The Guide contains how-to-do-it advice on starting, developing and sustaining fresh expressions of church based on shared experiences.
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The Guide contains how-to-do-it advice on starting, developing and sustaining fresh expressions of church based on shared experiences.
More about The Guide
Posted by Andrew Wooding on 20 July 2009
The rhetoric of this second phase of Fresh Expressions seems to place a large focus on embedding fresh expressions in the ordinary life of the traditional church. Fresh Expressions, as an institution, is moving towards the centre. My personal vocation has always been to the edges, and hence I personally react against this move towards the centre. It may be that the move towards the centre is correct for Fresh Expressions, but my question is whether this centripetal movement is missional suicide for fresh expressions.
When I began ministry eight years ago, there was no Mission-shaped Church report, no Fresh Expressions, no mixed economy, no Ordained Pioneer Ministers, no Bishops' Mission Orders; it was an exciting time as we broke boundaries and defined church alongside the traditional pattern. In the past five years all these areas have been developed; many resources have been poured into them as the edges have been pulled towards the institutional centre. The edge is now neatly defined by its relationship to the centre rather than by those outside the church. Fresh Expressions is mainstream.
For many spiritual searchers and post-modern pilgrims, the mainstream nature of Fresh Expressions is deeply problematic. Many questions will be asked such as: 'Do I want to be part of a mainstream, hierarchical institution?' If the answer is no, then we will have failed in this part of the missional task and so, whilst I recognise the importance of the relationship to centre, it seems that we need to nurture the new emerging edges rather than the edges defined by the centre.
Bio: Ben Edson established Sanctus1, a fresh expression of church in Manchester city centre, in 2001. He blogs here.
If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Beth Keith.
Comments
Do we need a new model?
Posted by Pam Smith on 23 July 2009 - 11:09
I'm getting really fascinated by all the spatial images here of edges rolling up and centres moving to the edge. And also my brain is starting to hurt a bit!
I wonder if the image itself is completely accurate - with FX on the ends of spokes coming out from a central wheel. Whereas what's happening is perhaps more messy, with overlapping and networking between groups and between fresh expressions and established church.
From the inherited church perspective, perhaps being at the centre can feel more like a scene in a cowboy film where the wagons are pulled into a protective circle to keep the attackers out?
And from the 'edgy' perspective, maybe it can sometimes feel that we are being pursued by 'the centre' which wishes to engulf us - a bit like the threatening bubble in The Prisoner?
I do know of areas where fresh expressions are being integrated in a positive way into the local church scene, but I also observe that adverts in the Church Times for people to do full vicars jobs AND set up/lead Fresh Expressions are also on the rise - which must express a profound misunderstanding of what FX is meant to be about.
I do think it's worth trying to work this out though.
embeding may not mean dumbing down
Posted by Steve Hollinghurst on 22 July 2009 - 21:12
Ben
firstly always with edgy and to the edge. But i think you may ahve miss-read the Fresh Expressions agenda. everything i hear coming from that camp tells me the agenda of 'embeding in the centre' is nto at all abotu moving to the centre, it's about ensuring the radical edgy values of Mission Shaped Church are re-enforced, recognizing that the fast expansion of Fresh Expressions has lead to a lot of folks perhaps embracing it enthusiastically but not really understanding it. the next phase is about embedding that understanding, it is in fact about returning the church to the edge and embedding the edgy into Fresh Expressions; about trying to get the centre to the edge of you like and stop the dumbing down process.
Posted by Ben Edson on 22 July 2009 - 21:44
'Radical edgy values of msc' from an Anglican perspective maybe it is radical and edgy but I think that we can be a bit more radically and edgy than MSC!! It all still feels rather safe to me...but maybe I need to join the free church ;-).
We need to get more radical, I'm hopeful that you're hopeful! I am hopeful too, I think there are some fantastic people in FE but think that we can't be complacent...
Maintaining sharpness
Posted by Mark CE on 22 July 2009 - 04:23
Once you start nurturing an edge, if your nurture of it is successful, it will 1. stop being an edge and 2. start seeking new edges to nurture.
Any particular new church (or fresh expression if you will), whatever its shape, whatever its values, will one day not be new. Will one day lose the inspirational catalyst-people who inititated it. When that day comes, how is the initial impetus, the "call to the edges" of the founding community to be maintained, fostered, even increased, in the missional life of the community of people who have gathered into that shape, formed around those values?
Edges will always be defined by a centre. The very fact of being called towards the edges presupposes that you see yourself as "inside" something with a "centre" and with "edges" that you can be called towards.
