Fresh Expressions National Gathering: Good Intent

Barton Dempsey on April 19, 2016

(The author is an intern with IRD.)

A few weeks ago I attended the Third National Fresh Expressions Conference where hundreds from various denominations gathered in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. Fresh Expressions is a movement which has its roots in the United Kingdom among Anglicans and Methodists and eventually came to the United States joining with the Baptist General Association of Virginia in 2010. In the words of Graham Cray, Bishop in the Church of England and former leader in the UK Fresh Expressions team, the movement attempts to form “fresh expressions of church to reach the ones we will never reach.”

This movement seems quite exciting as a serious initiative to reach those outside the church. There is an amazing amount of initiative, fervor for the lost, and zeal which is both encouraging and challenging. Yet, with anything there is much wisdom in discernment.

My fear is that Fresh Expressions may be motivated with good desire but not as focused on sound doctrine as I would prefer. I speak from perspective of conservative Southern Baptist, so I realize evangelical Mainline Protestant friends may operate differently in their quest for church renewal. But this is my view.

I have seen this good intentioned outreach with the seeker sensitive movement, the multi-campus church movement, and others. In good attempts to reach the lost for Christ, it can be tempting to not explicitly to stress Biblical theology for the sake of being more attractive. Yet in lieu of solid Biblical churches and true converts these styles of ministry can potentially produce easy believism and ultimately unhealthy churches. This is my concern for the Fresh Expressions movement.

So, where did they go wrong?

“Changing church for a changing world” – this little statement was the banner atop the Fresh Expressions signs, and summarizes well the overall mission of Fresh Expressions. This is also where I think they may have gone wrong.

The New Testament describes how Christians and new converts covenant together to form new local churches. Fresh expressions of churches seeks to be “new forms of church for our changing culture established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet part of any church.” Of the many examples given at the conference the common denominator among the “new forms of church” was non-Christians meeting with Christians to do, well, anything. They gave not enough emphasis to the preaching of God’s word, affirmation of faith, oversight of membership, Gospel proclamation, or practicing of the gospel ordinances (baptism and communion).

Travis Collins, Director of Mission Advancement for Fresh Expressions US and Pastor of First Baptist Church of Huntsville, Alabama, further clarified what fresh expressions of church hope to be. He stated, “If there’s not worship, mission, and community, it’s not church.” This might sound good, surely each church should worship the Lord, seek to be missional, and have community, but these elements alone do not make a church. When I prodded to ask for more clarification on what Fresh Expressions qualifies as a church and specifically asked about pastoral leadership, preaching of God’s word, Gospel proclamation, and practice of gospel ordinances, his answer was simply non-affirming. Effectively, to each his own. He continued to explain that some fresh expressions of church have begun because people within the “traditional church” are not helped by the church so they leave to create a “fresh expression of church.” Sadly, I think this is an incomplete understanding of the relationship between the church and church member.

Moreover, because these “fresh expressions” are intended to be culturally motivated, they can take many forms. Demonstrating just how much this concept possibly confuses the biblical definition of church, speakers at the conference gave additional examples of “fresh expressions.” These included kayakers gathering to kayak and artists gathering to create art. Again, these activities are not bad. In many ways they are good and show the grace of God to mankind in creativity, but they are most certainly of themselves not church as traditionally understood.

The main problem I see lies in the idea of creating “new forms of church,” as Cray stated, “because culture changes.” As one speaker expounded, this supposedly creates a “wide open front door” to the church.

Why is this a problem?

The church was established by Christ Jesus, is composed of true converted believers, to proclaim God’s grace in Jesus to the world. To use an already good definition of church, “A local church is a group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ’s name to officially affirm and oversee one another’s membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances.”

Fresh Expressions seems to me to be a new spin on the seeker sensitive movement. Despite good intentions, I’m concerned this will ultimately produce unhealthy and unbiblical expectations on churches, place Christians dangerously far from true local church communities, establish shallow doctrine, and further confuse an on-looking sinful world.

A call reform!

The beautiful nature of scripture is that God’s Word is trustworthy, true, and timeless. Therefore, I encourage those associated with Fresh Expressions (Baptist General Association of Virginia, Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church, Truro Anglican Church, Western North Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church, First Baptist Church of Alexandria, and others) to stress sound ecclesiastical doctrine.  Proper ecclesiology will serve as a guard for the doctrines of the church and serve to guide the church in matters of preaching, ministry, worship, and the Christian life.

Christ has established His church and has provided within His scriptures, both descriptive and prescriptive marks of a true church. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. For over 2,000 years, the Holy Spirit has been saving His children (the most unlikely of sinners) through the proclamation of the gospel by the local church. We must trust the Holy Spirit to continue doing His work of calling the lost of this world to Himself.

I pray for Fresh Expressions, as Jesus prayed:

“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17 ESV)

Further Reading:

Scriptures on what a church looks like: Matt. 28:19; Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Cor. 11:26-29; Matt. 26:26-29; Eph. 1:22, 4:11-15; Col. 1:18; Titus 1:5-9; Acts 14:23; 1 Tim. 3:1-13.

For more information and resources on healthy churches, visit 9Marks Ministry.

  1. Comment by Andreas Kjernald on April 20, 2016 at 4:47 am

    As you surely know, the forms of worship and church have changed A LOT over the years. Thus, I don’t think that Fresh Expressions is that dangerous or bad. They may not have three-point sermons or Communion every week by an ordained elder…but a lot of them do.
    As Protestans we have to be open to different ways of being church as every description is (unfortunately) just our opinion. There is no objective standard for what constitutes a “church”.

    As a conservative and evangelical I subscribe to a lot of ideas but I certainly don’t ascribe to your definition of a church that is: “is a group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ’s name to officially affirm and oversee one another’s membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances.”

    Oversee one another’s membership in Jesus Christ? Where in the world did you get that? Membership in Christ? I don’t think so.

  2. Comment by Sky McCracken on April 20, 2016 at 5:04 pm

    Brandon – this is a miss. I’d suggest Michael Moynagh’s _Being Church, Doing Life: Creating Gospel Communities Where Life Happens_ to get a better idea of Fresh Expressions. The criticisms that you lodge sound strangely similar to the ones lodged at the Early Methodists by the Anglican Church! Is it possible that you’re confusing the present-day “solid Biblical” church and “true converts” with the Anglican Church of Wesley’s day?

  3. Comment by Jamie Westlake on April 20, 2016 at 6:08 pm

    It might prove helpful to do more research than attending one brief conference before tossing aside an entire movement 🙂 I know I don’t know enough to speak about the meaning and possibilities of Fresh Expressions, but I saw this. http://www.lukesedwards.com/2016/04/20/rich-ecclesiology-fresh-expressions/ Perhaps you could interview him?

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