Managing decline is not a Gospel value
By Ana Watts
Fresh Expressions began as a grass roots movement in the Church of England. It is a community-based, mission-
shaped, organic effort to present the Gospel of Jesus that makes faith alive for people who are indifferent or even hostile to the church. It is also the focus of a presentation by the Rev. Canon Bruce McKenna to participants at Wardens Day at Christ Church (Parish) Church on Saturday (March 19). He talked about home churches, cell churches, pub churches, messy churches, patience, community, caring, DNA, “Angli-cans,” “Angli-can’ts,” even spaghetti. He was profound, entertaining, enlightening and informative on many levels, but when it came right down to it, he wanted the 72 wardens representing 51 parishes to take home one message: Managing decline is not a Gospel value. “If you don’t remember anything else I have to say today, remember that,” he said.
Canon McKenna spent a three-month sabbatical in England two years ago, studying Fresh Expressions at its point of origin. When someone asked Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, what he wanted his legacy to be, he answered Fresh Expressions. “It has the conviction that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to transform lives and communities,” said Canon McKenna. “It is a church created with a combination of God’s DNA and that of a network community. It can take a long time for genetic structures to integrate, grow, mature and reproduce ‘church’ in a way that works for God and the community. It takes a lot of patience to wait for that to happen, fortunately patience is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
“Parishes were originally established as geographical units,” said Canon McKenna. “The priest in the parish had the ‘cure’ or care of souls in that area, in that community. Fresh Expressions takes Christ to the wider community, gets him pout of the holy huddle. Today our communities and even our friends aren’t defined by geography — they are relationship networks. The challenge for the church today is to take the Good News of Jesus in a way that can be heard through our loose connection of networks of people.”
Canon McKenna has first-hand knowledge of the L’Arche community, a remarkable and unique worldwide network of homes — a place of belonging for people living with a disability and those who share life with them. “It is an example of Fresh Expressions — a profoundly spiritual network community. Its Canadian founder, Jean Vanier, says community is like spaghetti. The pasta is the day-in, day-out stuff, keeping the lights on, the doors open. The sauce is the spirit of the community. Everybody wants the sauce, but in fact, you have to put the pasta and sauce together to get the full spaghetti, the full spiritual, experience.
“The Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to transform lives and communities. People go out in the power of Christ to witness, pray, build bridges. It takes time and patience and it begins with the discernment process. The core community focuses on Jesus because we are convicted, and we attempt to discern a direction, to find a genuine way to serve. We listen to the Holy Spirit, the church, and to the community or network.”
The result is often cell churches, small groups of Christians living among a larger community. They meet on their own schedule — gather, glorify, grow, listen to what God is saying and then go out.
When he came home he set out to bring Fresh Expressions to his own parish. He established a group within his community to begin the journey. “We meet in our living room once a month. At first we just got to know each other better. We told stories, prayed and developed a community focused on Jesus, always open to what God was saying to us as a community. This discernment of a direction for our community and a way to serve is key.”
Eventually the members of his group discerned a need to help families with special needs children. They talked to the members of that community, undertook a needs assessment, partnered with existing support groups, and developed a series of family fun and resource days delivered once a month in the church hall. They recently went on a sleigh-ride and plan to offer more special kids family fun days.
“It’s about getting to know people’s names,” said Canon McKenna. “The Fresh Expressions mission is to go out to people, not just to invite them in. The issue is not attendance, it’s discipleship.”
Canon McKenna’s was the last of four sessions packed with news, reviews, reports, statistics, explanations and encouragement that kept the wardens inside the Parish Church gym while the bright sunshine outside melted snow and made way for spring. It was the hopeful end to a hopeful day that heard many wardens share some recent success stories in their parishes. Jim Morell, chair of the Diocesan Council administration team that is responsible for the Nicodemus Project, asked the ardens to share their good news. Several wardens in the room offered descriptions of the Nicodemus Project mandate — Bible-based, survival, leadership training, helping struggling parishes and fulfilling God’s mission. When they were asked if the Nicodemus Project was making progress they replied (after just a little encouragement) with a resounding “Yes!”
In the absence of a rector, the Parish of Hillsborough Riverside has stabilized its givings, grown its mission and ministry. “Rob Salloum and before him Brent Ham encouraged us to be active,” says warden John Whitmore. “When Rob left us we just stepped up. We have active lay readers, we have become involved with ministries like Harvest House, we have a food bank, and we are very involved with Dresses for Haiti.”
When Rob Salloum left Hillsborough Riverside he became an associate with Canon Howard Anningson in the Parishes of Carleton and Victoria on the west side of Saint John. The two churches there now share a lot. “We share ministers, we share ministry, we share duties and problems, and we have both grown,” says warden Tina Ouelette. “We had a Sunday school, now they have a youth group that is really growing and we share them too.”
Kathy Moffatt of St. Stephen said her parish established a soup kitchen. Not only did it support people in the community, newcomers to the community volunteered and became members of the parish as well. “Now some of the people who eat at the soup kitchen come to church too.” She also says the two congregations in the two churches in the parish are starting to think as one parish and not two isolated churches. They want to share activities, events and ministry in unison.
A warden from the Parish of the Nerepis and St. John said its junior and senior youth groups are thriving and the members of the older youth group are attending church and teaching Sunday school as well.
In addition to the presentations on the Nicodemus Project and Fresh Expressions, the wardens got updates on the warden’s handbook, Diocesan Council news and stewardship. Notes from those presentations are on the diocesan website http://anglican.nb.ca under What’s New.
Many wardens took the time to fill out evaluation forms for the day and the comments were overwhelmingly positive:
• Found 'leading edge' thinking like Fresh Expressions very helpful. Very down to earth, simple presentation of the wider community based initiative. 'Go to them' versus 'wait for them to come to us.' Invigorating, fresh ideas.
• I think I have finally a greater understanding of the Nicodemus Project.
• Stewardship - great presentation. A good reminder it's not all about money but 'It's what we do with what we have every day.' Attitudinal shifts were helpful.
• Timely - in tune with mission and vision statements of the Diocese. Are we changing? You bet!
• This was my first time and it was so informative.
