A vital point to make is that such an emphasis is not about minimizing
the impact or the importance of the parish church. The goal is to complement and not replace what is already
there. Those who are unacquainted
with Fresh Expressions of church may query why this theme is being given such
prominence today. The short answer to that question is that missional
creativity is the church’s response to the fact that God is a Missionary God.
One whose love is reaching out to the world and whose primary means of reaching
that world is the church. William
Temple, one of the most outstanding Archbishops of Canterbury, summed up the
church’s task in these words,
‘The church is the only
human institution that exists for the benefit of its non-members.’
 |
| Archbishop William Temple (accessed from ) |
Take a moment to consider what that phrase – ‘An institution that exists for the benefit of its non-members’ – might mean for your own local church context. What needs might your church be challenged to meet? How would she engage with non-churchgoers?
Suspect Exegesis
Someone preaching about the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s
Gospel attempted to show his listeners that there was an ultimate connection
between doing mission and God’s very presence with a church. The suggestion was that God will only
condescend to be present with a church that engages wholeheartedly with
mission. His evidence was derived
from those words at the end of Matthew’s Gospel in the King James Version of the Bible, ‘Go into all the world and preach
the gospel … and lo, I am with you
always, till the end of the age.’
The point being inferred was that without active communication of the
Gospel, there was no assured
promise of Jesus’ abiding presence.
‘No go, no lo!’ One can say assuredly that Matthew was
not seeking to emphasise that precise point in his recording of the Great
Commission and that the preacher was engaging in eisegesis rather than
exegesis.
Notwithstanding this, however,
would it not be almost as careless a piece of biblical interpretation to
suggest that the propulsion outwards, the ‘go’, is not an imperative for the
church of God? Whilst it is clear that Old Testament mission was centripetal,
drawing inwards towards a centre (i.e. the drawing of the nations to Jerusalem)
- mission in the New Testament is most definitely centrifugal. It is a
propulsion outwards. It is a
leaving of the church’s comfort zone for the glory of God and the benefit of
others. The Incarnation itself is
an expression of centripetal mission!
Commending Church Planting
and Fresh Expressions
Church planting and fresh expressions of church are a means of living
out the missionary mandate that is part of the DNA of the church founded by
Jesus. How might one commend these
initiatives to individuals or groups in the church who might initially be wary
or even suspicious of such novel approaches. Below are three significant lines of argument.
1.
From a purely pragmatic standpoint the church’s
longer term demise will be most likely guaranteed if there are no measures
taken to arrest the radical decline in church attendance. In England and on the
continent we have already been given a glimpse of what the widespread implosion
of the church might look like. Recent statistics in England highlighted a
change over 100 odd years where non-attendance
at Sunday School rose from something like 45% of the child population in 1900
to 96% in the year 2000. The expectation, based on current statistics, is that
by the year 2030 there may well be no children whatsoever attending church on a
Sunday morning in mainland Britain.
Within western European Catholicism the prospects are hardly any better
and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and other Catholic church leaders see the future
survival of European Catholicism resting not on the parish system but the
burgeoning strength of the new religious movements in Catholicism. So although we are not there yet – the
future threatens to be one of radical decline unless the church begins to do
something about it.
2.
There is a whole generation emerging who find the
traditional patterns of the church alien and uninviting. A humourous depiction
of that reality is found in an episode of Mr
Bean in which he turns up at church and finds it impossible to follow or
keep up with what is happening. What
would a twenty-something de-churched or unchurched man or woman find engaging
or comfortable about a traditional church in your area? A church plant or fresh
expression opens the possibility of a different style of church which might be
less culturally alien or off-putting.
3.
The response to these pressing problems need not be
a root and branch change of the parish church and all the mayhem that might
ensue from that, but rather the creation of new or fresh expressions of church
to complement what is already on offer.
What does Church Planting
involve?
