Where does
It was written in 2003 by a
group of women and men, Anglicans and a Methodist, Catholic and Evangelical in
tradition, serving parishes and
The
report is part of a longer story. Church
Planting in the C of E has been part of the landscape since the 1970’s, but
became a prominent feature around 1990. So much was happening, a bit of it
highly controversial, that an official report was commissioned.
Breaking New Ground came
from concern at the centre. It was published in 1994, concluded CP was a welcome
supplementary strategy to the parish system and offered some guidelines.
In
the decade that followed, the variety of ways planting diversified beyond all
expectation and a fresh level of activity at the edges of the church prompted
the slow process by which it was agreed that it was time for another report 10
years on to ask what had been learnt. MSC
in that sense grew from grass roots practice not central concern.
What
is it? - many things
·
It is a collection of 25 stories.
What is intriguing is that it tells the Church of England what it is
already doing about creating fresh expressions of church, across the range
of churchmanship. As
chair of group, Bishop Graham Cray
said …
·
It’s also a sketch
map of today’s home mission field, putting down markers of
who is out there, the lessons learnt by earlier travellers. This view enables
future navigators to find better ways to be church, which are more likely to
connect and thrive.
·
It’s a key resource for
trainers and will help this subject area to become a normal part of ongoing
theological education. Only
“mission-shaped” ministers can hope to lead “mission-shaped” churches.
They will need “mission-shaped” training.
·
It offers to be a
round table, enabling
permission-givers and pioneers to sit down together as creative partners, to
start and sustain what is needed, creating a climate that teaches pioneers
and permission givers need each other.
Let me show the headlines of
its conclusions – as a menu to follow through
These can be headings for its
ground breaking insights
1.
The existing
parochial system alone is no longer able to deliver its underlying
missionary purpose.
This will come as no surprise
to some, yet be deeply shocking to others. Please be clear on the nuances.
The underlying missionary purpose of parish is not repudiated. Reaching
all, because of being a national church, is affirmed.
The word alone, in italics, is crucial. It
is recognition that society has changed and a geography or territory based
system is not well placed to work with what is emerging.
Even Breaking New Ground had
begun to note this.
Let me put it in a diagram.
Parish is wonderfully neat and
apparently comprehensive. A legal system
which caters for all through parochial provision .
However since the Industrial Revolution pockets of populations have grown
up that didn’t fit the rural inherited boundaries. But as they were still
geographical they were seen as
acceptable anomalies.
With the arrival of the world
of networks a relatively new social structure has occurred. Connection through
relationships and common interests, not by address simply doesn’t fit.
But the key is that all these
groups are a responsibility in Anglican mission.
Meet Melissa of 27 Railway
Cuttings.
This modern woman goes out to
work, while working she uses her computer via email of MSN to fix up who she is
meeting that day. Some friends agree to go for a drink at lunch time.
She seeks a balanced life so after work she goes to the gym where another
set of contacts socialise. On her
mobile through the day, a Friday, she
has also been working out where some of them will go clubbing.
Around 3 in the morning Saturday she falls into bed at 27 Railway
Cuttings. Here’s the question –
in which community should we grow Church to meet Melissa ?
Is her domestic address the best or only answer.
Parish isn’t designed to
work for network. MSC claims network is now the major social reality.
The traditional ways will
still help some but parish can no longer
alone do what it was intended for.
So :
2.
We need a mixed
economy – no longer promoting one way of being church
The language of MIXED ECONOMY
was coined by Archbishop Rowan whilst still in
Yet we need to be clear what
Mixed economy does not mean. The danger is the term can be a cop out, to have a
few mission shaped churches existing alongside unchanged previous churches. Many
of the latter are so unmission minded that I fear they have become mis-shapen
churches. Mixed economy is about the
mixture of inherited and emerging churches – but all of them learning to be
more mission-shaped.
3.
There are only expressions of church – previous and fresh
The language of fresh
expressions owes it’s birth to comments from Archbishop Rowan.
I commend it to you because the idea of expressions of church offers us
all some welcome humility in dealing with those who do church differently to us.
Study of church doctrine shows clearly how the understanding of the church has
changed over time to fit different contexts and centuries. It
was also the Archbishop who reminded us that the fullness Christ is bound to be
more than any one way of being Church can demonstrate.
The language of expressions is
a good way to recognize there cannot be one way of doing church. This challenges
the old Anglican instinct for monopoly.
Our history is full of
these assumptions :
For example, as the church
of the land we called all others dissenters.
