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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Eccles: What is a 'fresh expression' and what is it good for?
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Plique-à-jour
Shipmate
# 17717
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
So you are saying that because you had one bad experience all FEs and the people in them are bad.
Which is unbelievably idiotic.
No, I am not, I'm saying that if FEs don't give their occupants the discipline not to behave like that, they're no use to me. The people who smile at me when I enter a church never having met me are not my buddy, nor determined one way or another about me, they're just adults, doing their duties. I don't care how good a club feels, if it looks through strangers, it isn't being church, and my time is not for them to waste trying again and again to learn how to act.
Well on that we agree. The point I'm trying to get across is that your experience does not mean it is representative of FEs in general. If you're not generalising that experience to all FEs, I don't see how how you get to your apparent blanket generalisation - i.e. where you say "if FEs don't..." - in the plural.
I know it isn't. The point is, unchurched people wouldn't care how nice the rest of them are. Especially the already vulnerable or marginalised. They'd think 'forget it' and walk away. You only have to make someone despair once for them to get the message and leave you alone. Dechurched people have had just the same reaction - most of them presumably haven't been to a statistically representative number of churches, but their disillusionment is based on a good enough working hypothesis for their purposes. They may be doing thousands of congregations an injustice. Too bad, they're hurt. And these people - those who have already generalised to save pain and wasted time - are who FEs are there for. It's not that I think my experience was representative of FEs, it's that FEs taken en masse aren't sufficiently representative of anything for me to put my trust in any one of them. In a time of real need, trying not to fall into the sin of despair, I could take the risk again. Or... I could attend Holy Communion. Lucky me, that I have that choice.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
FEs sometimes fail. This is because they're churches, and churches sometimes fail. We will never have a 100% record anywhere because we're human.
But as you say, lucky you, you have the choice of attending HC at a mainstream church. FEs are there for people who for whatever reason don't find that choice has meaning for them. Or works for them. FEs are not trying to be a panacaea for all that's wrong with the church, and inevitably because what's wrong with the church is what's wrong with people a lot of it will be wrong with FE churches as well.
You're probably right that FEs don't seem to be offering anything to you. I'd be surprised if they were, because, as you say, you have the option of mainstream Holy Communion, which clearly works for you.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
FEs sometimes fail. This is because they're churches, and churches sometimes fail. We will never have a 100% record anywhere because we're human.
But as you say, lucky you, you have the choice of attending HC at a mainstream church. FEs are there for people who for whatever reason don't find that choice has meaning for them. Or works for them. FEs are not trying to be a panacaea for all that's wrong with the church, and inevitably because what's wrong with the church is what's wrong with people a lot of it will be wrong with FE churches as well.
You're probably right that FEs don't seem to be offering anything to you. I'd be surprised if they were, because, as you say, you have the option of mainstream Holy Communion, which clearly works for you.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Also, unchurched people are unlikely to think of one FE scheme as having any connection to another FE scheme, particularly as the schemes vary in how 'churchy' they look and how connected they are to local churches. PaJ, YOU know that Fresh Expressions as a whole is something that Anglican and Methodist churches are responsible for, unchurched people won't, at least not in the same way that they'll be put off all Anglican parish churches by one bad experience.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Pearl B4 Swine
Ship's Oyster-Shucker
# 11451
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Posted
I thought Fresh Expressions was a section of the grocery store displaying organic and harmless vegetables. Must be a Left-Side-of-the-Pond thing ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Oinkster
"I do a good job and I know how to do this stuff" D. Trump (speaking of the POTUS job)
Posts: 3622 | From: The Keystone State | Registered: May 2006
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Also, unchurched people are unlikely to think of one FE scheme as having any connection to another FE scheme, particularly as the schemes vary in how 'churchy' they look and how connected they are to local churches. PaJ, YOU know that Fresh Expressions as a whole is something that Anglican and Methodist churches are responsible for, unchurched people won't, at least not in the same way that they'll be put off all Anglican parish churches by one bad experience.
