sustain:if:able kiwi

In sure and certain hope

Andrew Dutney, President of the Uniting Church, dropped in on my Sustainability and the mission of God presentation at the Australian Association of Mission Studies (Adelaide chapter) today, when I presented some of my findings from research into UK fresh expressions ten years on.

Andrew offers a fascinating followup reflection, pondering further some of my ruminations around the implications for a church that seeks to live in response to an Easter story of death and resurrection.

One of the interesting things [Steve] found is that there’s about a 50% attrition rate in the Fresh Expressions he’s followed over the last decade. He checked this against other writers’ lists of innovative faith communities like that and found a similar “death” rate.

But he also found significant signs of new life – resurrection even – associated with those short-lived churches. Individual participants report being transformed by the experience and prepared to offer significant leadership in mission after the demise of the Fresh Expression they were part of. Other faith communities – both established congregations and other Fresh Expressions have learned from the experience and example of the community that has wound up. And many of those communities have left behind “products” generated in their years of vitality – art, liturgical resources, training modules etc.

So, Steve told us, that 50% attrition rate doesn’t mean that half of the Fresh Expressions initiated weren’t worth the effort. Not at all. They are integral to the dynamic of the church’s discernment of and participation in the life of the Holy Spirit in the world. They too embody the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic movement.

You’d think a movement oriented around the death and resurrection of Jesus would get that intuitively.

Andrew then moves from fresh expressions to ponder the implications for inherited expressions, particularly churches facing death. It’s really interesting. More here

the challenges in fresh expressions: a counter spirituality

“For the essence of modernity is economic development, the vast transformation of society precipitated by the emergence of the capitalist world market. And capital accumulation … requires the constant revolutionising of production, the ceaseless transformation of the innovative into the obsolescent.” (Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Themes in the Social Sciences), 64)

I wandered my garden over the weekend.

Recently planted broccoli seeds are up, tiny leaves seeking light. The blessing of something planted days ago, which in time will yield nourishment for the Taylor table.

The leaves of kale, seedlings planted some two months ago, now stand proud, nourishment now for the Taylor table. The blessing of something planted months ago.

Some autumn bulbs have suddenly flowered. A dash of crimson, fragile and beautiful, has emerged from what was dry. The blessing of something planted years ago.

Pioneers like to plant. I noted last week the challenge of fresh expressions. How much of fresh expressions is simply the church entering into “the constant revolutionising of production, the ceaseless transformation of the innovative”? What does it mean talk fresh and emerging in a culture that plans obsolence, privileging the new in a relentless search of the next fashion trend?

Yet such analysis ignores a significant dimension of the practice of fresh expression. I’m talking about the emerging trend of recapturing the ancient, when what is new is in fact a deliberate reaching for what is old.

Doug Gay captures this superbly in his book, Remixing The Church: Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology. He describes the practice of “retrieval”, the ways in which new forms of church cultivate ancient paths, retrieving from history and from the church worldwide.

This move stands at odds with Connerton’s analysis – of “the constant revolutionising of production, the ceaseless transformation of the innovative into the obsolescent.” (Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Themes in the Social Sciences), 64)

(Although it could still be a problematic manifestation of postmodern consumer culture – for more on this see my discussion of the ethics of sampling in my The Out of Bounds Church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change, Chapter 8, Postcard Samplers)

Which returns me to my garden. The bulbs are an ancient planting, the kale an earlier planting, the broccoli recent. They involve multiple moments of planting. They rely on more than one pioneer.

This is one posture by which pioneers might respond to the spirituality of our age. We will cultivate crops recent and ancient. We will consider as important the seeds that yield instant results as the seeds that might take months to grow. We will plant in expectation of seasons with rain and without. We will partner with other pioneers, honour their historic acts of grace, deliberately plant things we know that we will never harvest, glad that another will enjoy our fruit.

