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Fresh expressions need not go it alone. This is especially good news for solo pioneers who start without a team, for a couple of friends who feel daunted by their God-given vision, for a church planting team that thinks it has a mountain to climb and for anyone else who wonders whether their dream for a fresh expression is achievable.

God has created an inter-dependent universe. Each bit of creation depends on other parts - just think of the food chain. This inter-dependence is particularly true of humanity. Individuals rely on other people for their sustenance and well-being. Paul used the body as a picture of inter-dependence within the church.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that fruitful fresh expressions depend on the support of others. A vital part of preparing for a fresh expression is to arrange the required support. 'Organising support' covers support for the venture, while 'Nurturing the team' includes support for those who lead the venture, though the two overlap.

Support for the venture may come from:

• prayer partners;
• permission givers;
• people you are called to serve;
• the public.

Prayer partners are crucial and easily forgotten. Of course, Christians at the heart of the fresh expression will be praying for it, but their prayers can be helpfully supported by other people.

Involving a wider circle of prayer will:

• strengthen the spiritual heart of the venture. Prayer played a key role in Jesus' ministry and in the growth of the early church (see for example Acts 1.14, 2.42, 4.24ff, 8.15, 10.9, 12.5, 13.3, 14.23, 16.25, 20.36, 21.5, 28.8).
• open more channels for God's guidance. There will be more people to pass on an insight or some wisdom gained through prayer.
• expand the potential for practical support. The more people praying for specific help, for example, the more people there may be who know someone who can provide that help.
• assist the core Christians to remain connected to the wider church. After all, believers are baptised into the whole body of Christ.

Prayer partners may be drawn from, for instance:

• a circle of Christian friends;
• the church where you worship;
• individuals with a special call to pray;
• a religious order nearby.

You may want to consider how you will keep in touch with your prayer partners - through email and occasional meetings, for instance. How often will you meet?

Permission givers play a key role in opening doors and allowing the venture to flourish. Depending on the circumstances, they may include, for example:

• the leaders of your local church;
• authorities within the denomination;
• the management of the community centre where you plan to meet;
• managers in the workplace (if you plan a fresh expression in that context);
• funding bodies (who give permission by making finance available).

As you develop good relationships with your permission givers, you may want to pay special attention to keeping them up to date with what you are doing and to thanking them, perhaps in a practical way, for their support.

In a church context,  it will be especially important to keep the leadership in touch with your thinking during the preparation phase. Your own ideas may evolve rapidly, leaving others behind. Leaders may start to withhold support if your thinking is too far ahead of theirs. How well are you keeping your leaders informed?

The relationship between the fresh expression and its 'home' church may be something you want to raise with leaders of your local church or denomination. As the venture develops and hopefully becomes fruitful:

• how will it be governed? In a Church of England context, will a church plant, for instance, remain accountable to the PCC, or will it become more autonomous with its own DCC, or will it end up fully independent, with normal links to diocesan structures?
• what will be the financial expectations? If the venture is being funded by the parent church or denomination, for how long will that support last? Will continued funding depend on the project meeting certain criteria? If so, what will they be? Who will decide whether they have been met?
• how will progress be reviewed? By whom? How often? Will any criteria be used?
• how will leaders be appointed and for how long? Who will make the initial appointment (if the leader is not in place)? Will the appointment be for a fixed period only or will there be an option to extend? If the latter, how will the decision be taken? Who will be involved in appointing the next person?
• how will holy communion be celebrated? This will be a particular issue in denominations where only ordained priests (or ministers) are allowed to preside. You may want to read The UP dimension of church.

These questions may not be easy to answer in advance. Much may depend on how the fresh expression develops. But it will be important to raise them and to decide how they will be taken forward when the need arises. You might ask, for example:

• When would it be sensible to return to these questions - after a specified period of time, or when the venture has reached a certain stage in its development?
• Who will initiate the discussions?
• Who will be involved in them?

Tas Valley Cell Church provides an example of how seven recently-formed cells in a rural area managed their relationship with the wider church.

