However, I continue to reflect on my experience of Sanctus1 and one area that I've been thinking about is provisionality. I was recently told that the city centre residential community of Manchester has an annual people turnover of 30% - almost the entire community changes in a three year period. This was something that I observed during my time with Sanctus1 - approximately every two years 50% of the community would change. People who had been part of the community for more than four years were a rarity.

This transience created a fragility as people moved in and moved out. New people bring new energy and new life, but losing more established people all the time is draining on established people within the community. It is hard when you build community with one group and then that community disappears around you and a new one forms. Comparisons are always made with what the previous community was like and memory can be rather utopian.

A further reflection is how draining it can be for people who have been part of the community for a number of years, when they are dealing with the same questions that they have dealt with a few years earlier. Questions of identity, faith, purpose, belonging, etc, that they wrestled with before are revisited. This is an important process for the current community, but slightly frustrating for those who have been part of the community for a number of years.

It is also often the case that those who have been established for a number of years carry a lot of the responsibility of the community. When they do not see this level of commitment being shared by others, who are relatively new to the community, frustration can occur.

These are some of the challenges of church in a transient culture. I think that one answer is to develop a corporate patterning of spiritual life - patterns that allow for the instability of a transient context and church. I don't think that we got this right in Sanctus1. It's the tension of catering to the new people, the mission field, whilst nurturing patterns of spirituality that sustain those who are more established.

Ben Edson is the Diocese of Manchester's Fresh Expressions Missioner. He blogs here.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Karen Carter. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Church Army, Fresh Expressions or any of its partners.

It is a possibility that needs much serious consideration and assessment of what could be done in the areas in which this can be a real danger. However, at one level a response could be that this is the inevitable outcome of an "edge movement" that is effective and fruitful as it impacts and influences the centre ... the challenge being for new edge movements to arise that continually take us further and that in turn challenge the centre to further needed adaptation and flexibility.

We seem to remember that George Lings has long suggested that renewal movements can be likened to his beloved railways. A branch line being like a pioneering movement that starts from but initially is clearly separate and alongside the mainline (institutional centre), but if the traffic on it builds up, subsequently the mainline begins to divert and link to the branch line. Then he has always suggested that the need will be for another branch line. And this is probably just an analogy to illustrate the mechanism by which we observe the truth that Luther proclaimed that the church reforms herself and always is reforming (Ecclesia reformanda e semper reformanda est). 

At another level there may be the question as to whether some pioneers are particularly motivated by being "out there, unrecognised, breaking new ground that most in the mainstream haven't woken up to". This could mean that whilst they are worried and feel motivated to "move further out" ... the fact that their efforts so far have played a part in how God is stimulating thousands of churches to begin to think beyond their fringe and initiate engagement with non-churched families, de-churched seekers, the homeless, addicts, dwellers in deprived urban estates etc. and that the institution is encouraging this and adapting structures accordingly, has to be fantastically good news - even if it looks domesticated to some.

Lastly I note the many responses to Ben's original piece. There is much important stuff there too. But I confess a slight disquiet that the focus seems to have shifted from an original concern about the domestication of a movement of radical mission to reach broken humanity and transform dysfunctional society, to a primary concern about me and who I am and whether the institution and its structures suits or fits me. I'm personally much less worried about that, sensing that we can mostly find ways around the mismatches in order to follow God's calling to radical mission, if we are flexible and set ourselves to it.

Bob and Mary Hopkins pioneered Anglican Church Planting Initiatives which they continue to lead. Alongside this, they are part-time members of the Archbishop's Fresh Expressions Team led by Graham Cray. They are also working in partnership with CMS for a mission movement.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Beth Keith.

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.