What does church planting or the creation of a fresh expression of
church actually entail? One of the
key early decisions to make concerns the nature of the proposed church plant
itself. The most common form of
church plant is the mother/daughter model. Here the planting agency is the local church and the goal is
to establish a second church that will attain significant autonomy. This model
involves the recruiting, training and commissioning of a sizeable group of
church members to become the founding members of the new church. This was the
basic make-up of the church plant which I led within my own ministry. The one exception was that the core
team involved members of two different churches/denominations coming
together. In that sense, Cliff
Park Community Church was a local ecumenical church plant. In many ways this is the easiest form
of church planting but also the most labour intensive, putting a strain on any
sending church that is not bulging at the seams with committed, talented
people.
Mother/Daughter is not the only model. There is church planting on what
has been called ‘The Strawberry Runner Principle’ and this is a congregation
being planted which is not intended to become an independent church but will
still have a measure of independence. It might be a separate congregation
meeting in the church hall or a youth congregation. This has the financial
support of the mother church and will join with it for services of celebration,
for example. Many ‘fresh
expressions’ of church may fit this category.
For the truly adventurous there is planting with a pioneer. Some
individuals are by nature pioneers and are able to single-handedly get new
churches off the ground. In
Belfast, the former curate of Holywood, has become pastor to the newly emerging
Titanic Quarter and helped establish a fresh expression of church there. His sponsoring Bishop had given him a
carte blanche to develop something new in accordance with the needs and
character of this newly emerging community. The vision was to help create a God-shaped church for that
area and this should be the goal of all church planters.
Church planting need not have the setting up of a worship centre as its
immediate goal. There can be targeted responses to real community needs that
bring Christians into contact with local communities via social action. Things can emerge from such an initiative which
later take on the more established form of a church, though not necessarily so.
The Practicalities of Church
Planting
What is involved in getting a church plant or a fresh expression of
church off the ground? There are
certain non-negotiable processes one needs to go through and, without which, any potential venture is doomed to
failure.
The first thing that must be done is that the vision must be cast. Before you can proceed with any radical
idea, the idea itself must be owned by the people you want to support it. If
they will not own it, it will not work.
‘The task of leadership is ,
in part, the task of taking an unowned idea
and seeing it nurtured so that it becomes an owned action. If we try and short-cut the process of casting the
vision with church members then what will result is unowned action – the
exhausted efforts of a few enthusiasts trying to press on regardless. Much
better is the kind of vision that is owned by the great majority of the church
in such a way that their gifts and resources are enthusiastically employed in
the realization of that vision.’ (Mike Hill, Bishop of Bristol)
In the writer’s own experience,
he was able to communicate via sermons, notices, conversations and all
other available means the value to God of people outside the church, the
alarming state the church was in and how a transition from maintenance to mission
mode was essential. In the end 15 Anglicans joined the team and the parish
church as a whole supported the venture. One very huge breakthrough was hosting
a Saturday morning meeting for the whole church in which a gifted missiologist, one of the main contributors to
‘Mission-shaped church’, addressed
the congregation’s burning questions.
After casting the vision, the second logical step is to recruit the
church plant team. This involves
the leader of the plant being talent scout, nurturer and persuader, all in
one. All the time the leader is
looking out for people who have a heart for church planting or who are
beginning to grasp the vision.
A third vital component of church planting is knowing something of the
life-cycle of a church plant. (Diagram on p.7 of Enabling Church
Planting). The key thing to
remember about church planting is that it has many similarities to human
pregnancy. In general, for a healthy birth, you need a gestation period of about
nine months. In the case of church
planting, this nine month period
extends from the moment that a decision is actually made to plant to the day of
the public launch. In the case of
Cliff Park Community Church the planting team met weekly for nine months and
engaged in a variety of pursuits including bible study, visitation in the area and a variety of
training experiences. In all of
this the fledgling church plant had the strong support of the Bishop and
Diocese.
 |
| Accessed from Enabling Church Planting. B, Hopkins et al.[London: Church Pastoral Aid Society.1995] |
The ideal of any church plant is to grow from infancy and adolescence
and into maturity which involves becoming a parent itself. This notion of reproduction is inherent
to church planting and the committed planter will have this in his or her
long-term sights.