Such is God’s economy.

talking sustainability and mission

A cancelled appointment, combined with a decision to start early, has meant a valuable few hours in a cafe working on my

Sustainability and the mission of God: a case study of fresh (and failed) expression

presentation for the upcoming South Australian Mission Studies Network Gathering.

It’s a chance for me to present some of my sabbatical data, to be accountable for the gift of time I get given, plus an ongoing chance to process the resultant book project. Today involved trying to extract some clarity from what is currently 32,000 words, spread across 11 chapters.

Here are the six headings/highlights which I hope to address.

1. Defining mission and fresh expressions

2. Describing fresh expressions today
Hearing from the House of Lords. Seeing the impact of fresh expressions in three Dioceses

3. Discerning Rowan’s theo-ecclesio-missi-ology
The impact of Rowan Williams doing theology, being church, practising leadership on the evolution of fresh expressions and the development of Fresh Expressions.

4. Tracing Fresh Expressions
Eleven key leadership strengths supplied by one Bishop, one Archbishop, one funding body, one book, one DVD. Note – eleven, but not twelve!

5. Learning Ten years on
The stories of ten new forms of community and the four ecclesial layers that emerge when fresh becomes failed, yet failed becomes fresh

6. Four insights for sustainability and mission

• the power of top down and bottom up
• the place of the whole body in mission
• the potential of buildings when mission trumps worship
• sustainability in a divine economy

The event is open to all mission-minded individuals, including scholars, reflective practitioners and teachers.

Monday 22nd April @ 12.30 pm (until 2:00 pm) in S1, Adelaide College of Divinity, 34 Lipsett Terrace, Brooklyn Park, SA. BYO Lunch but Tea and Coffee provided. To RSVP by Friday 19th April or want further information, then contact David Turnbull on 8373 8775 or dturnbull at adelaide dot tabor dot edu dot au

the challenges in fresh expressions

“For the essence of modernity is economic development, the vast transformation of society precipitated by the emergence of the capitalist world market. And capital accumulation … requires the constant revolutionising of production, the ceaseless transformation of the innovative into the obsolescent.” (Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Themes in the Social Sciences), 64)

This raises the question – how much of fresh expressions is simply a reflection of capitalism? Are new forms of church simply a reflection of a cultural privileging of the search for the next new thing? Are we replacing the ever changing fashion hunt for clothes, gadgets, machines, neighbourhoods, with the fashion hunt for churches, spiritual experiences, worship ideas?

This, in a nutshell is a significant challenge to fresh expressions. We are all deeply enmeshed in this cycle, this economy. Our culture has deep and powerful subterranean currents that push us to prize innovation, the new.

As my family joke to each other as something new distracts us in the shops: “Oh, shiny.”

In our pursuit of mission, we need a depth of cultural analysis, an ability to more clearly recognise the deep and powerful subterranean currents that carry us as individuals and communities. The cultural tools to do this can be found in the world of mission, which has 2,000 years of experience in reading cultures.

We also need a theological understanding of gospel and culture, and awareness of the multiple postures by which the church in history has engaged with the deeper currents of culture. Mission history is a rich resource for such insights, for again, it has 2,000 years of seeking to find the Spirit in the outworking of cultures.

As we have these conversations, we can begin to frame a divine economy, a way of seeing our past, the places we walk, the people we engage that is neither free market capitalist nor historic rural idyll.

Armed with cultural awareness, mission insights and a theology of God, we might then begin to work toward a richer theology and missiology of fresh expressions.

Festival spirituality, mission and ministry

I’m speaking tomorrow at the National Uniting Church Rural Ministry Conference, at Barmera, which is about 3 hours drive north of Adelaide, in the Riverlands.

My topic is festival spirituality. It’s a significant development of some ideas I sketched in my The Out of Bounds Church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change. I will begin by looking at Old Testament patterns of gathering and how it relates to worship, mission, community and interconnection. I will then do a drive by of a number of articles from Rural Theology, contemporary research on belonging and participation, along with research into current festival patterns in the UK.

Here’s my conclusion.

