important resource.

In 1985 the Faith in the City report said,

A church which has a single highly intellectual style of doctrinal formulation, and which orders even its most contemporary forms of worship by reference to a closely printed book of over a thousand pages, can never hope to bridge the gulf which separates it from ordinary people.

Today, one in six people in the UK struggle with literacy. This means their literacy is below the level expected of an eleven year old:

Almost four million children in the UK do not own a book. The proportion of children without books is increasing. It is now one in three, compared with one in 10 in 2005.

National Literacy Trust

This is a challenge to the cure of souls.

We are a highly visual culture in which the screen is usurping the dominance of the book. A form of society is emerging which combines some aspects of oral pre-printing culture with post-printing electronic culture. The screen culture does continue to present linear rational argument to a degree, but the emphasis has moved to the image rather than the concept, to the small extract without context rather than the whole picture. The screen culture is unlike the old oral culture in that it does not demand the power of memory. It also continually reinforces a pluralist and relativist view of truth as people are daily bombarded with images and fragments from a wide variety of cultures, eras and world views. All this has a variety of consequences for the culture of worship. The logical sequential sermons some of us were trained to preach will be increasingly hard for people to follow. We need an emphasis on narrative, and the identification of appropriate traditional and contemporary symbols to interpret our words.

Simple memorised liturgy, which requires neither books nor screens, will be of great value. Comprehensible credal statements are essential, as a check against the pick and mix tendency of contemporary approaches to truth.

Many people today are deeply suspicious of power and of institutional authority (including that of the Church of England). Our culture lives with an extraordinary tension between a tendency to make everything look the same everywhere (look at our town centres) and a rejection of everything centrally imposed in favour of the local. The creation of an Anglican liturgy which carries the national Church's family likeness yet which not only allows but empowers considerable local choice, diversity and creativity is urgent.

The diversity and fragmentation of our culture presents Christian worship and mission with its most difficult task. The gospel is God's basis for human reconciliation (Ephesians 2.11ff) and provides in Christ the unity in which human diversity finds its true context (Ephesians 4.1ff). But this does not demand a uniform church in a diverse culture! The assumption that every member of a parish church should be at home at the 'main' Sunday service has rarely been sustained and risks the reduction of worship to a lowest common denominator that pleases no-one and dishonours God. Unity is essential, but the struggle to realize locally the unity which is given us in Christ, should not be focused entirely on worship. Other forms of community, from parties, to prayer gatherings to days of serving the local community together, can build relationships between those who worship in different styles. We are a community in Christ not just a regular worship gathering.

The York statement concluded,

Our lack of inculturation has fostered both the cultural alienation of some Christians, and an over-ready willingness of others to live in two cultures, one of their religion and the other of their everyday life.

There is a need both to make greater effort to teach new believers and enquirers our language, and to translate our language so that it engages with the everyday lives of those for whom we have the cure of souls. Catechesis and inculturation are equally necessary.

3. Common Worship today

Common Worship gives the church both coherence and a principled diversity.

The history of liturgical revision from Series 2 to Common Worship was not only about the necessity of more contemporary language, but substantially about bridging the considerable divide between Evangelicals and Anglo Catholics. The worship of many parishes had been as much about what they were making it clear they were not saying, as what was positively professed! Liturgical revision has given the Church of England a greater liturgical cohesion, but this was the fruit of a concern for internal unity, not so much for the call of mission.

In his key chapter for the Liturgical Commission's introductory volume 'The Renewal of Common Prayer – Unity and Diversity in Church of England Worship' in 1993 Michael Vasey introduced the principles by which the Commission now understood Common Worship or Common Prayer.

(There will always be those churches which see the liturgical text as the whole liturgy and those who see it as the framework which allows space for other elements.)

The new approach has three main components: An emphasis on the shape, flow and 'deep structures' of each rite, a common and evolving core of nationally shared material, and a wide range of seasonal and other material for contextual use. The common core would contain some items because of their doctrinal sensitivity – eucharistic prayers and baptismal vows for example – and other items by more popular assent – the collect for purity, the post communion collect etc. This is the situation today, and I believe it serves the mission of the Church well, supplemented, through Canon B5, by permission for local creativity in new contexts, which will allow the local work of inculturation which the varied context of mission increasingly requires.