Financial support needs to be addressed with particular care, especially when a full-time post is being created. A lot will be at stake.

Considerable sums of money may be involved when the church generally is strapped for cash. The person appointed (and perhaps their family) may have to uproot their home and move to a new part of the country.

People journeying into God's love may be bruised and become disillusioned if their journey is disrupted because the finances of the fresh expression were poorly thought out at the start.

Realism is imperative. You might want to ask, for instance:

• Do we expect the venture to become self-financing? If so, can we envisage the people the project is likely to serve coming up with the necessary funds?
• How long will it take for the venture to become self-financing? A pioneer who is new to the area and does not have a team in support will take longer to get established than someone with a team, which has many contacts among the people they are called to serve.

• Are we confident about alternative sources of finance? This is an important question if initial funding is for a limited period and the venture is unlikely to be financially independent by the end.

Addressing these questions may encourage you to opt for a more gradual approach. See Sustaining a fresh expression.

If you plan to jump parish boundaries or be non-geographic (in a church of England context), a new Code of Practice for the Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure came into effect in 2008. The Measure and Code will make it easier to establish a fresh expression in a parish, even if this is not welcomed by the incumbent and PCC. Between them, the Measure and Code:

• accept the need to recognise new Christian communities alongside and in partnership with parishes;
• create a new device, the Bishop's Mission Order (BMO). The Bishop can use a BMO to establish a new mission initiative that fosters or develops a form of Christian community;
• allow any person or group to request the bishop to establish a mission initiative, or the bishop himself may decide to promote one;
• provide a means of approving a BMO;
• set out best practice for governance, ministry, worship and oversight in fresh expressions of church.

Further details can be found here.

Accountability will inevitably be raised during discussions about the relationship of a fresh expression to the wider church. 'Low control, high accountability' is probably the most healthy approach, reflecting the following principles:

• Trust. The Father trusted his Son Jesus to advance the kingdom, the Son trusted his disciples to take forward his work after the ascension, the apostles trusted St Paul with his mission to the Gentiles, and St Paul trusted the Spirit and the leaders he appointed to look after his new churches. He did not retain tight control.

  Might trust be a form of grace? Should those in authority show a willingness to trust fresh expressions before discussing how to hold them to account?

• Accountability. It is hard to trust people if they don't have a sense of being accountable. Jesus made himself accountable to his Father, the apostles were accountable to God, St Paul felt accountable to the leaders of the church in Jerusalem and he held the leaders of the churches he planted to account.

  Instigators of fresh expressions should make themselves accountable to the wider church just as Paul did. Trust and accountability are two sides of the same coin.

• Mutuality. Accountability should be two way. Pioneers, for example, should hold their local church, circuit or denomination to account for providing appropriate forms of training and other support. Pioneers in turn should be held to account for their actions and spiritual growth. Accountability should be about mutual support.

Within this broad framework, you may need to think through the practical arrangements. Who will have oversight of the fresh expression? How often will they and the leader(s) meet? Who needs to know how the fresh expression is getting on?

Minimising the risk of something going wrong is a natural concern of those in authority, especially in today's climate when transparency, reputation and accountability are high on the agenda.

But it is impossible to eliminate risk. Sheffield's Nine O'clock Service (NOS), the Church of England's largest 'fresh expression' to date, fell apart in the early 1990s following a well-publicised scandal involving its leader.

An archdeacon used to attend NOS regularly. You can't get tighter accountability than that! Yet he was unaware of developments behind the scenes. Even that degree of oversight was not enough to prevent a major scandal.

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, he saw that some of his disciples (the Greek could read 'most') still doubted him. Yet he entrusted the future of the church to them, despite their doubts.

What an extraordinary risk! How many of us would entrust a major venture to people who had yet to be convinced? Risk was implanted in the DNA of the church at the very beginning.

So while appropriate accountability needs to be in place, there should not be so many controls that pioneers of fresh expressions feel frustrated, over-constrained and undervalued. Is there a danger that too much control will stifle fresh expressions?

