John Wesley as catalyst for Fresh Expressions of Church.

What can the life of John Wesley as catalyst rather than innovator or theologian, tell us about the development of Fresh Expressions of Church in twenty first century Britain [1]

By Peter Brazier - 2011/12/08
Originally Written for: Church History 260 ‘Life and Times of the Wesleys’
Taught by Richard P. Heitzenrater at Duke Divinity School

Contents

Introduction
1.       Influences and interests
2.       Wesley’s capacity to change and yet hold establishment and disestablishment in tension.
3.       Wesley’s desire to find systems and models for practical implementation of his developing theology
Modern Comparison
Conclusion
Bibliography of references
Appendix 1: Fresh Expressions according to www.freshexpressions.org.uk
       Changing church for a changing world (http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/about)
       What is a fresh expression?  (http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/about/whatis)
Appendix 2: What is a pioneer minister? (by Hannah Smith)

Introduction.

When the Church looks back on the life of John Wesley and the influence he has had on the modern landscape of religion and society at large, it is common to consider both his methods and theology in equal measure, in order to ascertain the reason for the significant position he holds in history. However, I wish to suggest that in order to learn vital lessons for the Church today, it is more important to consider how he acted as a catalyst for pre-existing ideas. I believe that Wesley acted as a conduit between the church establishment and a rapidly shifting society that was struggling to come to terms with questions of authority.

In some ways, the story of the people called Methodists is less about a theological divergence from the Church of England, and more about an inevitable religious and social revolution, that found its expression through a man who was in the right place at the right time. However, Wesley also needed to possess or acquire certain qualities in order to become a catalyst for change. These qualities can be looked at in terms of;

• The diversity of Wesley’s interests and influences.
• Wesley’s capacity to change and yet hold establishment and disestablishment in tension.
• Wesley’s desire to find systems and models for practical implementation of his developing theology.

If Wesley’s theology is taken out of context and applied to the twenty first century, then little is learned about him or the current situation. If instead the current circumstances are assessed in relation to his, and his responses are considered in the light of that relativity, I believe far more interesting and useful patterns will become visible. In the eighteenth century, Methodism emerged from the Church of England. In the twenty first century movements like Fresh Expressions[2] have begun to emerge ‘within and alongside’[3] the Methodist and Anglican Churches. Rowan Williams described this kind of emergence as a ‘mixed economy[4]. The changes that were occurring in the eighteenth century church can be compared to changes occurring today. Likewise, the influences and characteristics that made Wesley the man he was can be considered in looking at how individuals may contribute to the leadership of new church movements.

Influences and interests

               In order to understand John Wesley’s influence on the world, it is vital to put into perspective some of the ways that the world influenced John Wesley. To begin with, it may be useful to look at the world that Wesley was born into in 1703. England at that time was already a place of significant religious and political upheaval. The string of events from the Reformation in Europe and the creation of the Church of England, through to the Civil War and the execution of Charles I, had led to a strongly anti-Papal religious and political atmosphere in England. The subsequent short-lived republic and the reinstatement of the monarchy had significantly shifted the religion of England, but left an ambiguous atmosphere of religious freedom.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century there had been several further upheavals in the country including the Jacobite rebellion. There had been the Act of Toleration, designed to safeguard the nation from what might be seen as dubious religious practices,[5] by limiting the social standing of ‘dissenters’ from the state religion and keeping a track of any dissenting societies. The eighteenth century was a time of expansion into the new world and of the unification of ‘Great Britain’ into one nation; it was a time of pirates, slavery and the global expansion of Britain’s maritime trade routes; it was a time of moral decline, of poverty and of free flowing gin. England began the century in the middle of an agricultural revolution, and ended it with the industrial revolution and the American war of Independence.

It could be suggested that a man born in a time of such change would be predisposed to embrace change, but there were many people in that time who were totally resistant to change and others so freely open to it as to have no sense of value in what had gone before. So it is necessary to look deeper into Wesley’s experiences in order to find out more about the nature of the man himself. Some of the influences on Wesley’s life, and their subsequent manifestation in his own thinking are easy to map, but it is not until these influences are viewed side by side that a fuller picture of his role in history begins to emerge.