But the use made of the diversity within unity, which the Church of England now encourages, needs to be informed by a clear understanding of the role of worship in formation and discipleship.

4. Worship and Formation

This section has to begin with a word of caution. The focus of worship is the glory and praise of Almighty God not the benefit that worshippers might gain from the exercise. The moment the worship of God becomes instrumental for some other primary purpose, it ceases to be the worship of God.

Paradoxically it is when we lay aside concern for ourselves that we benefit, as a side effect of the main purpose.

The principal object of liturgy is to worship God. Values that are generated in the process are a consequence of worship and not its object.

Robin Gill

But 'worship is a subversive act' – as Marva Dawn has said. It plays a vital part in Christian formation, precisely because it turns our concern away from ourselves. If in my section on liturgical inculturation I seemed too kind to contemporary culture, now let me turn to countercultural transformation. Too much Christian practice is shaped by an individualistic consumer ethos. Dave Walker has a cartoon which shows a line of people leaving a church because 'they don't like the way things are done here'. They are being replaced by another line who are arriving because they 'don't like the way things are done somewhere else'.

Christian faith and Christian worship is not about 'me'. It is about God rather than about me. It is about 'us' rather than about me, because Christianity is essentially corporate. The church is a community to which I belong, in Christ, not an event that I attend if it suits my tastes. And Church is not about 'me' or 'us'. It is about 'them' all those in the locality, be it neighbourhood or network, for whom Christ died. Newbigin wrote that, properly understood,

The character of the local church will not be determined primarily by the character, tastes, dispositions,etc., of its members, but by those of the society in which and for which it lives – seen in the light of God's redemptive purpose revealed in Jesus Christ for all.

But most local churches I know are shaped precisely by the character, tastes and dispositions of those who attend. Decisions about the practice of worship should not be made on this basis alone. The missionary calling influences the shape of worship.

This is where the deep structures, the shape of a rite, and simplicity with godly repetition help to form Christian character and a Christian worldview. The local church needs to be understood as a lifelong catechumenate, a learning community in the way of Jesus. Christian character grows through godly habit and requires corporate habits as well as personal spiritual disciplines.

Describing the centuries before Constantine, Alan Krieder says,

The church did not grow because its worship was attractive. The reason is simple: from the mid-first century onwards pagans were not admitted to Christian worship services. But worship, to which pagans were denied admission, was all important in the spread of the church. It was important not because it was attractive, but because its rites and practices… made differences in the lives and communities of the worshippers. It performed the function of re-forming those pagans who joined the church into Christians, into distinctive people who lived in a way that was recognisably in the tradition of Jesus Christ.

Contemporary culture values heritage but not rootedness, and has little hope for the future beyond a better today. Christian worship functions to establish a worldview and way of life which connects past, present and future through Christ. This is the function of the whole Biblical story, but above all the eucharist is:

…the appointed place at which the past, present and future of God's dealings with humanity in Christ come to clear, concrete and climatic expression.

Christopher Cocksworth

In the Eucharist we are celebrating the Lord's death in the past, but we do so in his risen presence and in anticipation of his return. Christians claim that what God has done in Christ restores both a rootedness in the past and a hope for the future. Both are necessary for any sense of meaning in life beyond the here and now:

…in order to have a sense of who we are, we have to have a notion of how we have become, and of where we are going.

Charles Taylor

Tradition is not a term taken seriously by those raised to seek continually after the latest fashionable experience, but

…to live in tradition is about living an authentic life in which our present is given coherence from our past and hope from our future.

Kenneth Stevenson

The regular practice of worship forms us in the Christian story and reshapes our choices and perspectives in its light. Pattern and repetition play an essential part.

If a local church is to be, not only a sign and instrument, but also a foretaste of the kingdom. Its worship will be a vital component in shaping its life as an imperfect anticipation of the future which Christ has secured. The danger of some liturgical traditions, which represent a sort of liturgical archaeology – if it was good enough for Hippolytus it's good enough for me and it's mandatory on everyone else – is that they totally lack this element of a prophetic anticipation and they only seem to point back. This is a fundamental failure in inculturation.

