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Fresh Expressions Vision Day.

Today I have been to a fresh expressions vision day at Wigan. The aim of the day was to introduce us to what exactly fresh expressions are and give some basic ideas of how they have been implemented.  Some examples of fresh expressions for those who have never heard the turn are the skate park church Legacy 9xs, the bread making church in Liverpool and indoor play areas like the Ark at Cranbrook which all offer worship alongside social activities.

It all comes down to what the Gospel tells us to do. Particularly  Matthew 28:19
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
The plural of disciples is church, and fresh expressions is all about going back to the origins of church. When the disciples  initially wandered the Earth spreading the good news all churches were fresh expressions, each place would worship Christ in a way that worked for them. They did not try to fit a strict mold the way we do today.

With that in mind fresh expressions is all about finding an area where God is already at work and finding a way of harnessing it to create new disciples, new believers.  The crucial point that was made during the whole day was that this belief does not need to be facilitated in our current church system. It requires new churches to be formed in new areas and those churches may look vastly different to how we as current churchgoers envision them.

Old AND new, NOT old OR new! 
This doesn't invalidate the current system either.  What we need to create is a mixed economy. It isn't one or the other it is both, and both are equally as valuable and important as one another.  Archbishop Justin Welby has this to say about fresh expressions:
"I think partly because historically the church has always operated mixed economy when it was at its best. I mean if you go back to the Middle Ages, the great growth of the monastic movement was essentially a mixed economy. I mean Benedict was a fresh expression in his day. And so there's nothing new about the mixed economy idea. Mixed economy is essential because it gives the balance between what Benedict called stability – a location in place and nature – with the catalyst of an openness to the Spirit of God doing new things. And we need both. Without stability you end up just following fashion, and Benedict knew that very well. And without the catalyst of the Spirit you end up just becoming utterly embedded and unable to move in what you've always done." (taken from an interview in 2011) 
This mixed  economy of stability providing the backbone and the defined place, and  openness in providing the drive to new things is tantamount to the survival of our religion. There is plenty of faith around, people just don't feel comfortable channeling it through conventional church. We need to show them that church is what they make of it and they don't need to come into an imposing victorian era building with uncomfortable seating, strange smells and unexplained rules. It can be in the places they feel comfortable, where they can relax and enter a true engaged conversation with and about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Over  the next few weeks I will be posting my reflections on the 3 sessions and the workshop I partook in and I hope it can help you, as it did me, to understand fresh expressions better.
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