Looking at this subject I thought about a word that in many Bible translations is translated as 'maturity', but in other translations is translated as 'perfection'. The Greek word in question is Τēλιος. Its basic meaning is 'the purpose for which a thing was designed'.

If a watch is τελιος it keeps perfect time; if a human being is τελιος, he, or she, is holy. But what does it mean for a church to be τελιος?

What is maturity?

What is the purpose for which the church was designed?

When is a fresh expression of church τελιος?

The purpose of fresh expressions is to reach people who are beyond the reach of inherited church. The reasoning is that we are in a missionary type of situation. So if we view the UK as a mission field and fresh expressions of church as the mission movement, how do we judge maturity?

Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn came up with the idea of the 'three selfs': self-government; self-support and self-propagation. A fourth self was added by David Bosch: self-theologising.

By that standard, a fresh expression of church is mature when it runs itself. It is self-governing. That doesn't mean when it has a fully functioning PCC or church council, complete with wardens or stewards or whatever. It's hard enough for inherited churches to find people to fill those positions. What it means is that there is a committee of sorts that is running the church and it has been recognised by the sending church as being grown up enough to make its own decisions – even if it makes a few wrong choices. The formerly unchurched are now running the fresh expression.

Self-supporting means that financially it can stand on its own feet. This doesn't lead to independence. It leads from dependence, through independence, to interdependence.

But it is mature when it is paying its own rent; providing its own resources, but maybe still receiving gifts from its parent(s).

And self-propagating! Have we got that far yet? Do we have fresh expressions of church starting even fresher expressions of church? 'The life cycle of all living things includes the creation of the next generation' (George Lings). Of course reproduction doesn't happen until a certain level of maturity has been achieved.

Then there is David Bosch's extra: self-theologising. We don't create our own doctrines, but we do need to become contextual theologians – interpreting what God is doing in our context and applying ourselves to that.

Steven Croft, in the early days, talked about going from 'fresh' to 'stale' expressions. I have come up with an alternative. In East Sussex there is a little village with its own Anglican church. The village is called Ripe and the church is called 'Ripe Church'.

I like to think in terms of τελιος. What does it mean for a fresh expression of church to fulfil its purpose?

Does it mean settling down to conformity?

When we have enough people to call ourselves 'proper' church is that when we are mature?

Or are we mature when we have achieved the three selfs? We can sustain ourselves, but we are still maintaining our purpose of reaching people who are beyond the reach of inherited church.

I think there is no one answer to what maturity looks like, but I don't think it is achieved by giving up the purpose for which the fresh expression was intended.

Maturity in fresh expressions of church means that we are doing what we set out to do and we are doing it better. In the process we have become self-governing, self-supporting, self-theologising and, hopefully, self-propagating.

Martin is minister of The Haven Church, Eastbourne. Haven, which he helped to plant in 2002 for unchurched young adults, meets at The Haven School in the town's Sovereign Harbour. It is a Methodist/Church of England Local Ecumenical Partnership.

Encounters on the Edge (no. 42: Across a Threshold)

I was struck by the roles played across the whole Threshold history by doctors. Since Paul White's books in the Jungle Doctor series, we have been used to the pivotal role of the overseas medical missionary.

Up till now, I have also imagined that St Paul made tents because he needed to eat. I now wonder if I have misunderstood all this.

Could it be that Paul made tents because it put him in the market place? He met people in a neutral space but also produced something of value to them.

In today's cross-cultural mission at home, could the tent makers of tomorrow be doctors and nurses, solicitors offering legal aid, hairdressers, coffee-shop staff even plumbers and electricians – anyone who meets people in a neutral environment and offers something of value to them, including a listening ear in an environment of trust?

If they were also church planters and leaders, it would mean the forms of church grown would have to be simple and with the work shared across the people of God because they would not have the time or calling to be full-time pastors.

Is this a possible vision for the new pioneer ministers?

George Lings is the director of The Sheffield Centre, Church Army's Research Unit. He specialises in church planting and fresh expressions, and Anglican ecclesiology. He writes the quarterly publication, Encounters on the Edge, which can be ordered here.

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

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.

Another issue of ecclesial identity is provoked because the lay-led church is unhelpfully dependent on outside provision of clergy to give them communion. At worst, this is a return to Mass Priests. At best, it is a ceaseless reminder that such a congregation is in permanent dependency on those outside its life and is thereby somehow second class.

If Anglicans deem having a sacramental life essential to ecclesial life through dominical warrant, it is then tiresome, and probably damaging, that such communities are denied the fullness of this dimension. By this, they are made more fragile. Such scenarios have similarities to the nineteenth century overseas problems that bedevilled those works that were 'missions' but denied the status of 'churches'. They had problems of dependence on the professional missionary and on finally becoming designated churches promptly lost most missional desire or impact. Such patterns are not to be repeated.

In practice, members of both network churches in Deal and Sandwich spoke with restrained frustration at how difficult getting suitable 'cover' was and how it made them feel like 'the poor relation'. Understandably, those of a free church persuasion found this doubly irksome. They had no conviction that this priestly requirement was necessary and served only to demonstrate to them the ecclesial imperialism of Anglicanism.

Eucharistic Presidency is an irenic and scholarly read of the Anglican Bishops' last published view of the topic and makes a good case that what is at issue is the catholicity of the church. However, this now exists in tension with the bottom up creation of churches who seek a fullness (or second century Ignatian catholicity) of their life and rightly sense their local oneness is impaired by this arrangement of a near stranger heading up the family meal.

There is also the vexing issue of whether the church is better defined by its overall ministerial arrangements or its localised congregational life. If the number of lay-led fresh expressions grows, the issue will grow sharper.

George Lings is the director of The Sheffield Centre, Church Army's Research Unit. He specialises in church planting and fresh expressions, and Anglican ecclesiology. He writes the quarterly publication, Encounters on the Edge, which can be ordered here.

There is a Share blog on a similar theme here. Share has offered some practical tips on the subject here - go to the brown heading, about halfway down the page, called 'What about the sacraments?'

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