Where we do have a problem is if we examine our centre and find it's not God the Trinity.
Staying on the edge
Posted by Jenny McIntosh on 21 July 2009 - 22:16
One question to ask is "has the centre been at all changed or influenced by the activity at the edges?" Because that could mean that the edge has been accepted now as mainstream which is good as it means that something core has changed. If only!
However, my guess is that it hasn't because the power of the centre always always pulls the edges back into itself. The end result it wants is for everything to be a part of it and bums on seats.
Either way, the edge just has to go outside of where it was before and keep going or move out altogether. It is a bit of a tricky place to be.
Ordained and on the edges?
Posted by Andrew Wooding on 21 July 2009 - 16:09
Hi Ben,
I can't help asking something ... hope you don't mind!
I also feel called to the edges and beyond, which is why I am more than happy being lay. I was cool with my Church Army commissioning service, but was deeply uncomfortable with the pomp and ceremony of the admitting service at the cathedral. One reason I could never get ordained is I'm not an institutional person and I (personally) would feel that I was selling my soul to one denomination and to an organised structure. At the same time, I rejoice that my wife is getting ordained next year as that is exactly what she wants and feels called to do.
So, bearing in mind what you're written on Share ... which I have a lot of sympathy for ... how do you feel your recent ordination (being officially recognised as a priest in an institutional church) fits in with your wanting to be on the edges?
And is it easier being on the edges as a lay person or an ordained person?
Posted by Ben Edson on 22 July 2009 - 07:47
Is easier being on the edges as a lay person or an ordained person? I was ordained last year after working for the diocese as a lay person for 7 years and so if i feel called to the edges why get ordained?
For me it is about how I am resourced and sustained spiritually to be on the edge and this needs to come from a firm rootedness in the centre. Personally, without this sense of rootedness then I could loose touch with the edge as I am no longer in touch with the centre.
Whilst lay my role was a confusing one, people saw me as ordained but my 'orders' did not recognize that. This meant that my role in relation to the centre was unclear and hence I was not fully released to be on the edges. It may sounds a bit paradoxical but since getting ordained my sense of vocation to those outside the church has got stronger!
I think that this is where we need to review our understanding of what getting ordained is about and my first ordination was to be a deacon and this is very much about reaching those outside of church, this remains my primary vocation.
Posted by Pam Smith on 22 July 2009 - 09:04
That makes sense to me Ben.
I agree with you that it's really about a continued sense of calling to the edges. When I first experienced what I thought was a vocation (in 1992), it came with the word 'threshold' which didn't make a lot of sense to me - or to the DDO who wouldn't send me to a conference since he saw priesthood and being a vicar as pretty much the same thing.
I then went to work in prison as a lay minister and I had the same experience of people assuming I was ordained - and while there were also things that I couldn't do for them as a lay person which I longed to do, such as celebrate communion, this wasn't the central issue - the central issue was as you express it, my own relationship to the centre and therefore *their* relationship to it.
Funnily enough I also feel very strongly about the 'continuing deacon' part of my ministry. I despair when people - including priests - talk about people who don't feel called to be priests as 'permanent deacons'. Everyone who is ordained deacon is a permanent deacon!
Andrew, I'm not sure that your question
"is it easier being on the edges as a lay person or an ordained person?"
really maps onto my experience - firstly because nothing about my relationship with the institutional church has ever been easy, and secondly I really didn't choose to be ordained - when I felt I had to go back and re-engage with the selection process (in 2001) I fought it for six months before I said yes - after some fairly directive advice from my lead chaplain who said I 'didn't have the right' to withhold my sense of calling from the church since it was for the church not my personal property!
Edgy and marginal
Posted by Pam Smith on 20 July 2009 - 15:43
I wonder if those at the centre are being inclusive rather than oppressive?
People who are called to the edges and margins may by nature be equipped to deal with it - edgy and marginal in fact - but maybe those at the centre project how they would feel in that position, and seek to bring people into their own comfort zone because they can't imagine anyone being comfortable anywhere else?
I know a very experienced church planter who was delighted to be asked onto a core Diocesan committee and said he was going onto it with the intention of shaking things up.
I said - not entirely jokingly - that he would 'go native' very quickly and spend more time on committees than he did on mission - just like most vicars have to. I think whoever had asked him onto the committee did it with the best of motives - to listen to what was going on at the edges but maybe it would just be good if they could come to the edges to listen rather than ask people to come to them.
Or maybe this is just another version of the 'indrag' model?