Both Wesley’s maternal and paternal grandfathers were dissenters. His mother and father converted to Anglicanism.[6] This background offered Wesley the possibility of standing with one foot in the establishment and one foot out. His mother was eager to teach the children, including the girls. Unusually for her time, Susannah taught the girls to read[7]. Her strict teaching methods no doubt instilled in John the practical importance of learning.

Samuel Wesley was involved with the S.P.C.K., one many societies that started at the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century, but one of the few that lasted. The society’s purpose was to promote the Christian faith through publication, education and welfare[8]. John witnessed through his father’s involvement with S.P.C.K. and with his mother’s home prayer groups[9] many different Christian meetings beyond the walls of the church building. He must have seen firsthand how such meetings could be a vital tool in the development of the faith of individuals and groups.

In addition to this, the determination of his mother to teach and to offer spiritual instruction cannot have failed to influence John’s support of women ‘preaching’, although this support was conditional and sporadic [10]. The inclusion of women as lay leaders,[11] shows women in a very similar role to the one that he would have seen Susannah taking in his childhood. Whilst he struggled with the idea of women preaching, his acceptance of them as class leaders, coupled with the importance that these classes held in the formation of Methodism, meant that women held a very strong role within Wesleyan Methodism, in comparison to other religious organisations of the time.

In the work of S.P.C.K. Wesley witnessed a leaning towards care for the poor, even though the motivation of these societies was more about the spiritual welfare of the poor than physical welfare, or social justice for its own sake[12]. As Wesley grew in leadership and spiritual maturity, that interest in welfare developed into a more genuine concern for those who live in poverty or under oppression. In his journal entry for January 24th 1738, there is a simplistic concept of charity based more in the earning of salvation than anything else. He says “I am safe: for I not only have given, and do give, all my goods to feed the poor...”[13] Later he demonstrates a far more sophisticated response to poverty as he develops schools, hospitals and means to bring opportunities for employment.

The S.P.C.K., as well as both Wesley’s parents’ concern for education, must also have influenced the extent to which the development of Methodism was characterised by a plethora of printed literature. Whether it was the published journals, collections of hymns, tracts, letters, lists of recommended books or Wesley’s own Bible Commentaries, everything in early Methodism seemed to exist in a culture of learning through the printed word. However, the plethora of literature associated with the Wesley’s links into a much larger technological shift.

Whilst the technology of moveable type printing had been available in England since the latter part of the fifteenth century, it was rare and took longer to come into common use than in the rest of Europe. This was in part because in 1586 Queen Elizabeth restricted printing to a limited number of presses in London and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.[14] Restrictions varied in their severity during the seventeenth century but were finally discontinued in 1695.[15] The increased use of printing was certainly a feature of the early part of the eighteenth century,[16] and this technological shift will be key in looking at modern comparisons.

Wesley’s meeting with the Moravians on the boat to America marks the beginning of a long running and complex relationship. Above all, what he seems to gain from them is the idea that faith needs to include some personal experience of God. This interest in experiential faith manifests itself in the famous account of his heart being ‘strangely warmed’ in the meeting at Aldersgate.[17] However it also can be seen in some of Wesley’s darker moments, such as his letter to Charles in 1766, where it is a lack of a personal experience of God that continues to haunt him.[18]

Despite a clear aversion to field preaching, Wesley is convinced of its value after seeing the effects of George Whitefield’s preaching, and condescends to use this technique for himself.[19] After returning from America, Wesley does not have charge of a parish and so this shift towards field preaching can be seen as a largely pragmatic response rather than a theological one.