We have given too much attention to church as a passing on of the inheritance of the past and too little to church as an anticipation of God's future.

Mission-Shaped Church

Two things are required – one is worship which challenges and relativises the apparent inevitability and durability of contemporary Western ways of life, apart from Christ. The worship in the book of Revelation provided such 'prophetic counter images' (Richard Bauckham) pointing out the true reality and inevitable fall of the dominant Roman culture of its day. The second is a visible foretaste, anticipations, of a believable alternative future in Christ, experienced in worship, congregational life and mission in the locality.

I want to make it clear that neither the pedantic use of authorised texts, nor the deliberate hanging loose to them, guarantees this sort of transformation. But such transformation should be the focused, disciplined intention of every missionally minded parish priest or pioneer minister. The development of a mission focused new monasticism among some fresh expressions of church is a particularly promising development.

5. Developing worship in a fresh expression of church

Grace meets people where they are, but never veils the costly call of Christ. Inculturation and fresh expressions of church are not about 'church lite', but about 'deep church' (C.S. Lewis) at the right time, in the right place, at a cost – the comfort and convenience of those who plant them, because they are not for the planters but for the cure of souls.

Best practice in planting a fresh expression of church does not begin with a new gathering for worship. It begins with a period of prayerful discernment, takes initial form through practical service, the gospel in deeds before the gospel in words, and starts to form a community and explore discipleship, before establishing a pattern of public worship. That worship can then be shaped by both the traditions of the church and by local knowledge and new relationships.

Many fresh expressions of church begin at a catechumenate stage. They are potential congregations at the start, exploring faith. It is inappropriate to put credal words on their lips, until they have some understanding of them and consent to them. But it is appropriate to give then first tastes of Christian worship and introduce them to the Christian story. 34% of adults in England have had no significant engagement with any church in their lifetime and there is an increasing ignorance of the Bible and the story of God in Christ. Telling and applying the Christian story to everyday life is central. The ministry of the word often preparing the way for sacramental worship at a later stage.

In an increasingly post-Christian culture people do not automatically know how to worship. Many Britons have hardly ever used their capacity to express and explore transcendence, although it is seen in little shrines of flowers anywhere there is a tragic death. They need help to develop what Ann Morrisy calls 'apt liturgy'.

Sacramental life properly begins with rites of initiation. If the plan is to develop the fresh expression as a long term congregation then baptism, the renewal of baptismal vows and conformation are best located at the fresh expression's usual time and meeting place, not relocated elsewhere for convenience.

There is no church apart from baptism and eucharist. Some fresh expressions will introduce a eucharistic celebration at an early stage, other will recognise a need to create an understanding and hunger for the central act if Christian worship, that a matter of contextual discernment, but all sustainable Anglican fresh expressions will be eucharistic. It is incumbent on parish, deanery and diocese to ensue that this is not impeded by the unavailability of priests or Eucharistic ministers who have been appropriately trained.

The worship of a fresh expression should combine both patterned consistency – attention to the shape of a rite – and creativity. Its structure should not be different every week. Overall I am very impressed by the creative contextual mission and worship, which is developing across the church. Patterns of prayer, with the use, for example, of prayer stations, and interactive forms of the ministry of the word, show greater creativity and liturgical sense than in some traditional parish ministry. One aspect of this is well documented in Mary Gray-Reeves and Michael Perham's book 'The Hospitality of God' and in 'Curating Worship' by Jonny Baker. At the same time fresh expressions are a recent development and many leaders are new to the task, so supportive training should be available in each diocese. Help can also be found on the Fresh Expressions website at www.freshexpressions.org.uk.

Conclusion

To conclude I highlight:

• Common worship cannot be properly addressed apart from Common Mission. The importance of Common Worship, as it is now understood in the Church of England, is to give unity within a principled, mission focused, diversity.
• More attention needs to be given to both teaching and translating the language of faith and worship.
• Weekly worship should intentionally emphasize the formation of disciples for mission in everyday life and be careful that it does not inadvertently encourage withdrawal into a separate religious sphere.
• Parishes, deaneries and dioceses should recognize the missionary nature of fresh expressions of church, and the necessary stages of development in their worship.