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
I believe that if the Church of England is going to survive and if God has a plan to reach everyone in our communities, then the local parish church is going to have to become missional. It will need to stop its focus on connecting the unchurched to worship services (however relevant they are) and start providing opportunities for the unchurched to join in with the church in the ongoing mission of God.
Leaders in fresh expressions need to be 'Picassos' - able to perceive multiple perspectives on the issue at hand, and draw them together into a picture that makes sense. This doesn't mean leaders will be abandoning their own standpoint, aiming for some muddy middle ground. Leaders need to have their roots down into their own perspective, and their own spiritual tradition. They need to be secure in their own Christian roots. Yet, at the same time, they need to perceive the validity of the viewpoint of the other, who, in all probability, is a newcomer to all things Christian, or is perhaps a returner coming with baggage from previous, perhaps unhealed, church experience.
I've been going to church for as long as I can remember (I'm 35), and I now work as Children and Families Worker with Altrincham Methodist Circuit, so church has been, and is, a large part of my life. However, I've never really felt that traditional church services met my need to question things and look beyond what other people told me. I first went to Café Sundae - held at Timperley Methodist Church - to support the Café's volunteer leader, Will Sudworth. I knew it was aimed at teenagers and assumed it would be painfully 'cool' and prepared myself for a long night. I couldn't have been more surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I loved the informal set up, and any church service where you can eat sweets and drink milkshakes gets my vote.
Christendom has shaped 'the way we do things round here' for a long time, but we know it is on the wane as the prevailing culture. For the church, the change of religious and social contexts presents far reaching implications. I am not sure that a fresh expression of church 'here' and a new service 'there' are enough.