There are many other examples of when John Wesley observed something and took it on himself to copy the activity or incorporate it into his methods of forming societies, such as the learning of a new language to communicate to new people or the co-opting of old texts for new purposes as in the covenant service.[20]

Not only were Wesley’s interests diverse, but also his experience was diverse. Wesley seems to see his role in the world as a single unit, without divisions into subjects that are of concern to the church and subjects that are the remit of somebody else. His interests in medicine, architecture, education, acoustics, politics and many other subjects are to be seen throughout his writings. Seemingly nothing was beyond his interest.

However, it is important not to view Wesley as some kind of eighteenth century superman. It is ironic that, for a man who spent much time wrestling theologically with the concept of Christian Perfection, in reality he probably learnt more from his own failure than anything else. His time in Georgia saw his failure to bring the Gospel to the Native Americans, his failure to sustain the work in some of the churches and the public relations disaster after Sophie Hopkey’s marriage to William Williamson.[21] This was his most famous time of failure but by no means his last, and throughout his life he takes time to reflect on things that have not achieved what he expected.  Significantly though, he never gives up trying to make things work better.

Wesley’s capacity to change and yet hold establishment and disestablishment in tension.

Although John Wesley often claimed that he had not changed his position on issues, particularly those of theological doctrine, it is evident that change was an essential part of his personality. Though it should be noted that he did not change his mind lightly, nor did he often do it willingly, as was case with field preaching, women preachers and eventually ordination of Methodist ministers.

Throughout his life, John Wesley showed an ability to draw the positive changes that were happening at the edges of his world toward the centre of establishment thinking. At the same time, he allowed the solidity of the establishment to provide frameworks and safeguards that protected these positive changes against the dangers of untested radical thinking. Many people who know the Methodist Church in Britain today and its record of engagement with social justice, may be surprised to hear that Wesley was a supporter of the Tory party and the monarchy. His desire that Methodism should not separate from the Church of England is less surprising, but gives us a real sense of where his relationship with the establishment was rooted.

Clearly he felt no pressing urgency to re-connect the Church of England to the Catholic Church so he was not committed to unity at all costs. In the end Wesley’s change of mind regarding ordination, was based more on the necessity caused by the failure of the Church of England to ordain the people needed to administer the sacraments in America, rather than any major theological shift. [22]

Wesley’s desire to find systems and models for practical implementation of his developing theology

Throughout all of Wesley’s activities, the reality would have been very different had he chosen to keep his thoughts and methods to himself. Even if he had written all his ideas down to be published, but not put them into action himself, it is unlikely that he would have had anything like the impact that he has had today. Apart from anything else there would be no Methodists to catalogue and republish his work. More importantly though, he would not have had the opportunity to develop the ideas; to hone and correct them, had he not witnessed for himself their successes and failures in day to day life. Perhaps one of his greatest failings was that his arrogance often caused him to presume he was right, or that his ideas ought to have been followed. However without this failing there would probably be no Methodist Church today.

British Methodism today still shows strong evidence in its organisational structure, of the original societies set up by Wesley. Words such as, Circuit, connexion, conference, and the minutes, notes to preach and the trial of preachers, membership, centralised finances, circuit plans, stationing, itinerant preachers, local preachers, quarterly assessment - all these terms used by Wesley are still in use to this day. Clearly Methodism is not perfect, and now with the rapid decline of the Methodist Church in Britain there is urgent need for radical change if the Methodist Church is to survive. But the fact that John Wesley’s structures have lasted this long is a testament to his ability as a pragmatic developer of Christian community, and to the practical value of his methods in successive generations.

Modern Comparison

Today, Britain is once again in a time of significant religious and political upheaval. The Union of the United Kingdom built up in the eighteenth century is barely holding together and in many ways the religious changes are even more significant than in Wesley’s day. Most of the current missional thinkers are clear that the western world is facing or has already faced the end of ‘Christendom’. It is no longer possible to consider western countries as being inherently Christian. It is ironic that Britain, which has a direct link between church and state, has faced this reality quicker and more tangibly than America. Phyllis Tickle, a leading thinker on the current religious changes in the western world, that have come to be called by some ‘the Great Emergence’, describes Americans as ‘Jonny come latelys’ in this area. [23]

Rather than being guided by limited act of toleration, Britain is now seeing a time when all religious ideas are legal and acceptable. However, there are increasingly strict laws on the acceptable methods of conveying a particular faith viewpoint to non-believers. Instead of the expansion of Britain’s maritime routes, a massive globalisation of companies and industry is now taking place. It is a time of moral decline, of poverty, and of free flowing alcohol of all kinds.

