Mission needs fellowship: Qualities of the Fresh X movement in Germany

by Katharina Haubold

This article draws on conversations with participants at the Fresh X-Network gathering in March 2026: Claudia Fischer, Felix Goldinger, Miriam Hoffmann, Thomas Meyer, Aline Ott, Torsten Pappert, Martin Roemer and Susanne Zippenfenig. I am grateful for their openness and willingness to share.

The “Fresh Expressions of Church” round table in the German-speaking world was founded in 2012. From the outset, it was ecumenical, with people from free churches, Protestant regional churches and Roman Catholic backgrounds. Inspired by the Fresh Expressions movement in England, people came together to learn more about incarnational mission, to exchange experiences and to explore together how the church might be reshaped through its participation in God’s sending. Over time, a small team emerged, materials and courses were translated and developed, study trips were organised and a digital platform was built. The Fresh X-Network now includes 28 organisational members and 270 individual members. Perhaps one particular gift of the Fresh X-Network is that it offers a framework for encounter and companionship across denominational boundaries. But as a mission movement, it lives above all through connection, exchange and encounter.

It has had a significant impact such that now most denominations in the German-speaking region have their own projects and formats for experimenting with new forms of church, strengthening missional initiatives and setting out afresh with people who have had little or no connection to church or faith. Over the years, questions have kept surfacing – and at present, in the face of rapid membership decline after a long period of stability in the German churches, they have become especially pressing: Do we really still need this network? Has it already fulfilled its original task of “communicating the posture and attitude of fresh expressions into the centre of the church” and therefore become obsolete? Given shrinking resources, can we really afford all this networking? Is the output worth the investment of time, energy and money?

Yet, in these concrete encounters, many of us keep experiencing qualities we would not want to lose. So when we gathered for the network meeting at the end of March, we used small, informal conversations around the edges of the event to explore what those qualities actually are. What follows is shaped by those conversations and by the voices of those who shared their perspectives.

Your name is enough

One of the qualities is a companionship in which your name is enough.

“I find it so fascinating – this is one of the very few spaces in church life where the name badge simply carries a name: no role, no title, perhaps just a topic the person would like to talk about. With many people here, I don’t even know where they work, what denomination they belong to, or what their formal position is. It makes for very different kinds of encounters.”

Of course, as conversations unfold, people sometimes do talk about role, position and profession. For some topics it is helpful to know the context, perspective and experience from which someone is speaking. But usually this is only shared when it actually serves the conversation. As a result, people from very different professions, levels of hierarchy and denominations speak with one another more openly and as equals without the need for titles or positions. I really appreciate the loosening of the usual habits which so often get in the way of our calling and life together.

Sharing is caring

I have found so much inspiration over the years through the Fresh X-Network: good questions, wonderful resources and space to experiment. Sometimes this happens at the annual gathering and sometimes through newsletters. Simply knowing that there are so many people carrying the same longing in their own contexts – creatively and open to the movement of the Holy Spirit – is a treasure and a gift. I also know that I can simply call someone, that others are interested in my experience, that across all boundaries we understand ourselves as companions on the way. There is something deeply connective about that.

I notice how deeply grateful I am that “sharing is caring” is genuinely a principle that I and others experience here. Sharing is caring not only when it comes to ideas, inspiration and resources, but also when it comes to worries, frustration and fear. In the quiet conversations, in a walk during a conference, in messages and emails, there is also room for what is heavy. It does not always become lighter straightaway, but simply knowing that it may be shared fills me with gratitude. We do not gather, and we do not stay connected, in order to outdo one another with our successes. We gather in order to journey together, in all the dimensions that such a journey involves. At our best, we experience this: everything may be brought.

A space that changes us

“The horizon of thought is wider here.”

This sentence expresses something essential about what becomes possible in this network. In these encounters, something shifts, sometimes quite noticeably. Sometimes it is only in retrospect that it becomes clear just how much moved. I experience it too. In conversations, sometimes almost in passing, thoughts arise that I would never have had on my own. Ideas are not immediately evaluated, but first allowed to unfold. Questions that I may have carried around for a long time suddenly find new words, or I watch someone else take them up and develop them further in a process of co-creation. Sometimes those questions lose some of their weight simply because others share them. And sometimes things that had become stuck in my thinking and acting, without me fully noticing it, become visible here, are questioned, and in the best sense become fluid.

