sustain:if:able kiwi

Leapers or baby steppers? Is this fresh expressions? Or simply different expressions

The Adelaide mission-shaped ministry course course kicked off last week. With 44 folk registered – add to the fact that it’s pioneering in the sense of being spread across Uniting, Lutheran and Anglican denominations and being a first ever in Australia, let alone in a brand new building, there was a good deal of nervous energy in the room.

As usual, as speaker, I end up probably learning more than those who attended. For me, this was around fresh expressions. Are we talking “fresh” expressions or “different” expressions? And does it matter?

The question emerged most clearly during a part of the evening involving some Fresh expression storytelling. I could have showed the UK DVD, but I asked if instead there might be any local fresh expressions either being dreamed of, or being explored.

Which led to stories of playgroup church, outdoor labyrinths, someone finding themselves being called Pastor of a social poker club, Friday happy hours that were offering community to local neighbours and the beginnings of ministry to Middle Eastern students.

And then the question (in my words) – Are these fresh expressions? Or just different expressions?

What would you say? Here is what I said …

Well, first, from it’s beginnings, fresh expressions was meant to be an inclusive, not exclusive term. I once asked Graham Cray why the term fresh expression. His reply involved the fact that they were looking for a term that was not elitist, that suggested something exclusive or elitist. So invariably, what for one is fresh will for another be different.

Second, by implication we all need to see ourselves as on a journey. There is no such thing as a pure fresh expression. All have small beginnings, none are mature. So the challenge, whether we feel fresh or different, is to refuse to settle. We do this by always keeping alive among us the mission questions – is this primarily for us, or for others? Because, whether fresh or different, if it becomes for us, we are simply being selfish.

Third (I thought afterward), we need to have multiple approaches. We need both leapers and baby steppers.

We need pioneers who can leap, can parachute into a new sub-culture, listen deeply, find a person of peace and with them form a radical fresh expression. But that will take years to see fruit and requires a very unique skillset.

And meantime the church trundles on it’s merry way, Sunday after Sunday, hymn after chorus.

So we also need little short baby steps, achievable experiments. These will never become immediately a fresh expression. But they are vital because they open up micro-moments, a flash of insight into a different way of being. If those moments, those flashes, are listened to carefully, humbly, then they can clarify the next little baby step. And so the process continues.

The danger is that leapers scorn babysteppers, while baby-steppers stop stepping. Fresh expressions needs multiple strokes for diverse folks.