Buzz!

Chat about… examples of Fresh Expressions of Church you know of and why they are Fresh Expressions of Church.

What are Fresh Expressions of Church?

Messy Church Evangelical Alternative Worship For Urban Mums and Toddlers For Rural Outreach For big churchesChurch with a twist For small churches Technology Modern worship Youth Trendy

Worship

Help from the Middle Ages

To sum up: A form of church…

Primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church….

Set up through listening, service, incarnational mission and making disciples….

Potential to mature….

Following the Missionary Spirit

FXCs in Ripon and Leeds

An FXC? The 10 parameters

1. Is corporately Christian; a new and further group, not an existing one that has been improved

2. Planters have tried to engage with non-church people in their context

3. Meets at least once a month

An FXC? 10 parameters

4. Has a name, that gives an identity

5. Is it Anglican? – Bishop sees it as part of the family

6. Some form of recognised leadership

7. The majority of members see it as their church

An FXC? 10 parameters

8. Aspiration for the 4 ecclesial / credal relationships (up/holy, in/one, out/apostolic, of/catholic’.)

9. Intention to become 3 self – in context (financing, governing & reproducing)

10. An intention to be church

Numbers of FXCs in diocese

Number of fxC 39Number of churches 256FXC percentage 15.2%Av. Church size 62.9Av. FXC size 30

How many in our FXCs?

Attendance is 1083:648 adults and 435 children

Grown from the original 309:239 adults and 70 children who began

For every 1 person sent, over time another 2.5 have been added.

Real numerical growth

Clusters around:

• Harrogate

• South

• North

Where?

TraditionsEvangelical 43.6 %Anglo Catholic 23.1%Charismatic 41 %Central 46.2 %

Respondents often identify with more than one tradition.

44% FXCs offer communion

Who is being reached?

Around 2/3 of FXCs in R & L were set up to reach un-churched people.

Just under half of their present membership are from unchurched backgrounds.

What are we offering?

Nightmare scenario! If we “lose”

our understanding that FXCs represent growth and do not plan with them in mind.

Dream Scenario:

Every parish

dreams of the possibilities of

Fresh Expressions..

Dream Scenario:

More leaders trained:

MSi in every parish

All leaders take part in MSM

Share the dream…

Forget? FXC in every parish? Equip leaders Read report!