[Episcopal News Service] Last week, I was one of three clergy from the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina to attend the International Fresh Expressions and Pioneering Conference in the U.K. Others came from Canada, South Africa, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and Sweden. Clearly, the Fresh Expressions movement has gained traction, and is having an impact on the church around the globe.

Fresh Expressions is the latest iteration of a movement of the Spirit that can trace its roots to the ecumenical and liturgical renewal of the post-war church. While much of the church in the West experienced stresses and strains in the late 20th century, a passion for starting new congregations and re-vitalizing existing ones emerged. In the 1970s the church growth movement focused on making the institution stronger, to do what we’ve always done, but better. The 1990s brought the church planting movement, which for the most part was seen as creating churches that would become independent and well within the models of inherited and institutional church.

Around the turn of the millennium, as culture and communities began to change with unprecedented speed, clergy with a pioneering spirit ventured more and more beyond the walls of the institutional church. There, they found people who would not be tempted to cross the threshold of the established church, and met with them where they were. There, faith communities began to form.

In a 2004 report to the Church of England’s General Synod, titled “The Mission Shaped Church,” Bishop Graham Cray wrote, “The nature of community has so changed that no one strategy will be adequate to fulfill the Anglican incarnational principle in Britain today… We need to recognize that a variety of integrated missionary approaches is required. A mixed economy of … churches will be necessary.”

Key in this statement is the word “integrated.” Unlike maverick or “Lone Ranger” ministries, the model for Fresh Expressions has always included a constant interplay between the inherited church and “the church on the edge,” each benefitting from the existence of the other. One presenter used the metaphor of lakes and rivers, one more settled and established, the other following the contours of the land, each connected to the other.

In the years since 2004, the definition of a Fresh Expressions has been honed.

Fresh Expressions offers many gifts to the wider church, as well as real challenges. Among these are: its commitment to being an ecumenical movement, its measure of success, and its hallmark of mission in context.

I went to the conference thinking that Fresh Expressions was an Anglican thing. It turns out it is very ecumenical, starting in the U.K., where it is largely shared by Anglicans and Methodists, and expanding ecumenically as it spreads across the globe. Bishop Graham Cray describes a “new ecumenism” which fully realizes that we are better together and that we are crazy to stay apart. This can be unsettling to those of us who have a love for our own denomination’s liturgy, particulars of theology and spiritual expression. But if we are to be a “changing church for a changing world,” this way of ecumenical mission is not only a boon to strained resources, but may very well be the beckoning of the Holy Spirit.

Fresh Expressions also challenges our measures of success. As one presenter put it: “The church sees success in massive monuments. Fresh Expressions are more like a handful of stones.” As a result, it is sometimes a challenge for pioneers to find funding from the established church for their ministry. They are outside the system. Similarly, Fresh Expressions realizes that a certain number of attempts will meet with failure, and that’s OK. In many ways corporate America understands this better than the church does.

One of the hallmarks of a Fresh Expressions mission, is that it is contextual, established in a particular way for a particular context. Because of this, the movement has been charged with promoting a consumer-oriented church, giving people only what they want or what feels comfortable, rather than challenging them with something diverse, transcendent or universal. But by claiming contextual as a principal characteristic, the Fresh Expressions movement challenges the wider church to consider ways by which it ignores its context, or imposes an outmoded or alienating practice on a culture that then experiences exclusion or a complete disconnect with what the church is saying or doing. Established churches can, and probably should, respond by looking at their context with fresh eyes, and launching their own fresh expressions, however small or tentative, where they are.

So now I return to the U.S., challenged, inspired, and ready to tap into existing networks of pioneers there, and ready to find new ways to cultivate and nurture fresh expressions and initiatives within the context of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.

— The Rev. Lisa G. Fischbeck is the founding vicar of the Church of the Advocate, a 21st century mission of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.