The Church of England yesterday (Tuesday 9th February 2010) voted to continue to encourage fresh expressions of church, alongside more traditional forms of church as the most promising mission strategy in a fast changing culture.
In a lively debate at the February session of the Church's parliament, synod also pressed for a more imaginative policy of recruitment, training and deployment of ordained and lay pioneer ministers. The motion before synod also encouraged the increasing use of Bishops' Mission Orders so that fresh expressions of church can play a full part in the life of each diocese.
Speaking for the first time as a bishop in General Synod, Steven Croft, Bishop of Sheffield and former Team Leader of Fresh Expressions, said there were no 'no go' areas for mission and paid tribute to the pioneers working hard to establish new forms of church at a local level.
Wolverhampton pioneer minister, Richard Moy asked why the Church of England 'locked its trainee clergy away for three years in a place full of other Christians.' He said that if clergy were to be effective evangelists they needed to spend more time with non-Christians during their training. He called for the Church of England to invest more in 'on-the-job' training for would-be priests.
The Bishop of Oxford, John Pritchard, also called for more coherence and co-ordination in pioneer training. Elaine Storkey, the Director of Training for Church Army reminded synod that lay pioneers are not second class and the Archbishop of Canterbury said there was no 'one important bit' in the mixed economy church, emphasising the need for traditional churches and fresh expressions of church to work side by side. There were also warm commendations of the Fresh Expressions initiative from both Baptist and Methodist representatives at synod.
The debate will be followed on Thursday 11th February with a report by Bishop Graham Cray, Team Leader of Fresh Expressions on the progress of the national, ecumenical initiative.
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