I have wanted to engage with two problems. First, the perception of Christianity as urban, a move which can downplay the vitality of rural ministry. Second, the perception of church as building, geographic and Vicar led.

I have deployed the Old Testament to suggest different modes of gathering, around sacred sites, on pilgrimage, in festivals, around tables. I would suggest these are more congruent with the needs of rural folk, in current patterns of belonging, in ways of participation and the existence already of festivals.

Finally, two examples have been provided, which show current examples of rural churches embracing these new/old forms. My suggestion is that these patterns are more likely to be life-giving for a rural church. Rather than a weekly habit, they provide ways to participate in the rhythm of a community, to embrace sense of place and to offer spirituality for the road trips so integral to rural life.

It should be a fun day.

Sustainability and the mission of God: a case study of fresh (and failed) expression

I’m presenting to the South Australian Mission Studies Network Gathering on the topic:

Sustainability and the mission of God: a case study of fresh (and failed) expression

I’ll be reflecting on my findings emerging from my UK sabbatical interview research. The event is open to all mission-minded individuals, including scholars, reflective practitioners and teachers.

Here is the blurb (not written by me!):

Rev Dr Steve Taylor (Principal of Uniting College of Leadership and Theology, writer and blogger. He has published numerous articles and chapters, especially in regards to developing healthy, missional communities. His main publication is The Out of Bounds Church? Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change, (Zondervan, 2005). He has recently been on Sabbatical in the UK and writing his second book.)

Monday 22nd April @ 12.30 pm (until 2:00 pm) in S1, Adelaide College of Divinity, 34 Lipsett Terrace, Brooklyn Park, SA.

BYO Lunch but Tea and Coffee provided. To RSVP by Friday 19th April or want further information, then contact David Turnbull on 8373 8775 or dturnbull at adelaide dot tabor dot edu dot au

the ending of innovation: last fresh expressions interview

Today marks the last interview of the UK alt.worship research phase. It will be interview number 20. The interviews can be grouped in three categories.

Innovation in groups (alt.worship groups ten years on). The selection is not random but simply based on groups that I interviewed back in 2001 as part of my PhD research. They thus provide a window into sustainability.

• Host
• Sanctuary
• Bigger Picture
• Foundations (Resonance)
• Moot (Epicentre)
• Grace
• Club culture Project
• Visions (Transcendence)

Innovation in denominations as Fresh Expressions. During the ten years, a key change in the UK landscape has been the advent of Fresh Expressions. It has introduced new words, including pioneer, mixed economy, Bishops Mission Orders. These interviews analyse the environment in which the innovation occurred and explore the leadership practices and insights that lay behind the change.

• Dr Rowan Williams
• Bishop Steve Croft
• Bishop Stephen Cottrell (today, last one)
• Andrew Roberts

Innovation in training. Intrinsic to the formation of new communities is leadership. These interviews analyse the changes that have, and have not occurred, in recognised training systems, in light of the Fresh Expressions initiative.

• Trinity College
• Ridley Pioneer training
• CMS Pioneer Training
• St Mellitus
• John and Olive Drane

Together, these interviews provide a variety of perspectives on mission, leadership and change in the church in the United Kingdom. In cafes, Colleges and churches, bishops courts and Master lodges, I have been gifted some wonderful honesty and insight.

I’m still pondering a frame by which to analyse the data. My instinct is to turn to mission, and especially mission history. This could involve placing Fresh Expressions alongside other mission initiatives in history. Three possibilities spring to mind – the Celtic mission from Ireland to England; the modern mission movement through the voluntary organisations that began with William Carey and the birth of Methodist, which served as a renewal movement in denominational structures.

the fragility of creativity

On Sunday, on the way from Oxford to Gatwick to Aberdeen, I took some time to enjoy the British Museum, including Room 95, Chinese Ceramics. An entire room, shelf after shelf, wall after wall, of Chinese pottery. An extraordinary range of colours and shapes, tracing changes in style over the centuries.

