To say "I've started writing my book!" is perhaps overstating things a little, but there are jargon filled musings on notepaper, a front page and a saved file. I'll be reflecting on Alan Roxburgh's image of 'unravelling' which to me is what's happening to 'church' in the decades I've experienced it. Scraps of paper might one day be crafted into unreliable opinions or history...
I read with interest from time to time, articles akin to self help guides, surveys, critiques and divided opinion regarding so called 'fresh expressions' alongside advocacy for some genuinely inspired ideas enacted in church communities shaped like those of the last many decades. There's no doubt there is a great 'unravelling' happening across contexts like the ones I've lived in. Much exploring or debate is a 'confusion of style over substance' and arguments about generalisations or inaccuracy are just as big a waste of time as the latest 'shiny ideas.'
What God is up to and where we are invited to join in can happen in longer serving or new experimental ways. A key seems to be openness to listen, learn and discern. Also important is where and how we are willing to free up resources and put in our own energy. This sometimes needs agitation or complaint.
Inevitably some resources will be freely offered, others need a change in regulations. In my exploring of 'Fresh Expressions' in the UK I learnt about the 'rules' that were changed to allow different forms of leadership and allowing recognition of communities existence to enable help to be offered or leadership to thrive. There were good ideas and dodgy ones, things which had longevity and others a short season. They teach us the value of experiments and learnings, rather than regarding them as failures, consigning some communities 'never to try anything new.'
We have both effective congregations and reinventions alongside resources locked up in almost empty buildings with communities of people 'happy to be left how we are.' There are communities being shaped around discernment where interests, deep yearnings, meals, art, venues and day or times are experimental.
It takes a level of advocacy to challenge adhoc maintenance of buildings, ordained ministry and resourcing, as societal and neighbourhood character changes. It's not hard to see a small church building on Sydney's north shore will yield more sale proceeds than a similar building in remote NSW. Shifting the profits needs discernment of course, but in the end it mostly needs timely action.
Blah, blah, blah... something about space, permission and validity as three legs of the experimental stool! One way of thinking about fostering new missional shaped gathering, worship or community, presence in neighbourhood or whatever is about: creating space for the new things; giving permission, through resources, time money and support; and sometimes missing is the decision the new thing is valid, therefore encouraged to exist, not just tolerated or seen as church 'lite', something on the way to growing what already exists...
