Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 September 2011 13:38:48
Sometimes you click on something and get a suprise which brings a broad grin to your face - the Guardian managed to bring that grin to my face just now. I saw a pretty face below a headline saying "Minister of Sound" and was intreged. Turns out it was a post by the Guardian's northern correspondent about a new pioneer minister in Leeds, Beth Tash who is working with the night time economy in the city.
As somebody who volunteers with Street Lights in the city where I live and so interacts with the night time economy I find this a really interesting concept, although one realistically which is most appropriate for cities like Leeds and Newcastle which are party capitals. It is the logical step forward from the initatives already going on in many areas, although obviously the form it takes in each place has to be individual.
Pioneer ministry is something I find increasingly interesting, although I know/ think (delete as you think appropriate) my passion and calling lies elsewhere in another form of Fresh Expression style engagement which can be seen as taking more of a remix approach in terms of bridging inherited and new forms of church. Whilst not going into detail I have in recent days, and it is recent days, realised in a fresh way what the difference between churches taking a Fresh Expression and a more traditional market style approach to engaging with the challenges of secularisation is. As somebody who has a particular passion for engaging and supporting single parents and members of the LGBandT community I am coming to understand that effectiveness only comes when the ethos of Fresh Expressions is taken on board.
By the ethos of Fresh Expressions I am talking about the evangelistic approach which is not only holistic and incarnational but which also seeks to bring about a specific type of transfromation which is wider than conversion as it has been seen in the traditional sense. I could go into more depth on this but am straying into the territory of my thesis and the findings which I have come to in my research. Suffice to say there is effective practice going on in our churches which needs to be named for what it is and which flows in a large part from the thinking and discussions surrounding Fresh Expressions but which goes beyond it and in fact preceeds it also.