20 Years of Fresh X: Hopes, Challenges and Perspectives

Interview

Schlegel: Simon, Michael and Tim, thank you very much for taking the time to answer some questions about Fresh Expressions in the UK. Nearly twenty years ago, the Mission-Shaped Church report was published. Where do you see Fresh Expressions in the United Kingdom today?

Tim Lea: On our knees. I remember Graham Cray saying in the early days that he felt he was constantly running to catch up with what was happening in the church. There’s some truth in that, I think. The impact of Fresh Expressions has been significant – in methodology, in ways of thinking, and in theology. When we look around now, we can see that nearly every denomination that has partnered with Fresh Expressions is, in some way, trying to embed its vision and values. As a result, millions of pounds are being invested in pioneering, in new forms of church, in new places for new people, and in new worshipping communities.

Michael Moynagh: I’m really amazed. I was part of the original Fresh Expressions team that was set up as a result of the Mission-Shaped Church report. If, back in 2004, you had told me that the Anglican Church would be where it is now, I’d have thought it incredible. Twenty years on, the Church of England has set an official target of 10,000 new worshipping communities by 2030. Most dioceses I come across are, at least to some degree, taking that seriously. That’s a huge positive – twenty years ago they would never have thought like that. The challenge, though, is that while we have these ambitious goals at the top, and lots of creative work happening at the grassroots, there’s a gap in the middle – what I’d call an intermediate strategy. And that gap remains.

Simon Goddard: Looking back over the past twenty years, Fresh Expressions began within the Anglican Church and then spread to the Methodists, so initially it was rooted in those two traditions. Over time, though, more and more partners came on board, until eventually all the mainstream denominations in the UK were involved. By now, the language of Fresh Expressions is present across the churches – though how well it is lived out varies. As a Baptist, I’ve seen pioneering embraced to different degrees. It has become part of what we do. At the same time, our structures are still catching up – in terms of training, in how we constitute and understand “church.” But at least we’re asking those questions. Fresh Expressions is now part of the vocabulary and, to some extent, the practice of the whole church.

Lea: The Methodist Church, for instance, has just agreed on a second tranche of funding after five years of investment. They’re essentially spending their inheritance on creating new places for new people, putting millions of pounds into the effort. It’s an incredibly brave step, showing deep commitment to exploring what this could look like in practice.

Moynagh: Back in 2004, the older generation in the church often resisted change. Today, the “older generation” is my own – those who were teenagers in the 1960s. We spent our lives challenging the status quo, so we’re not inclined to defend the church as it was. That strong opposition you felt in the early 2000s has largely diminished, though of course some theological resistance remains. But now the assumption that change is possible – and even necessary – is widespread. Many people are doing innovative things that you might call Fresh Expressions or new worshipping communities, but for them it’s simply intuitive: they know people won’t come to church on Sunday, so they create something in their village on a Thursday, or whatever fits. The climate is very different now.

Schlegel: I can hear that you are very grateful for what has been achieved in the last twenty years, and that Fresh Expressions has become part of the language of the Church. Are there disappointments, though? Are there things you miss or that could have developed differently?

Goddard: To some extent, Fresh Expressions as an organization is a victim of its own success. Funding within denominations is now spent internally rather than in the ecumenical space. In the early days, we were the only ones talking, training, and thinking about this across denominational lines. Now much of that expertise exists within each denomination. Even so, there’s still value in the ecumenical space – sharing stories, learning from one another. Our continuing role, as we’ve reflected, is to be prophetic to the Church. When initiatives become embedded, they can lose their edge and prophetic purpose, being tamed by the structures. Our task is to keep encouraging the Church to look to the edge, to stay prophetic about the importance of contextual mission, and to ensure that this new move of God’s Spirit isn’t domesticated.

Schlegel: So Fresh Expressions has come to the center of the Church but risks losing its spirit or transformative potential?

Moynagh: Yes, the complexities of institutionalization have created challenges. I would say Fresh Expressions hasn’t been as fruitful as some hoped in terms of people coming to conventional faith. In the dioceses I visit, some ask, “Does this really work? Are we seeing people converted?”

(Technical interruption – recording cuts off here)

Moynagh (continued): At the same time, others argue that this is the only viable alternative. If we don’t create new forms of church, we do nothing and risk stagnation. There’s a tension here – the tension of making new disciples – and we haven’t yet seen it happen to the degree we might have prayed and hoped for.

Lea: I completely agree with that, Michael. I think we haven’t focused enough on discipleship development. Often we’ve jumped straight from community, or even from loving and serving, into church. We haven’t really dug into what it means to help people follow Jesus. I’m not sure we always have the confidence in the hope we hold, or in our story – our confidence in what it means to follow Jesus in our context. There’s still work to do to explore how we help people follow Jesus in the twenty-first century.

