Gatherings like Episcopal Village confirm my hunch that there’s a strong desire to move away from the attractional model of church that’s looking for the “next big thing” and go deeper. Ancient wisdom proclaims: “It takes a whole village to raise a child.” Episcopal Village, a grassroots community and initiative, resourcing Episcopal dioceses, parishes and leaders for emerging/fresh expression mission with an Anglican ethos and ”˜village’ (diocesan approach) was formed to explore applying this wisdom to the Church.
Jon Myers (a postulant and pioneer missioner in the Diocese of Olympia), who is planting Beacon Hill Church in South Seattle reflects on why he decided to co-envision Episcopal Village along with the Rev. Karen Ward, founding church planter of Church of the Apostles.
On March 5th, a group of Episcopal lay and ordained leaders gathered in Boston for Episcopal Village’s third learning party. During a pre-event gathering at Episcopal Divinity School, The Rev. Ian Mobsby, missioner with the London based community Moot, asked if in this post-secular culture how the church can reach those in who would describe themselves as spiritual but not religious.
The Seattle and US references seem to look to Moot is I take it one of the Fresh Expressions initiatives in England. I have asked before on these pages if there is any statistical evidence that Fresh Expressions, into which I believe considerable resources are poured, is making a difference. The answer came – I cannot remember from whom, but possibly Pageantmaster? – that such evidence was not available. I would like to believe in the success of these young adult friendly, informal, low-key innovative ministries. But having read the above article, and followed some of the links, I am (a) frankly baffled as to what it amounts to and (b) unclear whether it actually attracts new people or is a case of religious professionals speaking unto other religious professionals. BTW, before you excoriate my desire for such initiatives to be represented in numbers, I remember around 30 years ago attending a conference on mission here in England and hearing the irritable cry from clergy ‘Surely mission is about more than bums on seats?’ Well, let’s not reduce human beings to their posteriors; but unless people actually show up to build Christian community and share Christ’s message, what indicator of success do we have?
Why is it that even if you preview, you read what you think you have written and not the actual typo you have made? Anyway, the above opening sentence should read:
The Seattle and US references look to Moot which is, I take it, one of the Fresh Expressions initiatives in England. Apologies.
I don’t think I have ever seen so many buzz words packed into that size space.
All they need is smiley face cookies.
The name Ian Mobsby rang a bell, then I remembered… I was looking at some stuff called Fresh Expressions in the Catholic Tradition, which billed itself as a resource gatherer for Anglo-Catholics who wanted on the FE bandwagon. Moot figured prominently in the network. But the more I read, and the more links I followed, I found it was more liberal ritualists and Affirming Catholicism types (aka Aff-Caths), and not really traditional Anglo-Catholics at all.