Church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context
A report from a working group of the Church of England's Mission and Public Affairs Council
[175 pages, Church House Publishing, GS 1523 : 2004 ]

1. CHANGING CONTEXTS

Social trends in the last 30 years
The context in which the Church of England ministers in the new millennium paints a picture of increasingly fragmented lives:

• the average household size has fallen from 2.9 to 2.4
• more people own their homes, and spend Sundays improving them more people work outside the home, especially lone women with children, and people work longer hours
• the annual distance traveled in cars and vans has doubled from 313 to 624 billion kilometres.
• the number of divorced people has risen from one to eight per cent of the population, not including those who have remarried. 22 per cent of children now live in lone-parent families.
• the number of single men has risen from three to ten per cent of households.
• adults now spend an average of 20 hours a week watching television.

The Power of Networks
The western world today is a “network society”, a fundamentally new social structure. Mobility, the ability to navigate the flows around which the emerging society is structured, has become the major marker of inclusion or exclusion. The gospel has to meet people where they are, both among the mobile and among the excluded `poor', before it can enter and affect their lives.

"To live in one place no longer means to live together, and living together no longer means living in the same place" Ulrich Beck

There are two distinct processes at work.

1. Community is being re-formed around networks a change in the structure of community, with which the church must engage.
2. People are more reluctant to make lasting commitments a corrosive force that the church must resist, because it undermines all community.

Consumer culture
We were once shaped by what we produce; now we are shaped by what we consume. The core value of society has moved from `progress' to 'choice'. Even truth is a personal choice, because in the marketplace, we have no way of rejecting a dogma as false, we can only `buy into' a belief or `not buy it'. The church has no alternative but to work in a consumer society, although it must avoid being of it. An important way to do this is to remember the poor, because

"For the first time in history the poor are un-functional & useless." Zygmut Bauman

Our call is clear:

• · to proclaim the gospel within these different structures

• · to repentance that we have allowed the church to drift apart from culture

RESPONSE / TASK
Make a list of geographical groups, people groups and networks operating in your community. Compare this against a list of networks with which your local church is involved. Are there places where the church is not involved, but should be? What might be done about this?

2. The Story Since the report Breaking New Ground : 1994

In the late 1970s, church planting was largely unknown, although `daughter churches' were opened in the 1920s and 1950s. In 1978 only three churches were planted, in 1983 there were nine, and in 1985 fifteen. In 1987 Holy Trinity Brompton held a church planting conference, which became a biannual event. Between 1990 and 1992, 40 churches were planted each year, many crossing parish boundaries. Media attention focused on the four cases which upset the `invaded' incumbents, and the resulting working party ­produced Breaking New Ground in 1994. This report legitimised church planting, affirmed both parish and network as valid, and provided stories and guidance.

Breaking New Ground was permission-giving, not future-looking. The hope was to increase planting activity which flagged after 1992, but what increased was not quantity ­but diversity. It became clear as some plants failed that development needed as much attention as establishment. Causes of failure included poor planning, leadership issues, inward focus, cultural blindness, part-time leadership and lack of resources. It was assumed in 1994 that church plants would be bridges to bring people back into `proper' church, but this was proved wrong because traditional churches are just not attractive to most post-Christian people:

"Since the seventeenth century more and more people have discovered, originally to their surprise, that they could ignore God and the Church and yet be none the worse for it." David Bosch

Breaking New Ground emphasized legality, safety and gradual development. But its 'how to'
questions are being overtaken by a more radical one, 'what is church, and what is it for?'

Further A Field
A notable recent contribution in this field is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland's report, A Church without Walls. It gives excellent summaries of the changes in mission climate they face; the contours and processes of the emerging church as they envisage it; an honest list of the inhibiting factors in existing church life to overcome, and proposals for continuing reform. Wales has produced a similar document, Good News in Wales, which uses stories. Both of these are suggested as companions for study along with Mission-Shaped Church.

RESPONSE / TASK
All churches were once church plants of one sort or another- a new initiative designed to connect the gospel with different people and/or in a different may. How and why, was your local church started?

3. What is church planting and why does it matter?

"Church planting is creating new communities of Christian faith as part of the Mission of God, to express his Kingdom in every geographic and cultural context." Bob Hopkins

1 Corinthians 15 (albeit for a different context) provides a good analogy for the freedom a church plant needs, and the risk it needs to take, to find its own shape. What you sow does not come to live unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed... But God gives it a body as he has determined. This is to be connected to Jesus’ teaching about the significance of his death in John 12.23, a pattern then tied to the church through his saying – “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” John 20.21. The seed was part of the sending church with its particular manifestations and culture, and crosses into a new culture. The most important lesson to be learned since Breaking New Ground is that a cloning approach to church planting, which does not take the dying to live instinct seriously, results in either imposed, or non missionary, churches that in turn do not thrive.