Moynagh: We may be completely wrong, and the traditional church might revive, making some of our efforts unnecessary. But if we’re right that new expressions of church are needed and that church must look very different in the centuries ahead, then this is a watershed moment. It’s comparable to the Reformation, but in a completely different missional context. So it’s not surprising that learning how to do this properly takes time. What we’ve learned in twenty years is fantastic, but there’s still so much to learn – for example, how to help people truly become disciples. We haven’t yet figured out what it means to follow Jesus in the social media space, and there’s more theology we need to reflect on. The list of lessons to learn could be very long.

Goddard: Actually, while there’s still much to learn, there are also things the Church needs to unlearn. Think of the long shadow of Christendom: even within Fresh Expressions, some forms of church are led in ways that center the pioneer, which is a very Christendom model. Ideally, pioneers should be able to move on while the fresh expression continues independently – and that doesn’t always happen. Some habits and models from Christendom have carried over into the way we pioneer, so part of the journey is not just learning new ways, but also unlearning old ones.

Lea: Often what we’ve done is treat Fresh Expressions – its methodology and values – as a technical solution to what is actually an adaptive problem, a cultural problem. Cultural problems always take longer to resolve. For example, if your heating system develops a leak, you fix it, then another leak appears, and another, and you realize the root cause – a chemical reaction eating the copper from the inside out – hasn’t been addressed. In the same way, we haven’t always looked deeply at the real adaptive problems. This is also a matter of adaptive leadership. We may have applied technical solutions to increase attendance or discipleship numbers, but what’s really needed is a broader cultural change in how church is expressed. Leadership, discipleship, and other factors all form part of this longer-term project. Walter Brueggemann points out that it took forty years for Israel to get Egypt out of them while wandering in the desert. How long will it take us to get Christendom out of us? That’s a really interesting question.

Goddard: Using the radiator example, we’re moving away from fossil-fueled boilers to heat pumps and solar. Similarly, some people see Fresh Expressions as the next thing to “save the church.” But Fresh Expressions is just one way that the new way of being Church expresses itself. Saving the Church isn’t about keeping it as it was. Fresh Expressions is a step toward something beyond, a paradigm shift. That shift isn’t happening if people treat it merely as a solution to preserve the status quo, rather than a direction toward the longer-term vision.

Lea: It’s also unfamiliar territory. Whether we like it or not, this is a new place. We’ve traveled this journey so far – we are post-everything in many ways. And yet, there are still people in our country who are pre-Christian; they have nothing to unlearn. How do we reach them?

Moynagh: We do this in a missional context that is often very challenging. It’s not overt hostility – most people simply know little about Christianity – but the competition for people’s time is intense. Even committed Christians struggle to give God the time He deserves. For newcomers, the idea of meeting regularly or maintaining a devotional rhythm can be a real challenge. We are constantly reinventing these rhythms, but they still require sacrifice. With so many competing demands – mental health issues, social pressures, and other commitments – pioneering new forms of church is not easy.

Schlegel: What gives you hope? What keeps you optimistic enough to continue on this long journey – forty years?

Lea: For me, it’s a bit like a Sunday school lesson. If you ask, “What’s at the center?” my answer is still Jesus. There’s something about the person of Jesus that completely fascinates me – the way he lived, the stories he told, his command of the Holy Spirit. It feels like he has found me, and he won’t let go. I hope that’s not trite, but my hope is in Christ.

Goddard: And to move to another Person of the Trinity, my hope comes from seeing how God’s Spirit moves. People encounter God’s call in ways that they haven’t necessarily labeled “Fresh Expressions,” yet when they hear about it, they recognize, “That’s exactly what I’m doing!” This isn’t something we create; it’s something God is doing, and we get to participate. That’s where my hope comes from – the Spirit at work. Psalm 23 talks about being made to lie down in green pastures. Sometimes that sounds nice if we choose to rest, but the text says God makes us lie down. In Greek, the verb implies that God ultimately has his way. If we don’t follow now, change will happen one way or another. The Spirit will bring God’s work to completion, and we can participate in it or resist it. What God is doing in the Church will come to completion.

It’s exciting and hopeful for those of us involved, but I can hear people within church structures saying, “That sounds awful – all these people disconnected from the church, we don’t have control, we can’t measure it.” So while it’s hopeful for some, others feel anxious.

Moynagh: There’s a difference between not having control and being disconnected. These communities can and do connect, because we live in a networked society. Bishops in the Anglican Church, for example, know they don’t have control – that’s a source of frustration sometimes. The issue of control often arises at a more intermediate level, where priests want to exercise it, and that can be problematic.

Lea: It also comes back to the fact that we haven’t been this way before. We are in a liminal space – a place of not knowing. The question is whether we can accept that, embrace it, and navigate the uncertainty.

Moynagh: For some, that’s exciting; for others, terrifying.

Goddard: Whenever we face change, some people lean into it and want to go on an adventure, while others long to return to security. In that liminal space, you either move forward or look backward.

Moynagh: When you bring the two groups together – listening to both the hesitant and the enthusiastic – you create something in between, a safe space for change. If you ignore the cautious, the space feels unsafe; if you ignore the adventurous, it’s too safe. Everyone has a role to play in the change, provided we listen to one another.

Schlegel: Thank you very much for the insightful conversation.