An essential part of preparation is discerning what a God-shaped church
might look like for the area where the plant will take place. The bridge
illustration from evangelism became a sort of prism by which my own church
plant understood its missionary task. Evangelism is often portrayed as helping
people to connect with God by availing of the unique bridge of Jesus and his
cross which bridges the chasm between
sinful humanity and a holy God. ( Show the two diagrams on p.5 of ‘Creating a
Church for the Unchurched’) . However, in our own context we saw that there was
a second yawning chasm separating genuinely non-religious people from the
ministry of the church. This time
the separation came about as a result of an alien church culture. Our goal
(show image on same book, p7) was to include things in our expression of church
which would help make it an accessible and welcome cultural experience. The
music was to be as contemporary as possible. The liturgy was to be stream-lined and always introduced and
explained. The sermons themselves were to be based around life themes that were
relevant to the new congregation,
demonstrating that the Bible’s message was not out-dated or meaningless.
Shared Values
One key part of being a united team was establishing together an agreed
vision statement about the goal of
our plant as well as the creation of a list of absolutely shared values. It was
at this point that democratization was especially important. We debated every
single word on this statement of goals – it was the product of countless slips
of paper and the Baptist pastor and I working together to find a form of words
that truly summed up what people were saying – and finally it involved having
every single word ratified by the planting team so that we were literally
singing gustily from the same hymn sheet.
Practicing being Church
In addition to working out our shared values we had four weeks of
practice services every Sunday leading up to the launch so that we were already
used to being ‘church’ before we ever were ‘church’ in front of potential new
members. Other parts of preparation
involved making particular decisions as a leadership team about what would
happen in the services. For example, it was agreed that services would end with
coffee and doughnuts for the first month. Permissions would be given for people
to only participate inasmuch as they were comfortable. No collection would be
taken to dispel any notion that the church was after new attendees’ money. A
question time would follow every sermon so that participants would have an
opportunity to ask their own questions.
The childrens’ work (and we had the very great benefit of not one but
two school halls) would be based around the Kids’ Church model developed in
Harlem, New York and brought to England via St Thomas Crookes’, Sheffield.
Launching a Church Plant
In the above discussion I have attempted to personalize or humanize the
missional task by sharing from my own experience of church planting. Prior to discussing fresh expressions
of church in greater detail, I
wish to comment on one final facet of church planting. This This concerns the
launch itself. Getting this particular part of the process right is essential
and, I think, in our own case, a number of factors were at work.
·
All of those involved were encouraged to invite up
to six individuals each. Throughout
the planning time team members were encouraged to develop the relationships
they had with their unchurched friends. Seeing them through that prism of Luke
15 as people uniquely valued by God and also of people worthy of an all-out
search.
·
Secondly, we leafleted the entire target area
informing people of the event and encouraging them to come along.
·
Thirdly, as the local Anglican minister I led
assemblies in all the local schools making them aware of the provision
available in the church plant.
·
Fourthly, we made great use of the media. Firstly,
it was arranged (through a team member who was a BBC broadcaster) for a radio
interview to take place in the week leading up to the launch in which I was
interviewed along with the Baptist pastor. A newspaper article went into the local newspaper just prior
to the launch. We (the Baptist pastor and I) were interviewed on television the
morning of the launch and were billed as planters of the newest church of the
new millennium. Additionally, the BBC Radio Norfolk first Sunday service of the
new millennium was broadcast from our church.
·
Fifthly, we employed the help of celebrity
Christians to help promote the plant. In the first year or eighteen months we
had fitness guru Rosemary Conley, a Blue Peter presenter and Fiona Castle, wife of Roy Castle
(who was absolutely delightful).
