Steve Croft reports several milestones in the Angflican/ Methodist FX initiative, like the newly ordained minsiters, the 4000 people who have attended vision days and 500 npeople who have either been on, or are currently on the year long Missioned Shaped Ministry course. Spreading to Scotland and Ireland in the future, the FX team begins a new phase this summer.
Two high street chains of coffee shop have welcomed the possibility of partnerships with local churches to form a Cafe Church. Some wonderful examples exist, and real mission and effective evangelisation is taking place in many areas. The website which links all this together is:
From the Church of England comes new legislation which helps those leading church plants and fresh expressions to work across ancient parochial and other boundaries. It will be very helpful for CofE but also other churches in partnership with particular projects. A brief guide is on:
Andrew Wooding from Fresh Expressions points us to a blog feature on the Share: The Guide website which helps practitioners start and sustain a Fresh Expression. He says there is much discussion about being 'radical' taking place among FX practitioners and this is being debated on the blog which you can join at:
'Fresh Expressions in the Urban Context' is a contribution to an ongoing debate about creating new forms of church and how they can be sustained. From a newly formed publishing house specialising in youth titles, this book is relevant for more than youth and the urban context: it explores FX questions which are relevant in other contexts too. See:
http://www.ytcpress.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=103
The Fresh Expressions team are holding Vision Days in various parts of England spread over the next few weeks and months. They share stories and reflect on good practice, set in the context of a cafe style day. They have been very popular so far with people from all church traditions. Basically it does what is says on the tin, and share the 'vision' of FX especially for those not yet sure about what an FX is and how to get started with it. Details on:
http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk//section.asp?id=1843&cachefixer=
A brand new section has appeared in the guide part of the Share website: ‘How can we sustain our fresh expression?’ Arguably it is one of the most important sections of the guide, which makes it ironic that it is also currently the shortest.
It includes Share’s first shot at sharing some wisdom on sustainability, but it is far from the last word. There are almost certainly other themes that Share should address, so they need your help.
Please register with the Share website (run by Church Army and Fresh Expressions) at www.sharetheguide.org, so that you can log in and leave your insights in this new section.
Mission Shaped Questions is the latest resource from FX with a wide range of well known contributers asking the questions and providing the answers. An important book reflecting on the joint Anglican Methodist initiative which other churches also share. Details on:
A new dedicated website resource from Fresh Expressions and Church Army now provides a lots of discussion content and a hundred pages of well documented 'how to do it' advice on all aspects of starting , developing and sustaining a 'fresh expression' of church. It is possible to request regualr update 'snippets' mailing to keep up to date. All details on:
Christchurch is a Baptist church in St Albans which has established a 70 strong monthly gathering in the local branch of Costa. Christchurch has reached an agreement with the national Costa chain to extend this kind of scheme to other branches. See:
www.freshexpressions.org.uk/cafechurch
A dedicated site is www.cafechurch.net.