Until 1689 it was illegal to be anything else – even then the Act was
only An edict of Toleration and it
took years before we learnt the language to call others Free Churches.
The parish instinct of
responsibility for all, can powerfully collude with the belief that all people
really belong to us and have strayed from the fold. It’s actually less like
everybody are sheep and more like a zoo out there.
The term Common Worship
goes back to BCP of 1662 – when it was illegal in the nation for anyone to use
anything else. Anglicanism has placed much of its identity on what is now a
myth, that every Anglican worships the same.
We pride ourselves on
being accessible for all. Language
like Parish Communion and Family Services maintains a myth that the Church of
England is open for everybody and to everybody.
Too often the reality is
we are but a denominational sub culture within a larger Christian
sub culture. Ask the Non
Churched teenager, the lapsed Christian Buddhist,
the man at the working men’s club, the woman pagan or the yuppy
business man. To them, we are toast.
The social reality is that
To be a
MSC
Chapter 3, pages 36-41 offers us a way of reading the contours
to the mission field at home.
It distinguishes between four groups.
Attenders
10%
Fringe
10%
The
dechurched are 40% people who have left the church. They are split equally
between those open to return and those so wounded by the experience that they
are closed to return.
Then
finally come the 40% nonchurched: those who have never been, except for
Granny’s funeral. These figures are national averages taken from Richter &
Francis 1999 book Gone but not forgotten. In
the urban parts of the north the non churched would be a far higher figure.
However
even this concerning picture may be too positive.
By looking at attendance figures over the century –the red line -
we see the falling percentage of those who were in church under the age
of 15: - 80% of 80 year olds, but only 30% of 45 year olds This then gives a
different proportion over time of the non churched. Now the de-churched are
about 30% of the population and shrinking, and the non-churched are 60% and
growing.
The
reality is that inherited ways of being church, and of doing most of our
evangelism tends to help a reducing minority of people. the Finney figures of
the 1990’s showed ¾ those coming to faith were from dechurched backgrounds.
We are doing the vast majority of our fishing in a shrinking pond. We
desperately need fresh expressions that can begun to connect the major mission
field in
4.
All churches need
re-shaping in this light
That apostolic mandate is given in
Acts 1.8 - “when the Spirit comes,
you will be my witnesses in
Truly to understand MSC is to see a
very different agenda for mission
There isn’t time to develop the
headlines of the differences. Ask
questions about them later if you wish. The
shifts of instinct are significant.
–
From working only to modify
the existing to deliberately creating what is different – reflecting a desire
for a mixed economy
–
From improve an existing
church to a policy of diversifying the kinds of churches because we know no one
sort will do.
–
From adding numbers to an
existing church, to multiplying the number of churches in order to reach
different groups of people
–
Seeing that one all inclusive
congregation is an illusion in today’s diverse society
–
Accepting that cross cultural
mission is now normal, so listening before speaking or deciding is utterly
central. Growing church from seed,
not transplanting ready made ones is the order of the day.
–
Research shows creating fresh
expressions is not best done by centring on provision of worship, and is far
better starting with building community. Crucial for CMD Plants.
–
Funnily those who have created
Fresh Expressions of Church have shown all the rest of us something of the
process of discovering church for new contexts.
This activity at the edge of the church has a central lesson for all.
It means a shift
from our modernist instincts to plan
for predetermined outcomes and a call for learning to live more open to what
comes to us. Based on Jesus, as
shown in John’s gospel, who sought what it was that the Father was already
doing, we are learning that mission is “finding what God is doing and joining
in”. MSC urges this creativity,
not cloning church and in chapter 6 offers a process to follow that through.
Let me end with an image.
What we are seeing is that many factors mean that the Anglican long lived
and much loved “come to us, we are available and accessible” strategy is
virtually totally out of date among the under 35’s; “…mainstream
culture no longer brings people to the church door”.
In the past They
might come for the hatch, match or despatch departments, or it might be that a
crisis made them turn to the church. Then
our job was to help them from interest to commitment We are good at that but the
situation is less and less true. We are either invisible or unattractive.
Church is often seen today as a relic of the past, an example of religion
not spirituality, an institution past its sell by date.
Today the culture doesn’t
bring people – so we must go to them. But few churches know how to do this. It
is so foreign to deep instincts to separate church and world or only to rescue
people out of the world. The
apostolic and incarnational journey to form Fresh Expressions of Church, out in the
world, seems uncertain. What it will be seems hazy.