Chinese ceramics are the most advanced in the world and a recurring word was innovation, the ability to keep refining, adapting, improvising over time.

It was beautiful.

Yet fragile.

Perhaps the two go hand in hand.

Can you have innovation and creativity without fragility? How does it change things if we see our fresh expressions and pioneer leaders as ceramic? Creative and fragile.

And the irony, that at some point creativity needs to be set – fired, painted, presented. You can’t keep deconstructing, playing. Both pottery wheel and kiln are places of creativity. At some point you need to stop. Interesting.

folded beauty: napkin folding and fresh expressions

I was in Bath on Sunday to do some research – attend an alt.worship event and interview a group I first met ten years ago, called Sanctuary.

Expecting to get lost, as has been my usual pattern to date in the UK, I left with time to spare. Unexpectedly not getting lost, I found myself with time to spare. Driving past a Museum, I decided to stop and have a look. On the second floor, I found Folded Beauty: Masterpieces in linen.

This is a mountain range – made out of folded napkins!

Here is a castle, complete with bird and rabbit. Again, made out of napkins.

The artist Joan Sallas is from Spain. Originally working with origami, he became intrigued by napkin and linen folding. It is a forgotten art, very popular in the 18th century, to decorate tables. So popular that richly illustrated books were produced. The art died. But Joan somehow became aware of it, did some research and learnt to master this forgotten art.

I’m still trying to work out why I found it so moving. Partly because of their beauty, these extraordinary, pure white creations. Partly because here was beauty made from the ordinary and domestic. Art from napkins! Creativity around food. Perhaps partly because it was a forgotten art and so it is another way of considering Fresh Expressions – a recovery of what has been forgotten. Doug Gay brings this out really well in his book, Remixing The Church: Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology. He argues that the “Emerging Church can perhaps best be understood as an irreverent new wave of grassroots ecumenism,” pointing to the rediscovery of the church year, set prayers, rituals, icons. So here is another example of fresh expressions.

a rural fresh expression: the Glebe at Luss

A highlight of staying with John and Olive Drane was a visit to Loch Lomond, specifically Luss. A small rural town, which has a rich history (1500 years of continuous Christian presence, being originally founded by Saint Kessog.) And a fascinating fresh expression. Here is the pilgrim cross that marks the start of the Glebe.

A glebe is a name for a piece of land owned historically by the church, used to fund the minister. In the case of Luss, the land was across a creek and inaccessible, being washed away in a storm in 1993. Soldiers from the Royal Engineers were persuaded to rebuild it and it is becoming a place of pilgrimage. Here is an introduction from the minister, Dane Sherrard

There is also a social justice dimension. The church has linked with young people from the cities of Scotland, who come to work on the Glebe, take part in leadership training and outdoor recreation. Local business have become involved, with finance and materials.

There is also a public-prophetic theology, given that with more and more land around Loch Lomond being used for exclusive resort accommodation, this is also about providing public space for public recreation.

The minister, Dane Sherrard, moved to Luss in 1998. Now this is some years before all the talk about pioneering, fresh expressions and network churches. Dane is certainly not young or hip looking. But he knows the internet. He’s got an online internet presence, his own LussTV youtube channel. And here is him using the internet to discuss the Presbytery Strategic Plan!

Have a listen. It’s very good missiology – strategic thinking, networks, community partnership, pilgrimage, hospitality, missio Dei. Which left me reassured, that fresh expressions and pioneering are not only for the young nor the urban. Go Dane. Go rural communities.

the advent of fresh expressions – the wilderness (part 2)

The Gospel of Luke begins with barrenness and soon shifts to wilderness. John the Baptist, camel haired and with locust wings in mouth, will emerge from the desert. The theme will continue with Jesus, who in preparation for ministry, will walk into the wilderness. In doing so, there are echoes with Israel, who found God in the desert, who were birthed as a community, their identity and practices shaped by wilderness. It will resonate with the words of the prophet Isaiah, who dreamed of rough places smooth.

