Today has been the day of special speakers! In Church in Mission, Bishop Graham Cray from the UK Fresh Expression movement came and gave lectures for SIS. He discussed in detail the ideas behind the Fresh Expression movement and how it came to be. It was good to have this background, especially since on Monday, we saw some examples of how the Fresh Expression looks practically. But a few things really stood out to me, from what Bishop Cray said:
– We are seeing a top down and bottom up movement, in a) new imagination of forms of the church, b) a new area of permission (We can do things in church that was once before no longer allowed) and c) we have new resources that have been brought about from experience.
– Post- Modernity should be a term that no longer applies becuase it is no longer a postive term, and a LOT of the people are no longer living in a “post” time, they have only known life outside of modernity. We are a society no longer living in the transition of modernity to post modernity.
– We need to listen to the people, find a way to serve these people ( in acts of service) and THEN decide on the shape of worship and what the church should look like. It is interesting that this is the LAST step, not the first.
So – is our church a fishing net, or is it a safety net?