“Unless and until the kingdom and the mission are in the DNA and the seed of the church, what is planted will prove to be sterile. If mission is not located within the identity of the church, planting is very unlikely to recover it.” MSC p 33

"Church planting is... the process by which a seed of the life and message of Jesus embodied by a community of Christians is immersed for mission reasons in a particular cultural or geographic context. The intended consequence is that it roots there, coming to life as a new indigenous body of Christian disciples well-suited to continue in mission." MSC p32

Church planting and Anglicanism
MSC identifies four groups, averaged across society – following work, across the denominations, from Richter and Francis in Gone but not forgotten.

• Churched 10% - attending at least monthly
• Fringe 10% - attending less than monthly
• Open Dechurched 20% - open to return
• Closed dechurched 20% - resistant to return
• Non Churched 40% - only been to wedding or funeral

The parish system is failing to fulfill the Church of England's call to be a church for the nation. In urban areas the non-churched figure may rise to 80%, showing that the parish system is full of holes, like a emmental cheese. Most of our missionary work is actually amongst the fringe and the open de-churched. What about the other 60%?

RESPONSE / TASK
What can be done in your area to enable the non- churched to see and hear the gospel. and to experience Christian life and faith ?

4. Fresh Expressions Of Church

Some common features of many expressions of church described here include:

• the centrality of small groups
• not meeting on Sunday morning
• relating to a particular network, e.g. workplace or school post-denominational
• stronger connection to a resourcing network, e.g. Holy Trinity Brompton or Soul Survivor, than to other churches in the deanery

Alternative worship communities
These prefer to work in a way which is diffuse, local, symbolic and subversive rather than focused, central and didactic. They are one of the most thoughtful attempts to relate worship and culture, but are uncomfortable with blatant evangelism. They tend to be a safety-net for people falling out of church rather than a fishing net for people coming in. They need encouragement to rejoice in their identity in interdependence with the sending church.

Base Ecclesial Communities
Originating in Brazil in the 1950s, BECs are strongly identified with people at the bottom or edges of society, and offer a gospel of liberation for and of the poor. In South America theological and community development training exists to resource lay `pastoral agents' to help the BEC reflect in the light of scripture on their experience, and to co-ordinate and develop the life of the community. Some are members of religious orders.

Cafe Church
The main distinguishing characteristic is the ambience: people gather around tables and not in pews, and refreshments are served at the start of the service, not at the end. It provides a relaxed opportunity for finding out about faith, and encourages a relational approach. They meet either in churches with changed layouts or an actual café.

Cell church
Cell church affirms that:

• cell and celebration (small and big meeting) are both viable expressions of church
• every cell member has the potential to be involved in ministry
• each cell is a building block of church
• cell leader support and training are essential

It responds well to a culture where community and family have been eroded. Meta church' is a half way house, where a congregation has small groups but remains the primary unit. The key to the cell process is multiplication, through finding and forming leaders through ongoing apprenticeship. It simplifies the inner life of a small church, releasing energy for an outward focus. There is less clarity around sacraments, ordained leadership, and connection to the wider church, except through the celebrations.

Churches arising out of community initiatives
These churches see community not worship, as the key dynamic of church; and good news as action, not word. They often arise accidentally, when a social initiative creates a group apart from the existing church.

Multiple and midweek congregations
These have a long history, especially in the case of the 8am Book of Common Prayer Communion, but are not often recognized as church plants. Lunchtime or breakfast services can attract a completely new congregation from the business community. It is important to recognize these services as `proper church' just as much as Sunday morning.

Network churches
These churches do officially what many parish churches do unconsciously: cater for one particular group of people, through shared music tastes, leisure interests or disability. They generally complement and do not compete with parishes, and often have a closer relationship with the diocese and the wider church. To work well and reach the non­churched , network churches need to have a clear target group.

Seeker church
A model started by Willow Creek church in Chicago, they aim to be accessible and meaningful to outsiders. In practice they reach the dechurched and Boomer generation and are very resource-hungry - and is not really a form of church in its own right, as proper church is moved to midweek. They are more like a way in.

Traditional church plants
These tend to serve a geographical area within an existing parish which is separated from the existing church for geographic or social reasons. They are usually similar to the sending church in style, but with more informal worship and a lighter structure. A 'replant' uses a disused building or revitalizes a dying congregation.

Traditional church inspiring new interest
Cathedral attendance and retreats are growing. The doubt is whether these expressions grow the community and missional aspects of church among their adherents. New monastic orders fit here (such as Northumbria Community) but these are strongly communal and missional.

