At the turn of the millennium, the national church in England faced a decisive turning point. They had a continuous and drastic decline in membership over decades. God used this to reset the core value of mission. This gave rise to the Fresh Expressions movement among unchurched people in England.
Towards the end of the turn of the millennium, the church in England suffered from a decline in membership that had been increasing for years. People left the national churches in droves, so the leadership had to consider the relevance of the church in their own country. This openness to God's words and the willingness to explore new paths led to the Fresh Expressions movement. Instead of continuing to attract people to church services, teams were formed from existing churches and sent to communities outside the church. This initial experiment was a great success. After a year, many of the teams in the communities had started churches in new forms. Hence the name Fresh Expressions, it stands for the “new forms of expression” of the church.
Why churches are empty...
The basis for sending out the teams was the realization that the population in England can be divided into three types: Church visitors, people close to the church and people away from the church. The evaluation recognized that common evangelization methods, such as visitor-friendly church services and Alpha Live courses, can basically only reach people close to the church. But this group of people is a shrinking group. This social trend is causing existing churches to stagnate or even shrink. So a way had to be found to reach people who were far from the church with the gospel.
Reaching people who are far from church...
The Fresh expression movement formed teams in existing churches and sent them to non-church communities. You operated in 6 steps:
- Listen to God
- Practically love people
- Building and strengthening communities
- introduce Jesus
- Form churches
- Multiply, send out new teams
The result was that many of the teams started new churches among unchurched people. These churches had one new, fresh form “Fresh Expression” and were able to win people far away from traditional churches for Jesus.
Europe will come...
God showed the Fresh Expression movement 20 years ago that the church is not just a home for believers, but that mission must always be a central point of the church. In this movement a precursor for mission in the European context becomes visible. A topic that is now becoming more and more relevant. Training teams and sending them out into communities or subcultures that are remote from the church is an important part of the future mission in Europe. Do you also feel the joy of reaching the unreached in Europe? With the SendMe training you can be trained as a team precisely for the mission. If you would like to be trained as a church group for urban mission, you are welcome to apply Training .