For the Methodist church at least, the ordination of women now seems perfectly normal, but this issue was not finally resolved until the 1970’s. For the Anglicans this issue took a little longer, and they still have not quite resolved the question of women bishops. Now, the big gender question is that of homosexuality. Just as in Wesley’s time, when the question of women preachers was on the table, the Methodist Church is not holding the most radical stance, but neither has it ignored the issue.

In Wesley’s time, the popular new media was printing; today there is television and the internet, which has spread to the homes of ordinary people far quicker than the printed word ever did. When Methodism began, the other great innovations in communication were field preaching and itinerancy. One of the fundamental principles of Fresh Expressions is going outside, not just the physical building, but outside the conceptual structures of traditional Church life and forming new Church communities, wherever and in whatever form they are needed.

Analysis that looks primarily at the specific theological shifts and disagreements that punctuate the life of John Wesley and his colleagues can get bogged down with questions of Arminianism versus Calvinism. The reality is that the arguments of the time are skewed by culture and politics as they are in any time. It is easier to suggest now with the hindsight of two hundred and fifty years, that controversies that seem to be primarily about Predestination versus Christian Perfection ought to be broken down into a series of more subtle questions. To start with, the argument of predestination and free will is different from that of salvation through election versus faith, which in turn is different from salvation through faith or works. Indeed Wesley himself finds subtler and more nuanced ways to look at these issues as he matures in faith[24]. Even so, the pattern of history still paints these as key issues and Arminianism versus Calvinism continues to be one of the main battle lines drawn up in the protestant world to this day.

Phyllis Tickle, whilst flawed in some of her nuanced analyses of the theological history of the western world, helps us look more clearly at some of the larger shifts that are easy to ignore when looking too closely at one or other era. The shifts that are being experienced today in the church are at least as significant as those of the Reformation, if not, as Phyllis would suggest, even more so. She points out that the greatest question after any seismic shift in the nature of how the Church is manifest will be ‘where now is the authority?’[25] In Europe, the Reformation had brought about division and fragmentation in religion with a reasonably free space for these new forms of church to develop.

In England, whilst the overarching shift in Church authority from Pope to Bible had translated across from the continent, the monarchy and the Church of England had to some extent replaced the Pope. Certainly freedom to follow a religion separate to that of the state had not been considered a viable possibility before the civil war that led to the short lived republic of 1649-1660. Even then, the dictatorial nature of Cromwell’s rule left much to be desired in terms of religious freedom.

Continental Europe after the reformation was not without its own religious restrictions. For example the ‘Peace of Augsburg’ of 1555 merely offered a choice of between Catholicism and Lutheranism to each principality and a grace period for dissenters to migrate to a region of their religious choice.[26] However, the ‘Peace of Augsberg’ was already closer to the kind of allowances seen in the English Act of Toleration of 1689, than the black and white shifts seen in Tudor England that led to executions of people who refused to shift to the religion of the ruling monarch. By the eighteenth century European thinkers like Immanuel Kant were able to express deep questions about the freedom of the individual to believe.

Hence the deeper analysis of how the new sense of authority should work out was still quite young in England. Wesley’s passion for developing new ways of being Church at the same time as not breaking with the authority of the Church of England brings him into some significant points of tension with the Act of Toleration. The Act of Toleration was designed to keep in check the activities of dissenters, i.e., those who have opted out of the state religion. However, as Wesley himself pointed out, his activities were technically immune from these restrictions as he was making no attempt to dissent from the state religion, but rather was attempting to correct it[27]. This sense of immunity may be an oversimplification by Wesley, of an issue which troubled both the Methodists and their opponents throughout his life and beyond. Perhaps the complexity of the struggle helped to blur the edges even further. Either way, the long term effects of this activity have contributed to the freedom of religion that is now seen in England.