Indeed. It's not like we hang a sign outside saying "This is a Fresh Expressions Church". I had been at ours for a few months before I even knew it was FE
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
I have friends who run a Fresh Expression, and I was interested in visiting it at one time. 'Those who criticise us must be bad people' is how cults think, Karl.
Sometime you catch people at a bad moment or having a bad day.
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Avila
Shipmate
# 15541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
So you are saying that because you had one bad experience all FEs and the people in them are bad.
Which is unbelievably idiotic.
No, I am not, I'm saying that if FEs don't give their occupants the discipline not to behave like that, they're no use to me. The people who smile at me when I enter a church never having met me are not my buddy, nor determined one way or another about me, they're just adults, doing their duties. I don't care how good a club feels, if it looks through strangers, it isn't being church, and my time is not for them to waste trying again and again to learn how to act.
Pique a jour has a strong point about that place - that people will not what to try again. But mainstream churches are quite capable of the same kind of response (thinking of some experiences of my own) and with the same reaction against the whole species...
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http://aweebleswonderings.blogspot.com/
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Plique a Jour
If you do not believe mainstream places behave like that then go and look at the URC mystery worship reports. Nearly every single one of the comments on the welcome (I know of one that does not and I have read most as part of my thesis). This is not normally commented on in other reports.
Are URC congregations exceptionally welcoming? Not unusually so, in my opinion; we are not the warmest of traditions and rather introverted in an intellectual way. So it must be that other congregations are unwelcoming for this to be commented on.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Plique a Jour
If you do not believe mainstream places behave like that then go and look at the URC mystery worship reports. Nearly every single one of the comments on the welcome (I know of one that does not and I have read most as part of my thesis). This is not normally commented on in other reports.
Are URC congregations exceptionally welcoming? Not unusually so, in my opinion; we are not the warmest of traditions and rather introverted in an intellectual way. So it must be that other congregations are unwelcoming for this to be commented on.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
To be fair, Plique a Jour gave the impression that she knocked on the office door of a church at a time when it was not open for worship. So I don't think that the MW criteria apply. However, the way in which she remained unacknowledged was rude and unwelcoming and will certainly tarnish her memory of that church, at least.
After all, even if the Parish Staff were in some Amazingly Important Strategy Meeting (and it doesn't sound as if they were), someone could have at least met her eyes through the window, waved, or come to the door in greeting and dispensed information.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
FEs sometimes fail. This is because they're churches, and churches sometimes fail. We will never have a 100% record anywhere because we're human.
And to some extent the point of "Fresh Expressions" the movement is to take a gamble*.
*I really should qualify gamble. But it would be very long and state the obvious (and so I'd make a hash of it), so it's probably easier to wait to see if it's needed.
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
FEs sometimes fail. This is because they're churches, and churches sometimes fail. We will never have a 100% record anywhere because we're human.
And to some extent the point of "Fresh Expressions" the movement is to take a gamble*.
*I really should qualify gamble. But it would be very long and state the obvious (and so I'd make a hash of it), so it's probably easier to wait to see if it's needed.
Sometimes we're a tad on the short-sighted side when it comes to 'failure.' Sure, if an FE disbands then it's failed one of its objectives. But if the people involved can take that experience and build on it, and if other people learn how not to make the same mistakes, then the experience is still valuable. Failure maybe the only way to learn some lessons.
Jay-Emm - spot on. To break new ground you've got to have enough courage to take a punt and be brave enough to treat success and failure as friends.
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scuffleball
Shipmate
# 16480
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Posted
Here it goes, then.
I fear I am about to pose more questions than give answers, but perhaps my anecdote might prove a useful prompt. And I ask the questions not because I claim to have any answer, but because I am trying to work out whether we can reconcile FE, Bacchus' vision of the church, and things I have seen from time to time. And quite frankly I am not sure how to do it.
