A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions

On April 2, 1739, John Wesley went to a field just outside Bristol, England's city limits. There he tried a missional innovation called field preaching. Thousands of people showed up, many of whom had no connection with a church. Today, most Methodists and other Wesleyans don’t know their own story. Lost in the milieu of divisive issues that threaten to tear the church apart, Wesleyans have forgotten their DNA as a renewal movement, born not from doctrinal disputes but from a missional imperative. In this sense, the Fresh Expressions movement is the most “Methodist” thing in the denomination today. This iteration of the Spirit is taking it to the fields again. Wesleyan Fresh Expressions will help guide the way.

What can "A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions" teach us?

• A Fresh expression is a form of church for our changing culture:
  • Missional: birthed by the Spirit to reach not-yet Christians
  • Contextual: seek to serve the context in an appropriate form to the people in it
  • Formational: focused on making disciples
  • Ecclesial: a full expression of the "church" not a stepping-stone to an inherited congregation.
• There is no golden age in which we are to return
• The current system is insufficient for reaching the majority of people. 
• We have moved past the information age into globalization, meaning the world is more interdependent and integrated. 
• For those under 30 online communities have become fundamental dimensions of everyday life. Virtual reality is reality.
• People gather around shared interests not shared streets.
• Isolation is the great wound of today.
• The Fresh Expressions movement resembles early Methdism's deep reliance on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. 
• Need to be missional to the new reality of people's spaces. Home, work, or school and a gathering place such as a cafe, pub, park, etc. 
• Knocking on doors in your neighborhood is the least effective method to engage people.
• We need simply to gather with a group of people and engage in the practice together, connected in places where they do life. 
• Need to Find the Holy Spirit Hot Spots. Is there a place where someone in the church frequently goes? What's the potential?
•  Disruption is a process. It is not about creating a product, it is a process to reach overlooked segments of society. 
• Companies like Netflix, and Amazon harnessed the innovation to gain direct access to the consumer. 
• Failure should be expected.
• Have to have a bold vision to be the church with people who would never come to church. 
• Must move the church from seats to streets. 
• People connect over hobbies, passions, and practices. Planting new expressions of the church within those communities will transform those practices. It is more than just meeting in cool places to "play church." God's grace will be at work while we are engaging non-Christians. 
• The Methodist Revival was formed by John Wesley in a time where 55% of children died before age 5. London was the sex capital of the world. There were more sex workers per capita than any other European city. It is within this immense suffering that Wesley intentionally chose the disreputable spots.
• Methodist claim to experience God's sustaining presence in the midst of the suffering. 
• What is sore in this community?
• Questions to help non-christians, "nones", or "dones" engage scripture.
  • If this happened today what would it look like?
  • What does this story say to you?
  • How could this story make a difference in my life?
  • How did it make a  difference?
• Look at your items in the sanctuary or elsewhere that have symbolic meaning for you and ask what symbolic meaning they may have for someone outside the church?
• We need to start thinking of ourselves as a mission that has a church as opposed to a church with a mission. 
• Ministries like Celebrate Recovery can provide a context to facilitate the movement of people through the "waves of grace."