UK Emerging Church Reaches the Point of "Watershed"

A recent conference hosted by the Church Army's research unit - the 'Sheffield Centre', and Anglican Church Planting Initiatives revealed the changing and new future face of UK churches. Inspired by the "Mission-Shaped Church" report published in 2001, the local churches have been engaging in a journey of rediscovery to find out their role and mission in this era of post Christendom. After two years of efforts, it was declared that the emerging church now has already come to a "watershed moment".

The conference was organised by the Bishop of Maidstone, Graham Cray, who chaired a Church of England working party which drew up the report "Mission-Shaped Church". 50 network-focused church leaders, most of them pioneers of the emerging church came together at the Church Army training centre, the Wilson Carlile College of Evangelism, in Sheffield to share experiences.

Paul Bayes, the Anglican Church's National Mission and Evangelism Adviser as well as Steve Croft the Archbishops' Missioner, Coordinator of Fresh Expressions, the Successor to Springboard, gave presentations at the conference.

Bishop Cray told the conference the idea of "network church" is flourishing, now it is a crucial moment for this kind of church to be organised and structured. Compared to previous years, when the emerging church was not very welcome by the mainstream churches, Bishop Cray declared, "We are being welcomed home by the church and I encourage you to look for the situations and things God is in that are ahead of you rather than looking back to the past. Our greatest need is for a baptism of the imagination about the form of the church".

He encouraged the pioneers not to panic about improvising and developing new expressions of church, but to go ahead based on the foundation that has been built so far.

"This is a watershed moment that we can choose to take or leave", he said.

Author and researcher Andrew Jones talked of this hope and confidence towards the future of the emerging church as well. He pointed out things that need to be prepared now to enable a development. Training people for the ministries of the future should be strengthened. In addition, the current church leadership that has over-emphasised on the structure has to be changed. The church is a safe place that provides opportunities for individuals to offer their gifts. It should also encourage people to increasingly look for a spiritual dimension to life in the "post modern, post novelty culture".

Concerning the form of worship and service, delegates recognised that it is based on gift giving coming from individuals rather than a prescribed order of service. Just as Pete Ward, author of liquid Church who claimed that "connection to each other and Christ will be enabled by an emphasis upon communication rather than gathering", now even worship has already developed into a new form - the virtual church. Rather than meeting at a particular physical point, the church community is created in cyberspace - the church of fools, word-on-the-web, Suddenly Seminary and Oxford's I-church are some of the experiments in the UK.

The emergent church will be characterised by its openness, adaptability, decentralised thinking and modelling servant leadership which shares and builds up from the bottom, author and researcher Andrew Jones speculated.

Jones concluded, "I am seeing fewer new churches that start out with a strong hierarchical structure, and far more that allow for the elements of emergence to take place. We celebrate the moment and redeem the time. We are less abstract and more real and more authentic, more holistic and see more dynamic worship happening involving motion- worship in navigable space- like stations in a 24-7 prayer room, or labyrinths, or pilgrimage or prayer walking. Pilgrimage is becoming the new post-colonial missions."

The emerging church leaders celebrated their success of being increasingly recognised by the prominent leaders in the UK. Bishop Cray quoted Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury's concern for the need of a new church model, "If Christ is the embodiment of God, and the Church is his body on earth. Then no single expression of Church can ever exhaust Christ. It is about finding out what God is doing and joining in."

"Mission-shaped Church calls for a process of 'double listening'. For the planting of churches, listening to both contemporary culture and church tradition are vital," George Lings, Director of Church Army's Sheffield Centre commented after the conference, "Only listen to culture and you will end up with syncretism - in which Gospel and church are distorted by the culture. Only listen to the inherited tradition and the life and message of Jesus will not engage with the culture- it will be disconnected and nothing will be gained as the faithful but discarnate message will be seen as an irrelevance. Sailing the course between these two beguiling dangers is the demanding task before us. Because listening is responsive, it takes humility, creativity, risk and hard work."