When the shifts in ecclesiology seen in the early Methodist movement are compared to shifts in ecclesiology in Britain today there are a number of notable parallels. First and foremost must be that, like Wesley’s Methodism, the Church of England and the Methodist Church are at the forefront of certain changes today, particularly in the movement of Fresh Expressions. Wesley’s passion for innovation but vehement denial of dissention is comparable to where both denominations are today. In some ways, Wesley was able to be more radical than the radicals by maintaining congruity with the establishment. He was able to rely at times on the political support of the Church, bypass the legal troubles of dissention, and his roots ensured that his theology could never be wildly off the mark.

In today’s shifts there is a surprising similarity in the movement of Fresh Expressions. Whilst being a mode of developing new congregations with entirely new forms of worship, they are primarily able to exist because of the financial, structural and even theological support of the Methodist and Anglican Churches.

It is perhaps also reasonable to suggest a similarity if not a parallel in the causes of these shifts in terms of their relationship to the established church. In Wesley’s time there was a sense in which the reformation had been going on in earnest in the continent for some two hundred years. By contrast England had played at the politics of reformation, but had merely scratched the surface of the outworking of theological thinking for individuals and groups within a changing culture. Hence, by the time Wesley came onto the scene England could look to Europe and learn from the experience of groups like the Moravians. This gave Wesley the freedom to pick and choose elements of theology and forms of worship that resonated with where he felt the church should be going.

In Britain in the latter part of the twentieth century, the Baptist Church and the Pentecostal Church along with many other independent churches led the drive for modernisation. Methodists and Anglicans followed but usually at a noticeable distance. However the shifts that have occurred have been for the most part cosmetic. Whilst the theology of the Baptist Church and Pentecostal Church may differ significantly from Methodist and Anglican theology, the shifts in worship patterns over the last half century have primarily been about dressing up the same theology and ecclesiology with new technology and modern music. The changes seen in the Fresh Expressions movement are rooted in a far deeper theological analysis of what it means to be church in a changing world. They come as a result of wrestling with the complex questions of what defines Church, and how much of what has been presumed to constitute church is essential or merely a cultural addition.

In the twentieth century most English speaking congregations moved at varying rates from the language of the King James Bible towards more modern forms of English, not just in the translation of the Bible but also in hymns, prayers and other liturgy. There was also a move from organ music to guitars and from pews to chairs. It is relatively easy to shift our Ecclesiology incrementally from one culture to another, because most of the elements are still recognisable, even if the changes seem extreme to those experiencing them. But the movement of Fresh Expressions has begun to ask what the Church needs to look like in very different communities and sub communities.

Examples of Fresh Expression churches range from ‘Tubestation’, the surfing church in Cornwall, to ‘Somewhere Else,’ the bread making Church in Liverpool City Centre. There are Fresh Expressions that engage with Goth culture, skateboarding, work places and families living on military bases.

As Wesley brought many issues from the edges of the ecclesiastical world towards the centre stage, so today there are individuals who are beginning to do the same. Tom Stuckey, in his presidential address to the Methodist Conference in 2005 uttered these striking words: ‘God is telling us to create fresh expressions of Church alongside and within the old since much of the old, in its resistance to change, will not survive.’[28] These words, on their own may have seemed like polemic rhetoric against the established traditions of the Methodist Church, had they not been supported by Stuckey quoting Wesley’s own words from 1786: ‘I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist, but I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power.’[29] These words now seem strikingly modern and it is hard to think of a line that could better describe the issues facing the British Methodist Church at this time.

