There isn't a Plan B - you're it

Rachel Jordan has some advice for Christians who believe that someone else is going to build the kingdom of God here on Earth.

"There isn't a Plan B - you're it," she says. "You are the people God has chosen to be his agents right here, right now."

Rachel, Associate National Mission & Evangelism Advisor for the Church of England and Fresh Expressions Associate Missioner, was speaking at the fourth annual Vital Church Planting Conference, held at St Paul, Bloor Street from 2nd-4th February. The event, which attracted 180 clergy and laity from across Canada, was sponsored by the Diocese of Toronto and Wycliffe College's Institute of Evangelism.

She says it isn't as hard as it seems to be an agent of God. "The good thing is, the qualifications are low. Look at the biblical characters. They were people just like us: they were human; they made mistakes; they got it wrong. But they trusted God. They were friends of God and he used them. We’re just the same as them."

She says the first step in doing God's work is simply to make one's self available to God's direction. "We can pray and say, 'I don't feel overly qualified for this, but I will give it a go - you show me.' And I guarantee you there will be an opportunity."

It could be something as simple as visiting a friend or buying a cup of coffee for someone who is lonely, hungry or homeless. "We just need to take a tiny step, and that will lead to other things."

One of those things could be a fresh expression of church. These are new congregations that gather where people are, when they can come, and in a way that engages with their real life. They are not intended as a stepping stone into an existing congregation in an established church.

Rachel admits that some people may have trouble accepting the fact that church can be held in a pub, a coffee shop or a park. But she says that Jesus spent most of his ministry outside the synagogue. "His ministry and the stories that we have tell us that it was all about the happenings, often on the way. Things happened: he went to a well and a woman drew him water. She was the sort of woman no one else would speak to. And in that moment, she met God. That's church happening. When we take someone out for a cup of coffee, that might be where church is going to happen that day. Maybe it'll happen when we're filling up our car. Or maybe the person in the checkout in the supermarket is the person Jesus wants to meet that day; Jesus wants to use us to meet that person, and that is church."

More and more fresh expressions of church are popping up across the UK and Canada. Often led by laypeople, they operate alongside the traditional churches in what the Archbishop of Canterbury calls the "mixed economy church." In the Diocese of Toronto, some of these fresh expressions of church include Messy Church and the Jeremiah Community.

Rachel says tiny, dwindling congregations that are struggling to maintain large and costly churches can play a vital role in creating fresh expressions of church. "It may be time for them to say, 'If there are only 25 of us, then we don't need the big building with the leaky roof. We could give it away."

That's what happened in England, with positive results, she says. A congregation of eight turned their church over to a youth worker, who was allowed to do whatever he wanted with the church. It became a thriving church for youth.

"He reached the youth in a way that (the congregation) could never have reached it if they had just carried on," she says. "Maybe we need to stop just carrying on. Sometimes that may be the greatest step of faith that we have – to release the things we hold on to dearly and let go of that power. If there's a church down the road, we can go there, and we can give away some of our resources to a person who wants to reach the people in the neighbourhood in a different way. I want to say thank you to the people who have the vision to do that. They are amazing."

The Vital Church Planting Conference also heard from Pernell Goodyear, a Salvation Army church planter who started The Freeway, a fresh expression of church in Hamilton which houses a coffee house, arts centre, community space and worship centre in a former bank.

"The church has spent more than enough time shouting answers to questions nobody is asking," said Pernell. "We have to start worrying far more about the people outside our churches than inside them. We have to leave the bubble and get to the place where the church really exists – the world outside our doors."

He says Christians don't need to be afraid to leave their churches and head into the unknown, because God is already there. When he first opened The Freeway in 2001, "I thought I was going to be a rock star, bringing Jesus to the neighbourhood. What I found was that Jesus was already there."

He says Christians need to be immersed in the culture and lives of those whom they want to reach. He cited St Paul as an example: "When Paul went to Athens, he learned their culture, their philosophy, their arts. He used their own culture to introduce them to God. That’s what the church needs to do."

In addition to talks by Rachel and Pernell, the conference featured workshops on how to plant fresh expressions of church. For the first time, a second conference has been planned for western Canada, to be held in Edmonton May 18-20.