The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and General Secretary of the Methodist Church, Rev Dr Martyn Atkins backed the development of regional support teams for fresh expressions of church.

The Church leaders were addressing a national conference this week looking at the way ahead for fresh expressions of church.

It was the first major Fresh Expressions gathering since the United Reformed Church became a formal partner in the movement last year. URC General Secretary Rev Roberta Rominger also attended the event.

Speaking to more than 450 delegates at the conference in Lincoln, the Archbishop said, “As Fresh Expressions gets more successful, more widely known, more active and innovative, it’s really important to remember that Fresh Expressions is not first and foremost about capturing a new market for a product.

“Fresh Expressions ought to be, and I hope and pray is, the Church’s way of pushing back against static, infantilising forms of religious belief, pushing back against trivialisation, against the shrinkage of faith and discipleship to boring and manageable dimensions.”

Describing the Church as an "echo chamber of the divine Word", he urged patience from both traditional and fresh expressions of church. “Fresh Expressions is not an instant solution to the Church’s problems of membership and support, or whatever – it’s not a quick fix for the issues and needs of those involved. And that means, of course, that it’s quite a risky territory to be in.”

Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops’ Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, said the aim of the day was helping fresh expressions of church "grow through to maturity and sustainability and how we can own and encourage those developments regionally”.

Dr Atkins said that partnering in the Fresh Expressions initiative was symbolically important to Methodism.

“It’s a means of embodying the covenant relationship between our Churches in a particularly apt model of ecumenism for today," he said.

He warned that in a time of decreasing financial and human resources, it was important for the Churches to "resist the temptation to continue to resource what we have long had without asking serious questions of it, and then immediately withdrawing support in tight times from things which are just coming to be".

He said: "The Church cannot be the place where ‘last in, first out’ is the rule. Consequently we must face the sharp challenge that those expressions of Christian Church that do not appear to enable groups of human beings to worship, love and serve God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and live out their lives as Christ their Lord might choose, as authentic disciples, cannot continue to automatically expect or command the lion’s share of the resources of an official organisation.

"The Church, whatever else it is, is not a self-preservation society."

The event saw the launch of a five-year strategy to support and encourage fresh expressions of church through FEASTs (Fresh Expressions Area Strategy Teams).

FEASTs bring together pioneers involved in fresh expressions of church; permission-givers working within denominational structures to effect change and release resources; and champions for the initiative - even if they may not be pioneers themselves.

Working across both large and small areas, the FEASTs will encourage prayer for fresh expressions to emerge and for the strategy as a whole, train, resource and map fresh expressions, and identify and support pioneers.

Overseeing the growth in FEASTs is Fresh Expressions Connexional Missioner for the Methodist Church, Stephen Lindridge.

“Some regions and FEASTs have a very clearly defined area and relationships across the denominations; in other cases it is very disparate. Separating Great Britain into seven regional areas is an attempt to tackle this problem," he said.

FEASTS are already up and running in some areas.

Rev Dave Martin, Mission and Development Enabler, Plymouth and Exeter Methodist District, said, “We have been operating FreD (Fresh Expressions Devon) for a few years now. It has been an invaluable group from which to launch msm courses and more recently to draw together strategists and practitioners. We need to keep reminding each other of the worlds we inhabit.”


On the web: www.freshexpressions.org.uk/feasts