Conclusion

It is impossible to completely separate Wesley the man, from his environment or to clarify what aspects of his personality are inherently his own, rather than learned through experience. But it is possible to ascertain from this analysis, the extent to which ‘pioneer’ ministers are key to building fresh expressions of church and the extent to which Wesley can be described as a pioneer minister. The word Pioneer is used by Heitzenrater as an incidental description to describe Wesley’s involvement with spiritual renewal,[30] but is being increasingly used by the Church in England to describe ministers who are specifically trained to work in new forms of church.[31]

Traditionally evangelism in the western world has taken two basic forms; going out and gathering new believers into an established community, or planting a new church that is a carbon copy of the one that it came from. The advantage of these old forms of evangelism is that it is relatively easy to train a minister to copy the ecclesial activities of the previous generation and apply them to whatever situation they find themselves in. In the past this method produced peculiar cultural problems like people in the heart of Africa learning to sing ‘in the bleak mid winter’ in the blazing hot sunshine. In the 1970’s, Catholic missionary Vincent Donovan discovered far more serious problems with trying to copy western forms of Christianity in the context of the Masai tribes of East Africa. His book ‘Christianity Rediscovered’ has become a first port of call for people looking to develop a Fresh Expression of Church. The problem with training pioneer ministers is how do you train someone to build a type of Church Community that does not yet exist?

Fresh Expressions, when done properly, should be neither syncretism nor inculturation, but a new emerging culture created by faithfully exegeting the work of God in both culture and scripture.[32] The concept of Missio Dei as interpreted by many modern missiologists takes into account the idea that God is bigger than the Church and his mission is all of creation.[33] So when the Church goes out into the world to do evangelism, God is already at work there. Part of the task of the Pioneer minister is to listen twice to God, first through the culture to which he or she is bringing the Gospel and second through the scripture and traditions of the Church. Vincent Donovan perhaps says it best in his introduction to Christianity Rediscovered;

“In working with young people, do not try to call them back to where they were, and do not try to call them to where you are, as beautiful as that place may seem to you. You must have the courage to go with them to a place that neither you nor they have ever been before.”[34]

If Wesley were around today, it is unlikely that his primary arguments would have centred on perfection or arguments of Calvinism versus Arminianism. It seems more likely that he would want to engage with the popular theological issues of this generation; such as homosexuality, fundamentalism and new forms of Church. He would probably have some idea about how the Church should handle these issues with some practical method that he would endeavour to put into action. This current age would change him, as the time he lived in changed him, but he would be, no doubt, as stubborn as he was then.

It is clear that the Church could benefit from some pioneer ministers that share at least some of the qualities of John Wesley so that new forms of Church can be built up where the old forms are failing. Wesley and early Methodism can be used as a model of how to instigate controlled change based not on a specific model of Church, but on the kind of person that is needed to envisage what change is appropriate to the context. The cultural comparisons between the eighteenth century and the twenty first suggest that it is more than likely that people with Wesley’s capacity to envisage such changes will become more common. The question that remains is whether the Church will know how to nurture and train these pioneers. Is the Church is prepared to cope with the difficult sides of such personalities alongside the benefits?

Bibliography of references

Allen, W.O.B. & McClure E. Two hundred years, the history of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1698-1898, London: SPCK, 1898
Bettenson, H.S. Documents of the Christian Church, USA, Oxford University Press, second edition 1963
Bosch, D.J. Transforming Mission–Paradigm Shifts in Theology of mission, New York: Orbis Books, 1991
Campbell, D. The Puritan in Holland, England, and America: an introduction to American history, Volume 2, New York: Harper Brothers, 1892
Chilcote, P.W. John Wesley and the Women preachers of early Methodism, USA: Scarecrow Press Inc, 1991
Donovan, V.J. Christianity Rediscovered, An epistle from the Masai, London: SCM Press, 1982, vii
Heitzenrater, R.P. Wesley and the People Called Methodists, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995
Hollinghurst, S. Mission Shaped Evangelism: the Gospel in Contemporary Culture, Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2010
Methodist Worship Book, Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1999
Outler, A.C. et al. The Works of John Wesley, Vols 2, 9, 11, 18, 19, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985, 88, 89, 1990
Plomer H.R. A Short history of English Printing 1476-1898 London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner and Company Limited, 1900
Stuckey, T. On the Edge of Pentecost: A theological journey of transformation(Peterborough, Inspire, 2007)
 The Toleration Act, 1689  http://www.jacobite.ca/documents/1689toleration.htm, accessed 10/15/2011
Tickle, P. / girdedwithtruth "Fresh Expressions UK - The Great Emergence”, YouTube Video,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSn_pBPDtE8, accessed 10/15/2011
Tickle, P. The Great Emergence, USA: Baker Books, 2008
Williams, R. et al, Mission Shaped Church: Church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context, London: Church Publishing House, 2004

