Fresh Expressions Workshop

Last Saturday I went to a one-day Fresh Expressions Visioning Workshop at Wycliffe. "Fresh Expressions" is an initiative coming out of the Church of England that seeks to create new expressions of the Gospel in contemporary culture. Rather than replace or compete with traditional ("inherited") models of church, they aim to create a mixed economy of old and new. You can see some powerpoint shows that describe the movement in more detail on my Mission-Church Toronto Blog. I know I haven't been updating that blog a whole lot, but I expect that to change as COTM gets more directly involved in this kind reorientation towards mission.

There were about 24 people at the workshop. Many of them were familiar to me from other Anglican church growth/evangelism/church planting contexts. Interesting how the same people tend to attend these events. Hard not to look around and think of the dozens and dozens of people that ought to be at these kinds of events if they want to grow their churches. I understand how clergy get focused on their own places to the point where they can't participate in the kind of strategic continuing ed/church development events that could really help--but to me the sacrifice of a Saturday for the sake of possibly growing my church is an absolute no-brainer.

As to whether Messiah will try to develop a "Fresh Expression"--I've got two on the burner. I think the Contemplative Eucharist is actually a Fresh Expression that could be taken to the next level. I also think that the Mom's fellowship group has such a potential. The key is to structure that group around the principle of being church and not just a peripheral sub-group of Messiah members that share affinity and common experience. I've also got some other ideas kicking around in my brain.

One of the is the ARC (Anglican Resource Centre) that would be a place to resource Christian formation/education in the whole diocese. Besides having a library of resources and conducting education of the educators--we* see the ARC as having a "church" community of its own. It's Mission and Ministry would be... mission and ministry. It's more intuitive than it sounds--it would be church for the post-church crowd, if that makes sense. You know the burned out ex-Warden, ex-choir, ex-chancel guild times that we are currently doing a poor job of serving.

*The "we" behind the ARC is the Christ-Centred Character working group that Catherine Keating and I lead. We meet weekly (in case anybody reading this) to talk how to promote strategies of Christian Ed. in our parishes that align with secular movements.

So good things happening...

-t