Category: Graham Cray

Graham Cray explores the place of discernment in a fresh expression of church.

At the heart of the fresh expressions' praxis lies discernment – following the missionary Spirit: seeing what God is doing and joining in etc. However, that is easier to do when a fresh expression is being established, its shape and focus not yet clear, than when it has settled into a routine.

Routine is good, because fresh expressions of church need contextually appropriate patterns of worship and community life. Pattern gives people a security and helpful repetition. It frees us to attend to God and to one another because we are not wondering what on earth is going to happen next BUT routine can also blind us to the need for change. My favourite Australian road sign reads, 'Choose your rut carefully. You will be in it for the next 200 miles'.

Sometimes, routine is merely the way things have developed and it needs regular checks against the original vision. It is only too easy to start out missional, and end up with all the energies being taken up with the pastoral care of those who have been drawn in by the first phase of mission. The very success of the mission creates a context where the missional focus is crowded out, or a key component of the original vision is overlooked.

For example, The Point in Burgess Hill was planted in 2004. They report,

In the early days it was very much 'café church' and low key in its style, focusing mainly on families and young children. What happened over the years was that a lot of what we were seen to be doing focused on a Sunday morning gathering with modern, contemporary worship. The result was as more and more people came, we struggled to maintain our original vision to reach the unchurched, and the majority of those we were reaching were 'de-churched' and some transferring from other churches.

This led to a new attentiveness to the Spirit through a review and a congregational vision process, out of which 'Church in a Pub' has been birthed. A regular health check against the founding vision is always worthwhile.

But vision bearers also need to be open to change because some fresh expressions are seasonal. They flourish during a particular time of opportunity and then need to transition – unless it is time for honourable closure because the task has been completed.

Sometimes transitions are natural developments. In Bradford, Sorted 1 began as a youth ministry but now is a young adult fresh expression – they grow up! Sorted 2 is based in a different school while Sorted 3 has been established in the original secondary school in order to maintain the vision for young people and reach the next cohort.

Change can also come because God opens up something new. Adrian McCartney of Boring Wells in Belfast puts it this way:

One of our Wells [network of mission shaped faith communities] was in a little commuter village called Moneyrea. We'd been there seven or eight years and it had grown and developed in a way but wasn't making the impact in the local community that we had hoped for.

What happened next? Adrian explained,

One day someone gave us a prophetic word, saying, 'I think God is telling us to put the wheels back on the wagons' so we had had a feeling of wanting to do some inner city work as well. We were looking for an opportunity and when we approached the Rector of what was an enormous inner city parish (three parishes had been brought together); he – without any hesitation at all – offered us the use of the buildings.

God is the God of surprises. The missionary Spirit tends to act first and invite us to follow afterwards! Develop patterns, but don't be blinded by doing the same thing time and time again. Discernment always trumps routine.

+Graham Cray

Graham Cray explores the place of worship in a fresh expressions journey.

The recommended best practice for those planting a fresh expression, which we call a fresh expressions journey, recommends that the last phase, not the first, is to establish a regular, public act of worship. Otherwise the danger is that the planting team creates the service they hope the people they want to engage with will like, rather than patiently build relationships and explore discipleship as the process for learning what sort of gathering for worship is appropriate to the members and their context.

The temptation is also to take a complete model of a fresh expression of the shelf, and so bypass the whole process of prayerful discernment, which is the foundation for any contextual mission.

But this doesn't mean that the planting team cannot have a worship life of its own. On the contrary, it is vital that it does. To pray and worship together is vital for team formation. Initially the planting team will be part of two churches or congregations: the one sending them and the embryo one they are hoping to plant. As the process develops they need to be released to focus fully on the new, while continuing to have the support and prayer backing of the sending congregation.

The fresh expressions journey starts with a process of discernment and regular meeting to worship can be the time when all of the insights gathered in the listening exercise – whether conversations with doorkeepers or history keepers in the community, new census data or impressions received while prayer walking, can be brought together and made a matter of focused prayer. This may involve more than a regular gathering. It may be that the team develops a simple rhythm of life, or identifies some personal spiritual disciplines which the whole team commit to for a time. Much will depend on size. Typical teams range from three to twelve members, so this is more a cell worshipping than a congregation.

Worship is more than a meeting, just as a fresh expression is more than a worship event. It is a community of disciples and potential disciples. Worship focuses us on God and God's plans, rather than our own or the task in hand and new perspectives can emerge when we refocus to give God his proper place as the object of our worship and the leader of our mission team.

But there is a warning to note. The team's pattern of worship will not necessarily be a guide to the fresh expression's pattern of worship, once it has been established. Initially the team will worship in the way most suited to their task, but their task is to plant a fresh expression of church whose worship is most suited to those being drawn to faith through it. Be aware of the danger of establishing a pattern and just assuming that it is automatically transferable. This is partly a matter of being appropriate to culture and context, but also a straightforward matter of size. The average size of a Church of England fresh expression is 44. What works for a team of six can't simply be reproduced for forty, unless you are using a cell based model.

The creation of an appropriate form and culture of worship in a fresh expression is just as much a matter of discernment as the earlier stages of the process. The team will bring their experience and understanding of worship to the task, whether they are aware of it or not, but they should not impose it or their initial pattern on those who join them. Instead they need the skill to shape worship with and for others.

+Graham Cray