Categories: ecclesiastical-stuff, protest, punk-theology
Date: 11 May 2010 17:07:40
Ichthus is the Leaders of Worship and Preachers Trust journal which drops into my letter box every so often. The current copy has an interesting article by Peter Pillinger which explores the role of local preachers within Fresh Expressions and how they might be trained.
His argument is that Faith and Worship, the training programme for local preachers, isn't appropriate for working with Fresh Expressions. Yet, he argues that there is a real place for local preachers within these forms of church and they will need to be trained.
The article is interesting and makes some good points suggesting that The Mission-Shaped Ministry course might be more useful. This is a course which is based around the training of lay people for the development of fresh expressions.
All very well, but there are questions to be raised from the article. Before I get stuck in, for anybody who might not be a regular reader and so more than familiar with my views, I better state I am committed to Fresh Expressions of church, but also to traditional forms. Basically I am a mixed-economy cheerleader.
Firstly: We live in a mixed economy situation. There are many "younger" leaders who are emerging, (basically my age and younger), who are certain to be involved in either lay or ordained ministry during a period of even more interesting change then we have so far seen. They will need to be able to bridge both "traditional" forms of church and "new forms" / "fresh expressions". They will need to be there to minister God's word and God's love in whatever church(es) we end up with in about 20-25 years time when alot of the current church have, to put it bluntly, died and passed on to glory. We are being grown in "traditional" churches but need to be prepared to experience and lead worship in a very different place in coming years. Yet at the same time we also need to be prepared to lead worship in the churches we have now. We need to be prepared to nourish and encourage those churches who faithfully soldier on. Therefore, we need to be trained up in the skills to not only transmit the message to the fresh, emerging or future church but also to the current faithful traditional church. We need, I would argue a mix of Faith and Worship and Mission-Shaped Ministry training.
Secondly, in the article Peter Pillinger says "It is best if such people [local preacehers] are part of the fresh expression from the beginning, part of the new Christian community not 'bought in' later". I agree that people should not be parachuted into Fresh Expressions, but equally I believe that this part of the article ignores the way new leaders have been nurtured and grown through Fresh Expressions. If one reads any basic text about a Fresh Expression, emergent community or similar, (and I recognise there are differences), such as the story of Holy Joes, or Michael Vollands Through the Pilgrim Door something that ends up coming out is the way God has ended up calling people from it formal ministry. Therefore, you don't need to have the local preachers in at the beginning, they are likely to be grown from the inside. Yet, in the early stages and in supporting the community and building bridges with the wider church I think local preachers could have a cruical place. They have the ability to support the pioneer leaders and make their journey a little less lonely.
So what's the answer how do we do this? Well, I would like to suggest that one way might be through to set up specific training, not just for young leaders but for "bridging leaders". By that I mean there could be some kind of training set up specifically to help those who feel comfortable moving between different forms of church to have the skills and knowledge to negotiate our way between the two, as required, in the future.
Finally, I want to suggest that those of us just starting on the journey need to wake up, smell the coffee and take responsibility. I've just found out that the recommendation is I go "on trial" and I am enthusiastic about the training. Yet, I totally believe that the church I will be serving, (hopefully if I complete this training), will be very different in twenty years to the one I know now. In all the churches I know there is a predominance of people aged 50 and over, (with many well into retirement age). We cannot and must not ignore the facts, and mortality is a fact that cannot be desputed. Therefore, the church will face even more of a crunch in the next couple of decades than it has already seen. If those of us under 40 are stepping up to respond to God's call now we are stepping up to commit ourselves to be preachers and worship leaders during that period of change. We need to take this seriously, but equally the church needs to take that seriously and we need to be trained up now how to respond to those challenges.