So what is the place of wilderness in advent? What resources will sustain the encountering of God in the rough and tough? What does desert do to the demands for vitality and the dreams for health and growth?

Desert God
This Advent
May we be find fresh treasure in wilderness
Shade in the deep valley
Clarity from the rocky outcrop

the advent of fresh expressions – the bare barrenness of tradition (part 1)

The Gospel of Luke begins with barrenness. An older couple. Faithful yet childless. It is like so much of the Church in the West today, older, faithful. Yet so often barren, with no living memory of church birth, no experience of participating in the life flow that is new communities.

The result is a wondering about one’s future, a quiet misgiving about the family line, the next generation of young people.

It is in this barrenness we glimpse the Spirit’s work. A promise of a fresh expression.

Luke 1:15-17 “He’ll drink neither wine nor beer. He’ll be filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment he leaves his mother’s womb. He will turn many sons and daughters of Israel back to their God. He will herald God’s arrival in the style and strength of Elijah, soften the hearts of parents to children.”

Interesting that last phrase. The hearts of parents need softening. So often this is the way with fresh expressions. Parents simply don’t understand. Congregations need convincing. Of course the present will shape our future. Church is reduced to historic ways, discipleship to a rigid patterning.

Hearts being softened, of course, is essential to the advent of this fresh expression. In the following verses, the child is born. Elizabeth wants to name him John. But tradition speaks. Luke 1:61-62 “But,” they said, “no one in your family is named that.”

With this fresh expressions, times they are a changing.

This Advent, O Lord, soften the hearts of parents toward the next generation

wanted dead and alive: UK alt.worship communities

As part of my PhD research (what became “A New Way of Being Church”, University of Otago, 2004), I conducted research during March – June, 2001 into mission experimentation in the UK. This was focused on alternative worship communities and included both participant observation and interviews with both leaders and laity.

Some ten years on from that research, I have been reflecting on sustainability. As any parent will know, it’s one thing to birth a child. It’s quite another to do the early mornings and late nights, to piece your way through the ups and downs.

So I have begun a “Sustainability in new mission initiatives” Research Project. This first part has focused on the church that was the major focus of my research, Cityside Baptist. I have returned to participate in worship, to interview key leaders, to re-survey the congregation, and to conduct focus groups in response to reflect upon their data. Currently I’m writing up the results.

The next stage of the project involves wanting to explore the sustainability of the UK alt.worship communities I had researched back in 2001.

Here I need some help.  Some initial website research has revealed that of the twelve I researched, four six continue today (two three under another name). Two Four appear closed.  I remain unsure about six two of the communities. They look to have little web presence and so perhaps are closed.

So I have two requests. First, can any of my UK readers check the table here and provide any further information on the current status of any of these groups. I’m particular after information on

• Late Late Service, Glasgow
• Sanctuary, Bath (Updated: website found)
• Resonance, Bristol (Updated: renamed as Foundation in 2005. Thanks Paul )
• The Bigger Picture, London
• Graceland, Cardiff (Updated: according to a blog comment (thanks heaps), has closed, although relational connections continue.
• Holy Joes, London (Updated: Maggi Dawn thinks this group is currently in recess)

Second, I am interested in trying to interview all these groups, or representatives (whether dead or alive!). We need to learn from all our experiments, no matter their current status. I am working toward a research visit to the UK (December 2012-February 2013).  So I would like to locate folk, particularly from those that are closed, or appear to be. So can any of my UK readers provide any followup or contact details?

Thanks, in hope 🙂

boxing resources

Great idea from Resource Centre for Uniting Church Synod of Western Australia. They take a range of resources and place a number of copies of each in a plastic box and loan them to churches for a month or so. Simply effective really!

This was the fresh expressions box, and the messy church box was on loan.

It got me thinking about the “boxes” I need in my office. The “small churches in mission”; the “exploring across diverse cultures”; the “everyday spirituality”; the “mind, body, spirit faith.” …..