Encounters is a series of quarterly publications from Church Army's research unit, The Sheffield Centre.

Since 1999 we have researched the widening range of fresh expressions of church born out of creative church planting processes. The Encounters booklets aim to spot emerging trends, identify good practice and offer strategic thinking for pioneers. Nearly all our research is based on visiting and working with Christian communities around the country, which enables us to both question previous assumptions about church and mission and suggests ways forward.

We have recently reached issue number 50 which is a good place to start to get a feel of the series so far.

Exploring Encounters

To help you to find the issues that interest you, we have archived our catalogue which is available through this site via theme, context and year published.

Latest Edition no.51: DNA Networks - Released October 2011

How do you start a new church from scratch? Can it be deeply attractive and yet also successfully repel consumer Christians? What happens if a church lives by its values, not programs or even outcomes? Can a church continue to give away resources and survive? If such a creature existed, could it be Anglican? We found one that spoke into all these questions, so it was natural to go and visit.