To think incarnationally, with Temple and Sayers, is to think in a contemporary way about how the Word has become flesh and moved into our world. In the troubled decades of the early twentieth century, materialism and atheism were failing to satisfy many. Incarnational mission engaged people, who were beginning to look elsewhere. The new media of radio formed new networks, as people gathered in the pubs to listen. By working with this technology, Sayers sparked pub discussions that anticipated the churches forming in pubs and cafes today.
Dorothy L. Sayers
pioneered the missional use of new media;
reached people outside the church;
faced criticism from within the church;
anticipated pub church and cafe church.
Conclusion
This chapter has shown how the four characteristics of new contextual churches – being missional, contextual, formational and ecclesial – have been repeatedly expressed in new ways during the history of the church. They have not always been present at once. At Little Gidding and Eversley the missional, contextual and formational marks were evident, but because the church was already present in the village, the ecclesial characteristic (existing church giving birth to new ones) lay dormant.
However, ‘new contextual churches’ were brought to birth on plenty of other occasions. Think of Antioch, the Celtic and Augustinian missions, the evangelizing work of the Benedictine communities and their mendicant successors, the Beguines, and John Wesley. So although the new churches emerging today may – once again – take a different shape to what we have seen in the past, they are nothing new. They belong to a long line of ‘mission-shaped church’.
Further reading
Baucum, Tory K., Evangelical Hospitality: Catechetical Evangelism in the Early Church and Its Recovery for Today, Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press, 2008.
McLeod, Hugh, Religion and the People of Western Europe: 1789–1989, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 1997.
Null, Ashley, ‘Thomas Cranmer and Tudor Evangelicalism’, in Michael A. G. Haykin and Kenneth J. Stewart (eds), The Advent of Evangelicalism: Exploring Historical Continuities, Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2008, pp. 221–51.
Van Gelder, Craig, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000.
Questions for discussion
Which of the examples in this chapter most spoke to you, and why?
What themes connect the examples in this chapter?
What principles of good church practice can we learn from the past?
How has the history in this chapter stimulated your thinking about new possibilities?
1 Quotations from the Didache are from O’Loughlin (2010).
2 On the significance of the fellowship meal in the early Christian house church, see Patzia (2001, pp. 216–30).
3 For a detailed study of this pattern, see Milavec (2003).
4 This and other Bible quotations in this chapter are taken from the English Standard Version [ESV], Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2001.
5 See also Bradley (2000).
6 An especially helpful perspective on Benedictine wisdom for today is Casey (2005).
7 Saint-Thierry, First Life of Saint Bernard, quoted in Casey (2005, pp. 137–8).
8 A helpful resource is Myers (2011). For more general background, see Little (1978).
9 This announcement, recorded on parchment, is quoted in Skipton (1907, p. 85).
10 J. Hacket, quoted in Carter and Carter (1892, p. 247).
11 The Puritan pamphlet entitled The Arminian Nunnery (1661) is quoted in Parry (2006, p. 120).
12 An early version of this structure appears in Wesley (1831, pp. 176–90).
13 See, for example, John Wesley’s ‘Reasons Against a Separation from the Church of England’, at Project Canterbury: www.anglicanhistory.org/wesley/reasons1760.html.
14 William Temple, quoted in Reynolds (1993, p. 329).
15 William Temple, quoted in Wolf (1979, p. 110).
16 Dorothy L. Sayers to John Rhode, 2 January 1939, in Reynolds (1997, p. 105).
3
Fresh Expressions of Church in Britain
Church reports do not usually become best-sellers. Since its publication in 2004, Mission-shaped Church has sold over 30,000 copies, reached an international audience and has been credited with reshaping the Church of England’s ecclesiology (Davison and Milbank, 2010, p. 1). It led to the official encouragement of ‘fresh expressions of church’ in the Church of England and the Methodist Church, and this has influenced other denominations in the UK such as
