George Lings asks church, fresh expressions or just fresh packaging?

A year on from the launch of the Mission-shaped Church report, Church Army’s George Lings, has commented on how the church is responding to the challenge of mission. In a two page article published recently in the The Church of England Newspaper, George Lings questions whether the church has fully embraced mission shaped thinking or mainly repackaged its old way of thinking.

The article titled, ‘Fresh expressions or just fresh packaging’, suggests that there is a serious danger of the church only making partial changes beyond traditional ways of being church. George Lings says, “…some large churches, particularly in the south, say they don’t need mission-shaped thinking. They will just tweak the worship they offer and the evangelism they do. I challenge them to evaluate who has joined them in the past year. What percentage of people are transfer growth, and what proportion are converts? Of those coming to faith, what percentage are from the churched and how many are genuinely non-churched? Other churches are now describing the worship they offer as their mission. This is changing labels on bottles.”

“ The reality is that inherited ways of being church, and of doing most of our evangelism, tends to help a reducing minority of people,” Lings adds. ”John Finney’s figures from 1992 showed those coming to faith were from de-churched backgrounds. The 2004 survey by Steve Hunt of Alpha shows 57% of guests were already churched. However the numbers of the de-churched reduce in each succeeding generation. We are doing the vast majority of our fishing in a shrinking pond. We desperately need fresh expressions of church that can begin to connect with our major mission field, the non-churched.”

Lings is an advocate of mission-shaped thinking but believes that in order to fully comprehend this way of thinking, one must be prepared to see a more radical but more biblical agenda for mission. Lings states, “ Mission to the non-churched, brings us into contact with a group among the under 45’s who are six times more than those in church. That kind of mission would shape the resultant church still more and shift the supposed centre more radically. This is the journey to those groups of people who have never darkened our doors and yet who may be spiritual. The process underlines a change in the nature of the apostolic journey. Mission stops being come shaped and takes on the go shape. That fits much better with its basic meaning of being sent.”

For the full article, see George Lings’ website www.encountersontheedge.org.uk , under the mission-shaped church page or click here to download the article in word format.

Copies of The Church of England Newspaper carrying the article (issue no: 5770, Friday May 27 2005 ) can be obtained by calling 020 7417 5800 or e-mailing cen@churchnewspaper.com