Appendix 1: Fresh Expressions according to www.freshexpressions.org.uk

Changing church for a changing world (http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/about)

Fresh Expressions encourages new forms of church for a fast changing world, working with Christians from a variety of denominations and traditions. The initiative has resulted in hundreds of new congregations being formed alongside more traditional churches. It was initiated in 2005 by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York with the Methodist Council, but now also involves the United Reformed Church and a number of other partners.
The initiative was established as part of the follow-up to the best-selling report, Mission-shaped Church. The team has worked at grass roots level with dioceses, districts synods and groups of churches and has played a leading role in the formation of national policy in a number of denominations.
As we encourage new forms of church for those who are not already members of any church, we also want to consolidate all that has been achieved in terms of major projects and policy changes at national level.
Our work revolves around four aims:

• renewing vision
• gathering news
• supporting growth
• developing training

What is a fresh expression?
(http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/about/whatis)

A fresh expression is a form of church for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church.

• It will come into being through principles of listening, service, incarnational mission and making disciples;
• It will have the potential to become a mature expression of church shaped by the gospel and the enduring marks of the church and for its cultural context.

Fresh expressions:

• serve those outside church;
• listen to people and enter their culture;
• make discipleship a priority;
• form church.

A phrase like 'fresh expressions of church' can be vague and unclear. Sometimes the label is used to cover almost anything - even a new church noticeboard! But the important thing is intention: When a new mission project or group begins, what is the intention?
If it is to work towards establishing a new community or congregation especially for those who have never been involved in church (un-churched) or once were, but left for whatever reason (de-churched), then it is a fresh expression of church in the making. A fresh expression of church like this may look very different to traditional church.
If, though, the intention is to do mission better or more imaginatively in order to attract people to an existing church, it isn't a fresh expression (although doing that is always an excellent idea). The aim of a fresh expression is not to provide a stepping stone into existing church, but to form a new church in its own right. So it is important to decide the direction you are heading in, before you begin the journey.

Appendix 2: What is a pioneer minister? (by Hannah Smith)

http://www.sharetheguide.org/blog/archive/2009/03/09/what-is-a-pioneer-minister-by-hannah-smith/
Posted by Andrew Wooding on 9 March 2009
If I had a pound for every person who has asked me what a pioneer minister is, I'd be rich. If I had another pound for every different definition of a pioneer minister that I've heard, I'd probably have enough money to fund the 50 or so training for Ordained Pioneer Ministry in the Church of England.
So what is a pioneer? Well I got selected as one. I am training as an OPM (Ordained Pioneer Minister) at St Mellitus' College, the new college in London which has a particular stream aimed at training pioneers.
I chose the 'pioneer track' as it was suggested to me by my DDO, although I agonised about whether I was 'pioneering enough' or 'too pioneering' for the role, depending on who I spoke to. The selectors at my BAP had some awareness of what being a pioneer might entail, but to be honest, I do not think that they had a clearer idea than I did.
Since starting training, I have been ruminating about the heady mix on the St Mellitus 'pioneer course'. It is a mixed mode course and we have a number of people who seem to have started fresh expressions of church without really knowing what that is; there are people who are interested in inherited church planting (planting traditional forms of church in new areas); and there are people who are off the map pioneers, with experience and theology to back them up. Thrown into the mix are a number of 'parish' ordinands who are sometimes more pioneering than the pioneers themselves.
The boundaries aren't clear and no one really knows what we will be asked to do when we leave.
A pioneer is: 'a person who is among those who first enter or settle a region, thus opening it for occupation and development by others'
There is recognition that different people who have different callings need different training, as, for example, there are different skills needed to plant an inherited church model in comparison with those who are starting a fresh expression with people struggling with addictions.
I think it is important for the first of the Ordained Pioneer Ministers ('pioneering pioneers'!) to remember that the definition of 'pioneer' is 'a person who is among those who first enter or settle a region, thus opening it for occupation and development by others'. This holds two connotations.
Firstly, that we are pioneering what pioneers are, and therefore we will have to take responsibility for the training and experience that we get; that the courses will be written as we do them.
Secondly, we are opening up new areas for the whole church to occupy and develop. This means that pioneers cannot disconnect themselves from the wider church and just 'do their own thing'. It is of vital importance for the pioneers to be constantly training others, lay and ordained people, in how to live lives of mission and reach out to communities of de-churched and non-churched people who need to see the kingdom in their lives.