Youth congregations
These are not the same as youth services. They are started because of the cultural, not generational gap to those under 35. Their growth also demonstrates the difficulty of integrating spiritually interested young people into existing churches. The urgency of attracting younger people to prevent serious decline in the future is a colluding motive for the wider church.

1. A missionary church focuses on God the Trinity, and so understands itself primarily as community in Christian mission.
2. A missionary church puts primacy on the relational above structure, history or external practices
3. A missionary church believes the Incarnational means it chooses to embrace profound change to become like others
4. A missionary church is unashamed to make disciples, who seek to express the life and teaching of Jesus, including making further disciples
5. A missionary church is transformational both in terms of seeking ongoing internal reformation and working for surrounding communities to become more like signs of the Kingdom of God.

5. Theology For A Missionary Church

Conversion ought not to involve the transfer of individuals from their native culture to the church, so much as the conversion of their culture enriching the church. The Church of England needs to draw on the experience overseas missionaries who are trained in `enculturation' or `contextualization'

"Do not try to call them back to where they were, and do not try to call them to where you are, beautiful as that place may seem to you. You must have courage to go with them to a place that neither you nor they have been before." Vincent Donovan

The four marks of the church enshrined in the creed remind the church of its true nature and calling. Each mark can be seen as a dimension of a journey.

• Holy is the UP dimension, towards God in worship
• One is the IN dimension, towards relationships of unity and diversity with each other
• Apostolic is the OUT dimension, following Jesus' call to mission
• Catholic is the OF dimension, expressing how parts of the church belong together

Anglicans understand that the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist will become practised.

6. Some Methodologies For A Missionary Church

Double listening involves listening firstly to the culture where a church might be established, and to the inherited tradition of the gospel and the church. You do not go with empty hands, but you must go with open ears.

The three dimensions of church planting

• width - who is the plant for? (goals) this raises the questions of network and neighbourhood, of dechurched and non churched, and the homogeneous unit principle, below
• height - who is the plant by? (resources) is it progression planting building on strength of an existing group of Christians in the target area or network, or pioneer planting where a team goes out to start from scratch?
• depth - who is the plant with? (partners) who are the mission partners in the wider church ? Is the support and partnership most like a runner, a graft, a transplant - or a seed?

The important thing is that these mission-questions drive the church-answers, and not the other way around.

The Homogeneous Unit Principle pp 108-9
This observation is that people like to become Christians without leaving their own racial, linguistic or class culture. Some argue that because Jesus is the reconciler we should resist this. Others say the diversity reflects the richness of creation, the incarnation exhibits it, and to reach those traditionally excluded, like the urban poor, it is necessary for gospel to become indigenous in their specific culture.

Three [apparently] simple questions from a church in Washington DC

• What is the mission to this area?
• What kind of community is needed to sustain the mission?
• What set of spiritual disciplines is needed to sustain the community?

Patterns of worship
Common Worship has a strategy, emphasizing patterns and structures while giving freedom on specific texts. Church planters should be trained in this way: to understand the underlying structures of the liturgy while being trusted with the freedom to develop culturally appropriate worship from below.

RESPONSE / TASK
This chapter suggests the following quote is wisely observed “Start with the Church and the mission will probably get lost. Start with mission and it is 1ikely that the church will be found.”

7. An Enabling Framework For A Missionary Church

"There is a fabric of the old way of being society and being church. We are not about patching the fabric of that old garment but seeking to set up a new loom to weave the new fabric for tomorrow's society of the kingdom." Sister Mary Clare

Levers for change
The legal options for non-parochial church plants restrict the dynamic of church planting. A lever here might be new missionary orders, directly accountable to the bishop, allowing work across parish boundaries. Another key lever is the resourcing of local leadership to take the church into the second generation, and this may require new ­forms of training and ordaining in the local context.

A four fold framework is suggested to create a climate of responsible freedom : pp 138- 141

1. In any proposed mission where new churches beyond parish boundaries are in view, it is both right and necessary that the bishop act as the broker in discussions.
2. Proposed fresh expressions of church need to work in complementary ways to inherited ways.
3. Existing ecclesiastical legal boundaries should be seen as permeable.
4. An agreed process is needed to make these values credible.

8. Recommendations

These include:

• In each diocese there should be a strategy for the encouragement and resourcing of church planting and fresh expressions of church, reflecting the network and neighbourhood reality of society and of mission opportunity, This strategy should be developed with ecumenical collaboration.
• In each diocese a member of senior staff should be identified who will be responsible for encouraging, reviewing and supporting church plants.
• A pattern of training, mentoring and apprenticeship `on the job' should be developed.
• Patterns of authorization for a specific task should be developed rather than authorization with the assumption of a potentially lifelong ministry. In each diocese there should be established a `mission growth and opportunity fund' to support new ventures in cross-cultural mission.

Editor: George Lings 

Original source: unknown

January 2005