Fresh Expressions of Church
Church plants are ‘Fresh Expressions’ of church, but as the Church of
England Report, Mission-shaped church’ reminds
us, Fresh Expressions in England, may be a step beyond even what we have been
discussing here. The following common traits seem to be present in many of the
examples of Fresh Expressions highlighted in Mission-shaped Church.
·
A vital emphasis on small groups for discipleship
and relational mission
·
A willingness not to meet on Sunday morning. This
change came about in response to lifestyle changes over the last 30 years.
·
Related to a particular network of people.
·
Post-denominational in outlook. Although the
leadership is part of a denomination, the members may feel themselves to have
come from a range of denominations. In churches were the non-churched are
coming to faith, then members will typically have a fairly slender
denominational identity.
·
Some fresh expressions may have a connection to one
or more resourcing networks, including Soul Survivor, Holy Trinity Brompton,
New Wine, Reform and St Thomas Crookes.
(Mission-shaped
Church p.43)
Varieties of Fresh
Expression of Church
Below we have in list form some of the key types of fresh expression.
1.
Alternative
worship communities. These
are groups that have postmodern sensibilities and that are often composed of
survivors from other forms of church.
Pete Rollins and his community in Belfast ( Icon ) were a classic example of
this post-evangelical kind of group that uses reflective music, philosophical
musings and self-questioning as a means of processing their experience of
religion.
2. Base Ecclesial Communities. These have their origins in
Latin American Liberation Theology and have had little practical expression in
the West. Arguably they might be ideal for the development of church in very
poor and marginalized communities in the urban centres of population.
3. Café Church. An attempt to change the ambience of worship so that it
literally takes place in a café environment with tables, brewed coffee and pastries, and a very relaxed,
informal mode of ministry which might involve movie clips and topical sermons.
One of its main goals is to build community and is described in ‘Mission-shaped
Church’ as ‘a fresh outworking of a long
missionary instinct, cited by Gregory the Great in encouraging Augustine of
Canterbury to find what can be taken in the host culture, without fatal
compromise, and transform it into ongoing Christian practice.’
A local expression of Cafe Church in Bangor West Presbyterian church.
A local expression of Cafe Church in Bangor West Presbyterian church.
4. Cell Church. A division of the church into small groups where individuals
worship together, are discipled and share their faith. In addition, the members
of these (often homogeneous) groups join together by means of shared
celebrations of faith. Parallel cell church which brings together normal
congregational worship and cell might be the classic Anglican model.
5.
Churches arising
out of community initiatives. These are churches that emerge out of an original
attention to simply meet a community need. For example, a church response to immigrants in a local community.
6.
Multiple and
midweek congregations. The strategy of offering different liturgical and
community styles so that different cultural or sociological groups are
nourished and sustained within the same building.
7.
Network-focused
churches. Churches developed for
mission to particular social and cultural groups. Some examples of these would
include common occupation, leisure interest, disability and music preference.
8.
School-based and
school-linked congregations and churches. These include school-aged congregations meeting in the
schools and some which have been formed out of after-school groups.
9.
Seeker Churches. Essentially
churched based upon and emulating the approach of Willow Creek contextualized
for the other side of the Atlantic.
Five Values for a Missionary
Church
·
Focused on God
the Trinity. Worship of the Trinity and a share in the Missio Dei.
·
Incarnational. Seeks to shape itself in relation to
the culture in which it is located and to which it is called. Composed of
people who are willing to lay down their cultural preferences about church in
order to allow the emergence of a form or style of church which is shaped by
those they are seeking to reach.
·
Transformational. Existing for the transformation of the
community which it is seeking to reach.
·
Makes disciples. Active in calling people to faith in
Jesus Christ and enabling them to live lives of real discipleship.
·
Relational. Aims at being a community of faith that
is characterized by welcome and hospitality.
Question for Consideration.
Which of these values most challenge the church of which you are a
part?
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