Footnotes

[1] See Appendix 1

[2] See Appendix 1

[3] Tom Stuckey, On the Edge of Pentecost: A theological journey of transformation (Peterborough: Inspire, 2007), 6.

[4] Rowan Williams et al, Mission Shaped Church: Church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context (London: Church Publishing House, 2004),26

[5] “The Toleration Act, 1689”  http://www.jacobite.ca/documents/1689toleration.htm, accessed 10/15/2011

[6] Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 26

[7] W. Reginald Ward & Richard P. Heitzenrater, The Works of John Wesley, Vol 19, Journal and Diaries II (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990) 286-291

[8] William Osborne Bird Allen & Edmund McClure, Two hundred years, the history of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1698-1898 (London: SPCK, 1898)

[9] Heitzenrater, Wesley, 29

[10] Paul Wesley Chilcote, John Wesley and the Women preachers of early Methodism (USA: Scarecrow Press Inc, 1991), 117-34.

[11] Ibid, 67-84

[12] Allen, SPCK, 23, 90

[13] W. Reginald Ward & Richard P. Heitzenrater, The Works of John Wesley, Vol 18, Journal and Diaries I (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988) 24th Jan 1738

[14] Douglas Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America: an introduction to American history, Volume 2 (New York: Harper Brothers, 1892) 185

[15] Henry R. Plomer, A Short history of English Printing 1476-1898 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner and Company Limited, 1900), 121, 215

[16] Ibid, 228

[17] Ward, Wesley, Vol 18, 250

[18] Heitzenrater, Wesley ,  224

[19] Ward, Wesley, Volume 19, 46

[20] Methodist Worship Book (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1999) 290

[21] Heitzenrater, Wesley ,  69

[22]  Ibid, 286

[23] Phyllis Tickle, uploaded by girdedwithtruth "Fresh Expressions UK - The Great Emergence”, YouTube Video,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSn_pBPDtE8, accessed 10/15/2011

[24] Albert C. Outler, The Works of John Wesley, Vol 2, Sermons II (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), 155-169

[25] Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence (USA, Baker Books, 2008), 72

[26] Henry Scowcroft Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church (USA: Oxford University Press, second edition 1963) 214-5

[27] Gerald R Cragg The Works of John Wesley, Vol 11, Appeals to men of reason and religion (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989) 179

[28] Stuckey, Pentecost, 1-2

[29] Rupert E. Davies, The Works of John Wesley, Vol 9, The Methodist Societies: History, Nature and Design (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989) 547

[30] Heitzenrater, Wesley, 76

[31] See Appendix 2

[32] Steve Hollinghurst, Mission Shaped Evangelism: the Gospel in Contemporary Culture, (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2010) 217-224

[33] David J Bosch, Transforming Mission–Paradigm Shifts in Theology of mission ( New York: Orbis Books, 1991), 390

[34] Vincent J Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, An epistle from the Masai (London: SCM Press, 1982), vii