The people you are called to serve will be an obvious source of support. Hopefully you will have got to know some of them well while you 'explored the possibilities'. Their enthusiasm will help the venture to fly.

It should go without saying that you won't want to proceed unless there is some real enthusiasm. How can you build on this enthusiasm to gain the support of others? Here are some things to keep in mind.

Identity. Do you need to develop a clear identity? People should be able to recognise you and know what you stand for. You may need a name, logo and strap line that can be used on all your publicity to create trust and recognition. 'It's that same lot who were behind the carol service.'

Near Oxford is the Discovery Days Community Project, which has the strap line: 'Discover your neighbour, discover your community and discover God.'

Gently making clear that yours is a Christian venture will allow you to develop the spiritual aspect of your work without anyone saying, 'But you never said.'

It is vital that people give permission for you to lead them towards God. Coming to something that is clearly labelled as Christian will help them not to be surprised if they hear sensitive invitations to explore the faith further.

Publicity  may need careful thought. How do you intend to publicise your activities? Does your proposed budget contain enough for this? How might people react to the wording you use and the design?

What sort of relationship will be assumed in your publicity? For example, if the first time people hear about you is by getting information about one of your activities, they will be likely to assume that you are trying to sell yourself like any other organisation.

Might it be better to advertise first an open meeting, when you'll consult people on the ideas you have in mind? This could help to create a sense of partnership and start you off on a different footing.

The best publicity will be word of mouth. Your venture is far more likely to bear fruit if you have the support of one or two people with lots of friends and contacts. Can you identify who is likely to spread the word and invite their friends? If not, are you really ready to start?

Communications. Once the venture has been launched, there will be some people who come regularly and others on the fringe. Do you plan to rely on face-to-face encounters to keep in touch with everyone? Or might you supplement these encounters by a regular email?

You might do a special e-letter to those who missed a meeting, for example, letting them know what happened and reminding them of when you next meet. Might this help them to stay engaged?

Volunteers. Often the best way to retain the enthusiasm of people is to ask them to help. The more people you can involve in running the project the better. They will feel more committed and be more likely to tell their friends.

In some contexts, it may be wise to give volunteers a short, written description of what is expected of them and what support they will receive. Volunteers may be glad of the clarity and to know their boundaries.

Individuals who appear to be on the fringe of faith or have no interest may have much to contribute to any spiritual dimension. Indeed, making a contribution could give them the confidence to explore God's love further or awaken their interest. Might the Spirit have been working in their lives, preparing the ground?

A discussion-based community of artists, for example, might have a spiritual zone in the corner of the room where they meet. Why shouldn't someone with no overt faith be asked to populate the zone with books showing religious art?

Perhaps you're leading an holistic spirituality group. You suggest they experience some medieval spirituality. In the first couple of sessions you take them through some Ignatian exercises, using a book you've bought for the purpose. You might ask someone with no obvious faith to lead the third session. 

Sharing leadership at an early stage is vital if your fresh expression is to become self-sustaining. See Sustaining a fresh expression.

The public should not be taken for granted. What will you have to do to enjoy 'the goodwill of all the people' (Acts 2.47)? You may in particular want to think of:

• legal requirements, such as child protection, health and safety, employment law, third party insurance and charitable status so that you can claim back the tax on donations. Do you know what legal requirements apply to your situation and what arrangements you must make to comply?
• other agencies and churches, ranging from the police, to the school, to voluntary organisations working locally, to churches in the neighbourhood. Do your ideas have their support? Might you explore ways of co-operating? Who will need to be kept informed as the venture develops?
•  representatives. For example, are you in touch with the local residents association (if appropriate)? In a workplace context, would it be courteous to consult a union or employee representative?
• ethical boundaries. This may apply especially to fresh expressions in the workplace. A health visitor planning an initiative among her clients, for example, would need to think carefully about what she can say and do as a health visitor and as a private citizen. She may need to keep a clear distinction between the two.

Practical arrangements, such as finding a room to meet and agreeing a budget, will be undertaken alongside and as part of securing support from these four sources of help - prayer partners, permission givers, the people the venture serves and the public.

 

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