FRESH EXPRESSIONS IN THE URBAN CONTEXT

by

Eleanor Williams

 

Available from

www.ytcpress.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

 

£8.95

From the Publisher’s Website:

The Church in the UK is in decline, with falling attendances and weakening influence. However, signs of hope are appearing, particularly through Fresh Expressions which seek to find new ways of being church, engaged with contemporary culture. Fresh Expressions reach those who would not come to church by 'going out', rather than expecting people to ‘come in’.

In this book, Eleanor Williams explores the key issues surrounding the establishment of sustainable Fresh Expressions. She considers how Fresh Expressions can mature, how they should relate to the consumerist agenda, how leadership should be developed and, crucially, how they might engage with the poor, through critical analysis of developments in one UK Diocese, alongside wider research of Fresh Expressions in urban areas.

There are difficult questions: what issues cause a Fresh Expression to flounder? How should Fresh Expressions relate to the wider church? How can Fresh Expressions’ leaders make themselves accountable?

What support structures should be put in place for Fresh Expressions?

As the Church seeks to find its place in 21st-century society, this book both challenges and inspires us through this most important research which enables us all to better explore our own context and missiological priorities for the future.

Rev Dr Eleanor Williams is an ordained Minister in the Church of England

and a practicing GP, currently serving a curacy in the Ely Diocese, as a Minister in Secular Employment. She lives with her family in Cambridge.

 

 

 

 

From an interview for emergingchurch.info:

I had struggled for years with how the Church could be culturally relevant without losing what makes it distinctively ‘church’. When my family moved to an estate on the outskirts of Cambridge for my husband to become vicar of the local church the challenge seemed much more acute. I had worked most of my career as a GP in areas of social deprivation, so have encountered a lot of difficult situations. But living and worshipping in the area brought other challenges. The church had a lot going on to serve the local community, but the transition for people to Sunday worship seemed to be impossible. We began to experiment with different types of activity which might bring in a very low-key element of worship, and found it tough going. Several months after we arrived there was a serious assault at the church, which was incredibly  difficult, but one outcome was that I found myself looking for what was going on in other contexts to learn about what might ‘work’ in our context. When choosing a subject for an MA dissertation as part of my ordination training it seemed an obvious area to look at – fresh expressions, but specifically at sustainability, particularly in urban deprived areas – what ‘works’ in an area like this? In the dissertation I looked at the development of fresh expressions, and ask some key questions about sustainability, engagement with the poor, and how far fresh expressions pander to the consumerist mentality. I then reported on two pieces of research – one looking at what is going on in Ely diocese to engage with the fresh expressions agenda, which gives a really helpful perspective from ‘inherited churches.’ The other main piece of work is reporting on interviews with leaders of fresh expressions, mainly in urban deprived contexts, trying to answer those big questions about sustainability and how they engage with their contexts. I was able to interview several leaders of fresh expressions which had ended, which gave some significant insights into sustainability. In the final section I look at drawing it all together to ask how inherited and emerging churches can work together, and then some reflections on what it means to be ‘church’, and how a fresh expression can move on to become a mature, sustainable expression of church, and the resources needed.