I suspect we are arguing a little over what the church is for exactly, and we can do worse than look at the five marks of mission -
- To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
- To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
- To respond to human need by loving service
- To seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation
- To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth
Imagine a town. It is a "new town" - a small village until after World War II when lots of modern housing estates were built around it. The town is a very transitory place; many of the people living here were not born here. There are many Nigerian, Chinese and Eastern European immigrants. There is also a University here. Likewise, many people living here live here only a short while before moving elsewhere. Almost all of the town's churches are Anglican or Roman Catholic; there is also a Redeemed Christian Church of God church. There were some non-Conformist churches which had very small congregations and have closed or are closing. The churches are disproportionally clustered in the oldest parts of the town; consequentially, some churches have very small congregations and others have a large "catchment area".
Many of the people who go to the local Anglican church grew up in that neighbourhood and have since moved elsewhere. In particular, the minister and lay reader do not live in this town but the neighbouring one. There are many multigenerational families there, and most of the people who go to that church have done so since their youth. People at this church who do jobs tend to do a lot of them, and a lot of people tend not to do any jobs. Nearly everyone at this church is white and born in Britain.
The main Sunday service at this church is a Eucharist. There is a "Messy Church" every week in term time too. Many families attend this "Messy Church" who have never been to church before - including the parents - and do not even have a mythological/cultural-narrative familiarity with Christianity. These families are mainly ladies with young children.
So here are the questions.
- If the Church, and especially the Church of England with its parish system, is the (only?) institution that exists for the benefit of its non-members, and the Christian faith is fundamentally incarnational, and thus grounded in the particular town, village or neighbourhood that it represents, how does that relate to the mission of the church? How should this affect regular systematic prayer - the Daily Office, if you want to call it that - and sacramental life manifest themselves? Does it lead to their abolition? Can the two sit alongside one another?
- How do we prevent an undue fixation with processes while maintaining regular systematic prayer and sacramental life? By analogy, here is a surely apocryphal story. A lady had the habit of cutting the ends off a roast and putting them on the top before cooking it. When asked why, she said - "well, my mother always did it thus." Upon further questioning it transpired that this was merely due to size constraints of her mother's oven. Also obsession with processes can suck the Christian Faith dry - I think of Terry Pratchett when he says "Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed." Also "you have works, I have faith" is often inverted into "I have works, you have faith" - how do we maintain an atmosphere of "Ora et Labora," especially for people who are not ministers or lay readers or anything theological or pastoral?
- What relevance do denominations have to common Christian Life? Is it possible to have congregations where denomination is entirely transparent, whilst maintaining regular systematic prayer and sacramental life? Is it desirable? Attempts at this - Milton Keynes (although as Max points out, this manages to be pan-Protestant but the Roman Catholics are maybe a bit on the edge; tends to at least preserve some sort of Eucharist.); Taizé (Catholic and Protestant Eucharist de jure although you have to purposely look for the distinction to find it.) India; Bishop Newbigin. Liturgically we ware all closer together than we were before. Common Worship Daily Prayer is not unlike the Roman Catholic Daily Prayer. Methodists have given us all congregational hymn singing. The reformation has given us all use of the vernacular. And I have no romanticism about the 1662 Book of Common Prayer either; I cannot remember who it was who described it as not unlike cutting up a service book, jumbling the bits in a hat and pulling them out in random order. What is distinctively Anglican?
- How do we put structures in place to prevent churches being abusive or heterodox? (although we are probably all more heterodox than we are aware or care to admit - at least on the ship such things get ironed out. I am thinking of the peculiar mystery worshipper http://shipoffools.com/mystery/2012/2426.html )
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SPK: I also plan to create ... a Calvinist Ordinariate
ken: I thought it was called Taize?
