Network Church - flourishing in a “baptism of the imagination” says Bishop

Graham Cray, The Bishop of Maidstone, encouraged delegates to “pray in faith and not panic as we can thank God for an invitation to improvise and develop fresh expressions of being church.” Around 50 network-focused church leaders came together at the Wilson Carlile College of Evangelism, to be told by speakers that the idea of network church is flourishing.

Bishop Graham went on to outline the significance of the moment created by the huge success of the General Synod’s mission shaped church debate praises Church Army Evangelists which he described as Church House’s Harry Potter style best seller with 14,000 copies sold and into its fifth reprint: “This is a watershed moment that we can choose to take or leave”, He added “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 quoted Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the need for a mixed-economy 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.”

Network - focused church is best characterised as a church without geographic boundaries to reach a network and form community within that network rather than within the traditional parochial church model. The conference was hosted by Church Army’s research unit the Sheffield Centre and Anglican Church Planting Initiatives and aimed to provide an opportunity for some of the pioneers of “network - focused church” to get together and share experience. Amongst the delegates were key movers and shakers such as Paul Bayes the church’s National Mission and Evangelism Adviser and Steve Croft the Archbishops’ Missioner, coordinator of Fresh Expressions, the successor to Springboard.

The theme of looking forward with confidence to the future was echoed by author and researcher Andrew Jones who talked of the need for the church to “focus on training people for the ministries of the future that are not so well established and that we may not even fully recognise at the moment - a Rhizome structure for church.” Jones questioned some church leadership for potentially stifling an emerging church model by over emphasis on structure and was clear that church should be characterised by sensitivity and be a safe place for individuals to offer their gifts. He welcomed a revival in what he called the “wisdom tradition” which has encouraged people to increasingly look for a spiritual dimension to life in our “post modern, post novelty culture.”

Delegates were encouraged to recognise that “the present was even more exciting than the possibility of the future”- it was just a question of being ready to cope with it in terms of ways of being church. What we needed now was a church which allowed worship to be based on gift giving coming from individuals rather than a prescribed order of service- church as a verb rather than a noun. It was clear that this development also allowed for the concept of virtual church- reflecting the vision of 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”- experiments like the church of fools, word-on-the-web, Suddenly Seminary and Oxford’s I-church have managed to create church community over the internet as opposed to meeting in a real physical sense - these have grabbed attention as well as headlines.

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

Church Army researcher Steve Hollinghurst provided some underpinning evidence about the culture in which present day church has to operate. A time of post Christendom where people are prepared to identify themselves as spiritual, but not religious with less than 7% of the population attending church on a regular basis- church is simply not perceived as offering them a spiritual experience. The logic of consumerism seems to be prevalent where people want to tell their story, choose their beliefs and buy their identity - truth as experience rather than fact the overriding characteristic of our culture. As society increasingly shifts from local to a network focus, Hollinghurst posed the challenge for evangelism and mission- of the many network communities a person may belong to, in which communities should church exists? He suggested potentially any or all of them.

Commenting after the conference George Lings, Director of Church Army’s Sheffield Centre remarked: “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. 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.”

For more details on how to get hold of George’s Encounters on the Edge booklets, contact Claire Dalpra on 0114 272 7451 or log onto www.encountersontheedge.org.uk