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
The suburb of Rowley, in Christchurch, New Zealand, has always had its challenges, but that did not stop us taking our bus ministry there three years ago. In fact, it was because of the challenges that we went. Since then we have found that families who are struggling - whether financially or in other ways - seem to be much more open and responsive to us and our message.
I sometimes wonder whether I am a complete fraud as an Ordained Pioneer Minister in the Church of England! It is true that when I read descriptions of the characteristics of a pioneer, I seem to fit the bill quite well. Yes, I love God and I long with every fibre of my being to take the message of God's saving love to the people whom s/he loves and in whom s/he delights, whether they already know about God or not.
Would you like to walk along a stunning coastline with the sun warming your every sense and clean blue water to enjoy? Imagine this scene and then picture yourself coming across a fresh expression of church in this most relaxed and beautiful of settings. Summer nights' sacred space is an initiative to get out and meet people where they are - and in our locality of Scarborough and Filey, that means the beach. Revd Sam Foster, fresh expressions pioneer minister for the CofE's Scarborough Deanery, piloted this initiative last year and we're now in full swing for the 2010 summer season.
Well, we may not be in New York, but encountering God can seem like going on a fast, adrenalin-pumped skate journey wherever you are - whether that's the Big Apple, or in my case north Bradford, where young people from Sorted meet three nights a week.
In spring 2008 I had my first experience of the Fresh Expressions movement when I travelled from Canada to London to meet Ian Mobsby and Tom Gillum. That experience not only changed the way I think about church, it also changed my life. I still remember with great clarity my times of worship with the Moot and St Jude's communities. It was worship in a way I had never known; so different from the formality, stuffiness and the 'clubishness' that we often call traditional church. Instead I found warm and caring communities trying to reach people in new and different ways – but then I realised that it was exactly what Jesus had done and what he continues to encourage us to do as we journey with him.
