'Fresh Expressions' are Blowing Through the Church in Great Britain
by Michael Ireland
March 12, 2007
LONDON, ENGLAND (ANS) -- All over the United Kingdom something new is happening in the country's churches. Christians are stepping out in faith and starting new initiatives for people who are right outside the church as it is currently. Known as Fresh Expressions, the new outreach is a Church of England and Methodist Church initiative.
Some of the new initiatives -- 'fresh expressions of church' -- are for young people and children; some are for the elderly and housebound, and some are for families. Some are for everyone, says a website dedicated to the new moves within the Church.
The site says: "These fresh expressions of church meet on different days of the week. They meet in different places: schools and cafes, residential homes, gyms and pubs, as well as churches.
"Most are started by ordinary Christian people who simply want to offer something to the communities in which they live and work."
In 2004 the Church of England and the Methodist Church agreed to work together to encourage this new movement of mission.
According to a media advisory, last week's General Synod of the Church of England debate on fresh expressions commended the work of Church Army evangelists in playing a key role in fresh expressions. The debate centered around one of the largest pieces of legislation to pass through Synod for 20 years, a motion to facilitate change in church organization at both parish and diocesan level to allow fresh expressions to develop more freely. The Synod commended the good work being done by Church Army as crucial to fresh expressions.
Chaired by the Rt. Revd. Michael Langrish, the Bishop of Exeter, the debate highlighted the work of Church Army, in particular Ben Edson for his work with Sanctus 1 emerging church project, based in Manchester, and Andy Milne for his work with Sorted, a thriving fresh expression of church for young people interested in skateboarding and works across three parishes in Bradford.
During the debate, Church Army's work was praised by the Bishop of Exeter who recognized the key role it has to play in fresh expression.
Steven Croft, Archbishops' Missioner and Director of Fresh Expressions, also praised Church Army, adding in his speech, "The significant progress which has been made is due to a number of agencies and central church bodies being willing to work together and combine their energies for the common good.
Croft went on to say:"The partnership with the Methodist Church has been a positive fruit of the Covenant process both nationally and locally. Church Army in particular has played a key role both nationally and locally along with CMS, CPAS and Anglican Church Planting Initiatives and New Way. By God's grace much has been and is being accomplished - most of all at local level but there is an urgent need for dioceses and the national church to give continued and renewed commitment to this focus and priority in the coming years."
Synod member Peter Bruinvels, a former Church Army board member also drew attention to the involvement of Church Army in fresh expressions.
Welcoming the legislation, Church Army's Chief Executive, Mark Russell said: "My dream is that we will further the mission of the church. At the heart of this colossal piece of work is the Bishops Mission Order. I pay tribute to all of you involved in this legislation...that suddenly fresh expressions have the authority of the bishop; it allows the bishop to be that leader in mission that he is supposed to be. It places mission and outreach of fresh expressions at the centre of the diocesan life.
"I believe that this piece of legislation is a gift to the Church of England. It enables fresh expressions and the new types of Christian communities that are emerging to be part of that mixed economy that Archbishop Rowan dreams of. It allows us to have a church as diverse in parish and in fresh expression."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams said: "Essentially the Fresh Expressions program is not simply about a kind of scattered set of experiments; it's about that gradual, but I think inexorable shift, in the whole culture of our church that has been going on in the last few years, and which will undoubtedly continue to grow and develop.
And that shift in culture is about the way in which discovering new expressions of the Church's life has now, rather paradoxically, become part of the blood stream of the traditional, mainstream churches' life.
"To be, so to speak, an ordinary average Anglican, to be an ordinary average Anglican diocese, to be an ordinary average Anglican bishop, now involves you in thinking about, planning for, and involving yourself in, some quite extraordinary and, on the face of it, sometimes rather unanglican bits of new life.
"We're rediscovering something about what the Church is, as well as what the Church of England is; rediscovering, to use a favorite metaphor of mine, that the Church is something that happens before it's something that is institutionally organized. It happens when the Good News summons, assembles, people around Jesus Christ.
"Remember that that is what we're thinking of, not a series of scattered experiments, not a series of enterprises in religious entertainment, not, God forbid, a kind of dumbing-down of the historic faith and its requirements so that more people may get vaguely interested."
Dr. Williams said the point of Fresh Expressions is the point of the Church itself, "that is to provide a place where Christ is set free in our midst, if one can use such an expression -- and I hesitate to -- to gather those who want to be in his company. That freedom is always there for our Lord, we can simply try and, as has often been said, join in and not get in the way.
"So you're going to hear something now about being the Church, and being the Church of England, not about something marginal, something eccentric, but about the very life blood of who we are and what we are. What's been achieved, I think, in the years in which Fresh Expressions has been working, is remarkable and it owes a great deal to the extraordinary energy and vision of Steve Croft and his team."
To listen to the full audio of the debate, follow this link.
Church Army is a society of evangelists within the Anglican Communion, which exists to enable people to come to a living faith in Jesus Christ. For more information on the work of Church Army see www.churcharmy.org.uk
© 2007 ASSIST News Service, used with permission.
