On Nov. 14, 2014, pastors and lay-leaders came from all around our region to Pittsburgh Theological Seminary to attend a Fresh Expressions Vision Day. Having originated in the Church of England ten years ago, Fresh Expressions is a movement which encourages the formation of new Christian communities that connect with our changing culture. Though they exist alongside and are complementary to existing forms of Church, these new communities exist primarily for the benefit of people who aren’t yet members of the Church, a segment of the population that continues to grow in the United States.
As we heard leaders of Fresh Expressions US share lessons they’ve learned from Fresh Expressions in the UK, I was struck by the wisdom and simplicity of their relational approach to forming new Christian communities. In ministries like the Tobacco Trail Church and The Gaming Grotto, Christian community emerged among groups of people who gathered around common interests like running or video games. These new communities weren’t started by larger churches seeking to extend their brand or by denominations trying to strategically position themselves in growing neighborhoods. Instead, they were started by people who followed as God led them deeper into relationship with real people in their contexts. By taking postures in which they listened and obeyed, they allowed God’s desires for these new communities to emerge.
At the Vision Day, the presenters drew an explicit contrast between that posture of ministry and other models of church planting which put the worship service first. Leaders who operate within worship service first models of church planting tend to speak with terms like “launch team” and “preview service.” The effort seems to revolve around creating a worship service and then attracting people to that service. The resulting service may be a dynamic new congregation, but it is unlikely that it will attract people who have no church background. Such models extend the “come to us” posture which the Church adopted during Christendom, the days when the Church still had great cultural influence. But those days are behind us.
Fresh Expressions, by contrast, emphasizes serving the community before ever beginning a worship service. As leaders of new Christian communities (“pioneers,” in Fresh Expressions’ terms) listen to God and to the people to whom God has sent them, these leaders discover opportunities for loving service in their particular contexts. Out of those relationships of loving service, community is formed which provides a venue for evangelism and discipleship. By adopting these postures of listening and service, leaders come from a place humility, like the Son of Man who “came not to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).
The end result may or may not be a traditional congregation of the Church, but it will likely connect with people whom existing modes of the Church would never reach. For a local example, leaders of Encounter Church, in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood, spent a year living in and seeking to serve the neighborhood before beginning anything like a worship service. As a result of their commitment to and service of the neighborhood, they’ve won the respect and trust of many in the community.
This is why, within the Church Planting Emphasis at PTS, we speak about of forming Christian community through processes of discernment and attentiveness. The goal of our ministry is not merely to launch new worship services, nor is it only to perform good works without our neighborhoods. Instead, we go into the world to which Christ has sent us, and there we seek to participate in what the Holy Spirit is doing in the world. As we listen to both the Lord’s guidance and to the people to whom he’s sent us, we discern in context how God is going about gathering people into new communities that make disciples of Jesus Christ. There we join Christ in forming those communities, making disciples, and developing expressions of faithful worship in those places. This is what we mean by “church planting” when we use the term here at PTS. May we indeed be found to be faithful and attentive servants of the one Master and those to whom he sends us.
Written by the Rev. Christopher Brown (MDiv, 2008), Church Planting Initiative coordinator at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and co-pastor of The Upper Room Presbyterian Church.