'We're Defining Church Better'

Tuesday August 30 2016

Thomas Baldwin reports on the impact and progress of the Fresh Expressions movement within the Church of Scotland.

As Mr Spock from Star Trek might have said, “It’s church, but not as we know it.”

Up and down the UK, in church buildings, yes, but also community centres, homes, cafés and even pubs, people are gathering in ways that look nothing like traditional worship but are still church.

“There are literally hundreds of examples,” says the Rev Phil Potter (right), leader of the UK-wide Fresh Expressions organisation, “But my current favourite would be the Wesley Playhouse in Howden Clough Methodist Church (in West Yorkshire): a small church which had dwindled down to about six members. They got permission to turn the building into a soft play area for children, and then created church out of it.

“So they built a congregation of families with young children, completely reimagining church in that way and bringing in a whole new generation. They now have 60 or 70 totally committed members.”

And, he says, this is a pattern repeated throughout the Church of England: “Since the initiative began, in the Church of England alone, 30,000 Christians have gone out and planted over 2000 fresh expressions of church, with over 80,000 people attending, most of whom are completely unchurched.

“That’s the equivalent of adding four medium sized dioceses in attendance to the Church’s figures.”

While the Church of Scotland is relatively new to the party the early signs are encouraging. The Rev Dr Colin Sinclair, then convener of the Mission and Discipleship Council, was able to tell this year’s General Assembly: “If the average congregational attendance is about 80 people, then we are seeing the equivalent of 23 such congregations emerging in Scotland through Fresh Expressions, with 80% of those attending having no other Church connection.”

Fresh Expressions, which arose from the Church of England’s Mission Shaped Ministry report in 2003, is in its third five-year phase. The first created the organisation and worked on the theology of it; the second increased the number of partners – other denominations including the Methodist and United Reformed Churches and the Salvation Army, but also ‘network partners’ including the Church Army, Messy Church and 24/7 Prayer Movement, among several others. The third phase, Phil says, is about going ‘from initiative to movement’.

One of the new partnerships, formally launched in September 2013, is with the Church of Scotland. The previous year a Joint Emerging Church Group had been formed and its report, affirmed by the General Assembly, invited every parish to ‘explore the possibilities of establishing a new expression of church by 2020’.

One of the congregations which has responded to that call has been St Kentigern’s in Kilmarnock. There, they have tried five different Fresh Expressions, of which four are still operating: a Messy Church, a café in the community centre, a partnership with the local high school to create a community garden, and monthly ‘A Pie, a Pint and a Parable’ gatherings in a town centre pub.

St Kentigern’s minister, the Rev Dr Grant Barclay* (right), says that the key to understanding Fresh Expressions is letting go of pre-conceived ideas about church and outreach: “There’s a huge step between people who might be interested in engaging in things to do with church and the Christian faith, and coming to do the stuff that we do as a Church of Scotland congregation on a Sunday morning; and I couldn’t work out how to bridge that gap until Fresh Expressions explained quite clearly that that was not a gap one should try to bridge.

“In other words, the gift of the existing church is to enable a fresh expression of faith, without any expectation or encouragement that those who express faith in that fresh way should come to express faith in the more traditional way.”

He adds that a big part of Fresh Expressions for him is resisting ministers’ natural inclinations to worry about how this is going to contribute to attendance on a Sunday morning.

“We’re not quite saying to people ‘don’t come on a Sunday’, but we are saying ‘that’s not what it’s about’. And that’s a mindset change for me and some of my folks that has been quite liberating.”

There are huge issues to be faced both in the Church of Scotland and the wider Fresh Expressions movement. North of the border, things being discussed include how the new groups can be incorporated into church structures, how they should be counted in membership terms, how it’s going to work financially and how the sacraments can be administered in these settings.

However, for Grant, finding new ways of reaching people is not a choice. “We’re not redefining church, I think we’re defining church better. If church is people supporting what God is doing, and joining in, then what I think I am seeing is God at work far beyond the bounds of the institution, and we have this privilege - which was always there, which we simply didn't spot - of joining in.

“That comes with immense challenges, I’m not saying for a moment that it’s always fun and games.

“But I’m quite excited that the problems we might be facing are about incorporating a faith-inspired life in an institution that isn’t quite used to it, rather than working out how to conduct an appropriate funeral when the church eventually expires. What I’m seeing is not the death of the church – I’m seeing a transformation and perhaps even a resurrection of faith.

“It looks quite different. But that’s really exciting.”

*Since this article was written, the Rev Dr Grant Barclay has moved on to Orchardhill Parish Church in Giffnock.

Fresh Expressions website

For more information about Fresh Expressions in the Church of Scotland, email David McCarthy, Fresh Expressions development worker, on dmccarthy@churchofscotland.org.uk

This is an abridgement of a feature in August’s Life and Work. Subscribe here.