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frin
Drinking coffee for Jesus
# 9
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Posted
I've had more experiences than I can count of being actively or passively ignored in traditional churches of many denominations. While each time annoying, I am glad that I have not written off either church as a whole or the human race because of these things. I'm sorry that Plique a Jour had to find out that sometimes the world overlooks you, even when you need it not to.
Fresh expressions can be used to describe one of these things:
(1) A description of a Christian community or church primarily working with people who are not part of any traditional church - unchurched or dechurched people.
(2) A distinct group (service, meeting, congregation) within an existing church who are trying to connect with a group that does not normally come to church
(3) A project (club, act of worship) that a traditional church is running in the hope that eventually the people connected to the project will start to come to the principal services of the traditional church.
I meet lots of instances of 3. It isn't what I would describe as a fresh expression, and I assume it leads to disappointment when the new group of people don't suddenly join the principal services.
2 can be a fresh expression in its own right. For that to happen, I would say that there needs to be conscious development of distinct leadership and pastoral care in the fresh expression - as though it is a church plant that will one day stand on its own feet. If it is going to remain forever a grouping within the older church then eventually there needs to be some way to ensure that it starts to be engaged with the leadership and stewardship of the whole.
1 is most purely a fresh expression. The challenge is to make sure that whatever is being built is being built on more than the force of personality of the first leaders, and that it is growing and developing people within it who will be able to hold the church and change it during and after the first leadership transition. There are now many examples of fresh expressions (or emerging churches) who have navigated this and are into a more sustained phase of being church.
'frin
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"Even the crocodile looks after her young" - Lamentations 4, remembering Erin.
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
The main Sunday service at this church is a Eucharist. There is a "Messy Church" every week in term time too. Many families attend this "Messy Church" who have never been to church before - including the parents - and do not even have a mythological/cultural-narrative familiarity with Christianity.
For me, this is the key point regarding 'messy church' and other fresh / new / simple expressions of church; they seem to be relatively attractive to people with no prior church involvement.
The problem, IMO, comes when things like messy church are seen as a sort of bridge between unchurched people and real / proper church. Hence, I was glad to find out upthread that the UK Fresh Expressions initiative's official position is that FE congregations are 'real church', not a stepping stone on the way to 'real church'.
Having said this, I do realise that many people's view of what church is leads them to understand things like messy church as not being church in the fullest sense. So I understand why such people might well want people to 'progress' from messy church to what they might call real church.
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
A FE church, as understood by the FE movement, is a church in its own right. I also would be very sceptical of the idea of Messy Church on its own being able to be that. As part of a programme of services, in the same way that the mainstream offers Morning Prayer, Holy Communion, Evensong, Compline, Complan (heh heh) etc. etc, then there's no reason it couldn't be part of an FE church's offering. It's not so much that the official position is that FE is "real church"; it's more that if what you're describing isn't a "real church" but a stepping stone to "real church", then it's not an FE
I've been loosely connected (briefly) to a "simple church" - it also didn't seem to be fully church; it was more like a bible study. I can relate a terrible story regarding a pub, a carton of grape juice, some bread rolls and a complete lack of clue if you like, but I'd rather not revisit the cringing horror.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
[QUOTE] ..... that the UK Fresh Expressions initiative's official position is that FE congregations are 'real church', not a stepping stone on the way to 'real church'.
The Official position - yes. The unofficial - perhaps not so affirmative. There are "pressures" to link into existing forms of church from all sources - beginning with invites to denominational gatherings right through to ful blown concepts of moving on to "real" church. All must be resisted at all costs - FE is only FE if it is and is seen as, church in its own right without interference (and even leading) from outside.
Let it be organic and grow through its seeking.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
[QUOTE] ..... that the UK Fresh Expressions initiative's official position is that FE congregations are 'real church', not a stepping stone on the way to 'real church'.
