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've always been a keen walker, enjoying hiking, rambling, birdwatching and prayer-walking. I'm sure I never thought when I was a child growing up in Bury as I made my way over Turton, Holcombe Hill and Knowle Moor (now home to a forest of wind turbines) that it might be possible to enjoy a pastime I love - and do church at the same time. There already are organisations for Christian walkers, but here's an idea with a difference – not 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 take place on the move.
We are living through a period of great social upheaval where the church is being asked to engage with the government's Big Society initiative as one of the parts of the community best placed to bring this vision to fruition. We will leave aside the rights and wrongs of this strategy for now. Instead I want to reflect on what training and development should be provided by institutions preparing people for public ministry - and especially ministry in the context of fresh expressions.
Here in South Australia as a Uniting Church, we've had a fair few overseas folk talk to us about fresh expressions and new forms of church. It's one thing to hear from international visitors; it's another to have a genuinely local conversation. So the fresh expressions task force organised 'Putting legs on the local fresh expressions of church' as an attempt to gather around an ongoing local conversation. The event was to some extent based around UK Fresh Expressions vision days but with a specific South Australian flavour.
