The new archbishops initiative in evangelism is called fresh expressions. You go to the web-site and register your fresh expression on their database and hey presto - You're a fresh expression...Fresh expressions is very broad, it is not just emerging church but incorporates new monasticism, cell church, children's church etc. and this is to be commended.
I did a search yesterday in the Manchester region and there was at least one church in there that was not (IMHO) a fresh expression. It is a standard Anglican parish church. I hear that they want 10,000 fresh expressions registered in the next 5 years and i am wondering whether this quest is becoming the golden chalice and the process of discernment is suffering. I think that this is dangerous as the energy and excitement that is currently around fresh expressions could be lost as people become disillusioned and realise that in some cases we are just re-branding the same product.
Don't get me wrong, i think that fresh expressions is fantastic but I would rather see 10 authentic fresh expressions of church rather than 10,000 re-branded parish churches...
2 comments:
(Anyone with a vested interest in anglicanism/this initiative should probably stop reading now!)
It's just marketing from the looks of it.
The church has repeatedly tried things like that.. the problem is it doesn't work - the average punter is *not* stupid and putting a slogan on a church building doesn't change it. People are bombarded by advertising every day and are extremenly resistant to it.
What am I supposed to understand when I read 'Fresh expressions for under-fives and their families'. To me that says 'We don't want to call it family church because that's not trendy'. Or also *screams* 'lame attempt at evangelism'.
The church doesn't need slogans, it needs to matter to those people it's there for - the ordinary people who probably are nominally christian but wouldn't go to a church because it's never appeared to give a crap when they've needed it. The answer isn't that simple (heck, it isn't even remotely simple, otherwise I'd be shouting it from the rooftops already).
knowing the people involved in setting up fresh expressions, I'd say it's not JUST marketing... but inevitably, given the context, it's going to end up being a mix of new innovative expressions, live-wire happening communities/congregations, and dull as ditchwater re-brands. Maybe we just have to take the rough with the smooth, since the advantage of keeping the definition of a "Fresh Expression" so broad is the accompanying disadvantage that it lacks clarity...
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