The Official position - yes. The unofficial - perhaps not so affirmative. There are "pressures" to link into existing forms of church from all sources - beginning with invites to denominational gatherings right through to ful blown concepts of moving on to "real" church. All must be resisted at all costs - FE is only FE if it is and is seen as, church in its own right without interference (and even leading) from outside.
Let it be organic and grow through its seeking.
"linking in" on an equal basis - Churches Together for example - is not inherently a problem, as long as the representatives of more mainstream congregations and those from FEs are able to regard each other with mutual respect. And indeed within the CofE a priest at an FE setup is just as likely to be called upon to fill in for absent clergy as anyone else - ours regularly does at a nearby very high AC place currently in interregnum. Similarly denominational gatherings need be no more a problem for an FE church than the presence of charismatic evangelicals and high churchmen within such a gathering (again I'm thinking within the CofE) is inherently a problem. It's actually quite important for FEs to remember that they are part of a larger church and to maintain links with the established communities and congregations within it.
It's important that we don't think we're doing it right and everyone else is doing it wrong. We try to do it right for the people who we're trying to reach.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
[QUOTE] ..... that the UK Fresh Expressions initiative's official position is that FE congregations are 'real church', not a stepping stone on the way to 'real church'.
The Official position - yes. The unofficial - perhaps not so affirmative. There are "pressures" to link into existing forms of church from all sources - beginning with invites to denominational gatherings right through to ful blown concepts of moving on to "real" church. All must be resisted at all costs - FE is only FE if it is and is seen as, church in its own right without interference (and even leading) from outside.
Let it be organic and grow through its seeking.
"linking in" on an equal basis - Churches Together for example - is not inherently a problem, as long as the representatives of more mainstream congregations and those from FEs are able to regard each other with mutual respect. And indeed within the CofE a priest at an FE setup is just as likely to be called upon to fill in for absent clergy as anyone else - ours regularly does at a nearby very high AC place currently in interregnum. Similarly denominational gatherings need be no more a problem for an FE church than the presence of charismatic evangelicals and high churchmen within such a gathering (again I'm thinking within the CofE) is inherently a problem. It's actually quite important for FEs to remember that they are part of a larger church and to maintain links with the established communities and congregations within it.
It's important that we don't think we're doing it right and everyone else is doing it wrong. We try to do it right for the people who we're trying to reach.
Karl - that's great stuff. I'm with you on it all. I'm a long term fan of FE but just wish that both sides could be a bit more accommodating - it happens even with FE in non CofE settings (which I know most about). If we are reaching the people in whatever way/form it doesn't matter and no one should be arrogant about their own method or sniffy about others.'
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I've started going to a Friday morning fellowship at a residential home for the elderly. It's been happening for far too long and is too low key to be a FE, but has some of the characteristics. Recently I've been wondering to what extent it's 'church'. To the elderly people present it's church. There's a word, there are prayers, hymns, Communion about once a month, and coffee and conversation afterwards. They raise money for charity. Since they live together they can support each other better than many people in a conventional church who only meet once a week.
People often ask me which church I go to - especially the various clergy who come to lead worship at the Friday fellowship. I usually have to bluster a bit, but perhaps I should just refer to the Friday fellowship. It's my most regular place of worship. But there's certainly a sense around that 'churchgoing' really means a fairly conventional commitment to a Sunday morning church.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
Good points, K:LB and EM. And on the 'what church are you part of' question: I've chatted with a couple of people recently whose answer to this is somewhat unconventional!
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I've started going to a Friday morning fellowship at a residential home for the elderly... People often ask me which church I go to - especially the various clergy who come to lead worship at the Friday fellowship. I usually have to bluster a bit, but perhaps I should just refer to the Friday fellowship.
FWIW and from what you've said here, I'd certainly describe this fellowship as my church, if I were in your situation. The main meeting doesn't happen on Sunday; oh well, never mind. Friday suits the members better.
If it feels like church to you then say it's your church! Leave others be with their own opinion as to whether it's 'real church', I'd say.
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