2009, p. 1).
The suggestion – by the Fresh Expressions team and others – that these new communities will often start with listening, followed by loving and serving, potentially resonates with traditions that emphasize the social responsibilities of the church. The parallel emphasis on evangelism strikes a chord with evangelicals.
In addition, new contextual churches are recovering inherited traditions and ‘remixing’ them with contemporary cultural trends, such as the use of visual images and symbols from the tradition. The spread of ‘new monasticism’ is giving an impetus to this. Growth into the tradition often happens in surprising ways. A London-based ‘heavy metal’ gathering, for example, shares in some of the activities of its neighbouring Anglo-Catholic church.
Explicitly connecting with the tradition is helping new contextual churches to make their home in the body. At the same time, the denominations are finding ways to recognize them and help them be accountable. This is happening reflexively. As fresh expressions are drawn into a denomination’s culture, they model different ways of being church. For growing numbers of worshippers, the pattern of church life ceases to be a given and becomes a matter of intent. As individuals look again at what it means to be church, attitudes become more flexible, making it easier for the denomination to welcome the new.
Adapting to the context
In using emergence theory to recount the history of musical theatres in Branson, Missouri, Chiles, Myers and Hench note that key aspects of local culture shaped how the theatres were developed, helping the town to retain its unique character and the theatres to gain support (2004, pp. 512–3). This is a good example of contextualization, which is the second way new contextual churches have sought to adapt to local constraints.
Negotiating these two sites of stability – the church context and the local context – can prove a considerable challenge. Yet a growing number of contextual churches are doing this successfully, despite some of the heartaches involved (see, for instance, www.freshexpressions.org.uk/stories). In so doing, these new communities are finding a place within the values of their sponsoring local church (or group of churches) and through this within the ethos of the denomination.
Some people see this as the inherited church domesticating what is new, blunting the latter’s radical edge (Rollins, 2008, pp. 71–7). Were this to happen, it would represent – in the language of complexity theory – the triumph of the old attractor. Alternatively, the reflexive process of stabilization could allow new expressions of Christian community to find a place within the inherited church – and increasingly change it. A new attractor would then emerge, combining novel and existing forms of church in fruitful relationship.
Stabilization involves
adapting to the tradition, including the denomination;
adapting to the context of the new church.
Conclusion
New contextual churches are emerging in Britain through processes of disequilibrium, amplification, self-organization and stabilization. Already they are having a substantial influence on ecclesial life, not only in this country but in other parts of the world. Do they represent the early stages in the birth of a new attractor, the mixed-economy church?
There are positive signs. The idea of fresh expressions, even if the term is not used, is taking root in denominations beyond those officially involved in the Fresh Expressions initiative – from the Assemblies of God to the Baptist Church – and overseas (for example Robinson and Brighton, 2009). Denominations associated with Fresh Expressions have steadily deepened their commitment. By 2009 19 out of 43 Church of England dioceses reported that they had created a strategy for encouraging fresh expressions of church and church planting (A Mixed Economy for Mission, 3.2).
A telling sign is how church organizations and networks are responding increasingly to the fresh expressions agenda, whether it is publishers, mission agencies or missional networks. Cell UK, for example, is now working in the spirit of ‘4 life’ to underline its focus on encouraging missional communities in the context of everyday life.
The number of fresh expressions continues to multiply. In 2010, the Methodist Church counted 941 fresh expressions, associated with 723 churches out of a total of 5,162 – 14 per cent (Are We Yet Alive? 2011, p. 14). In 2011, the Church of England identified at least 1,000 parishes – 6 per cent of the total – with a fresh expression of church.15 In both cases the definition was wider than the ‘new contextual church’ one used here. Even so, the relatively rapid spread of the language suggests that, at the very least, the concept of fresh expressions is helping the inherited church to think in more missional terms.
An informed estimate reckons that 50 to 100 churches had or were starting mid-sized communities by 2011, with the number of such churches growing rapidly. If each church had five communities, a not unreasonable assumption, 250 to 500 mid-sized communities – serving people outside the church – would be involved.16 Many of these may not have been counted as fresh expressions in the Methodist and Church of England surveys.
Despite this progress, a 2009 report to the Church of England’s General Synod could identify only three dioceses (out of 43) whose strategies for fresh expressions really stood out. ‘Even in these dioceses there is still a long way to go before it could be said that a mixed economy church has been established as irreversible and normative . . .’ The majority of lay people were unaware or had only a very partial understanding of the mixed economy (A Mixed Economy for Mission 2009, 4.9, 4.28).
Anecdotal evidence and some limited research (for example, Stone, 2010) suggest that most fresh expressions are small, have a significant proportion of people who already go to church, and where they are reaching out are connecting with people on the fringe of church rather than the growing numbers of never-churched. There are encouraging exceptions, but the overall picture is of the UK church being still at the beginnings of a journey to fresh expressions. Despite growing momentum, the vehicle could yet stall.
Further reading
Drane, John and Olive Fleming Drane, Reformed, Reforming, Emerging and Experimenting, Report for the Church of Scotland, 2010.
Mission-shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context, London: Church House Publishing, 2004.
Wheatley, Margaret J., Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, 3rd edition, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2006.
Questions for discussion
Much of this chapter has been about official support for new contextual churches. What should individuals and churches do when this support is not present? How far does the spread of new contextual churches depend on official support?
Do you agree that the mixed economy in Britain could yet stall? If so, what would avoid this?
What are the lessons from Britain’s experience?