I notice my perspective widening – on church, on mission, on what is possible. And sometimes also on what I need to let go of. That matters deeply to me. Thinking more broadly does not simply mean building more and wanting more. It also means seeing more clearly what I have so far been unwilling or unable to relinquish, even when the time had come. In recent years, the theme of “exnovation” has become increasingly important in our movement. There is no innovation without exnovation, without letting some things go, without creating space. Yet, at times the theory of exnovation seems even harder to put into practice than the theory of innovation. Perhaps we – or at least I – simply began far too late to practise this properly. Those who let something go sometimes make themselves even more unpopular than those who experiment and try something new on top of what already exists. As long as it is an “add-on”, new ideas tend to be welcomed. But when the existing is examined just as critically as the new, when treasured things have to be released and farewells have to be made, resistance grows louder. In this network I find companionship in those areas where it is hard for me to let go, even though I sense it is time. And I find courage and strength, with others, to face the necessary endings.

“You leave feeling that you understand your calling a little more clearly.”

The change is not only at the level of thought. It gets personal. I have heard this sense of being changed in conversations with people from the Fresh X-Network. People get a reset, get back on track. And for that, it is so helpful not only to be travelling with people from one’s own immediate context. This is not necessarily about ready-made answers. It is more about an inner sorting, a new prioritising. Sometimes things fall into place and we see more clearly what is actually called for, where there is life and perhaps where there is no longer life. Perhaps this is one of the underestimated qualities of such networks: they do not simply produce ideas; they change people. They create spaces in which we do not only talk about mission, but continually locate ourselves afresh within that sending.

Heart-deep connection

“There is such a heart-deep connection here.”

Many of us know the feeling of being lonely with the things that stir us. We get used to hearing again and again sentences such as these: “We’ve always done it this way.” “That didn’t work before.” “That’s naive and far too idealistic.” “But have you thought about the older people / younger people / families / those attached to tradition / the donors… ?” “Who is going to pay for that?” “What you want isn’t really church.” “We already have enough other problems.” It costs a lot of energy to inhabit church settings where there is criticism and where no heart-deep connection exists, spaces where you have to be tactical, where you can be quietly dismissed, where everyone is mostly just doing their own job and any shared vision has been lost. Some of us have seriously wondered whether paths outside institutional church life might be simpler and more promising.

Yet, by way of contrast, in the encounters we have in the Fresh X movement it is so life-giving not to have to explain ourselves for once, not to feel strange, not to keep hitting the same kinds of walls over and over again! Where our longing and our searching meet resonance, suddenly a burden lifts. The concrete situation may not have changed at all. But it is like we are taking a deep breath that creates space in the soul. We feel understood. For such heart-deep connection, we need spaces that allow vulnerability. Yes, some dreams of church are naive, and sharing them can expose them. Yes, experimenting may mean failure. And being able to speak about that without being judged gives courage to keep going anyway.

It is especially meaningful when we share spirituality together and make our different traditions tangible to one another. That is not always easy. It seems to require a constant remembering together that this is one of the levels on which we want to meet, so that it does not slip from view. Sharing spirituality with one another, and allowing others into this heart-deep connection, often seems harder than listening to talks, holding panel discussions, or drinking coffee together. And yet it is so valuable to choose it again and again, and to become vulnerable on this level – sharing what we love and trusting that it will be received with respect and appreciation, even if it feels unfamiliar at first.

I notice that what is still missing for me in this network is a shared spirituality that can be carried into everyday life. In recent years, we have not engaged very deeply with the question of personal discipleship. Something remains open here for me – something I would love to see grow stronger.

Sent together

We are sent together. Jesus’ sending does not stop at denominational boundaries. This mission movement quietly and steadily reminds me that we are never sent alone – neither as individuals nor as separate denominations. Jesus’ sending is given to us as the ecumenical church in the German-speaking region. Jesus’ sending belongs to the worldwide ecumenical movement. It does not end at the boundaries of the churches.

Again and again, we find ourselves united in the conviction that God is already at work in the world, always present, and that we are participants in God’s own self-sending. I experience that as deeply healing. Healing, because it corrects me and broadens my perspective: my image of God, my spiritual practices, my priorities in faith, my limitations. But it is also healing because it reminds me so clearly that the companionship of Jesus spans the world, and that I am safely held within it – with those who came before me, with those with whom I now travel near and far, moved by the Spirit of God, and with those who will come after us. That includes those whose way of living out their calling is so different from mine that I do not necessarily feel an immediate heart-deep connection with them. Over the years, the Fresh X-Network has offered a place in which being joined together in mission is experienced and deepened. We are discovering that in so many places we not only face the same challenges, but also share the same heartbeat.

The question of whether the Fresh X-Network is still needed is not one we have asked for the last time. And perhaps one day we really will arrive together at the point of saying: this particular form of mission movement is no longer needed right now. But the dimensions of fellowship that I have experienced here over the years are something I don’t want to lose. And if I no longer find them in the Fresh X-Network, then I will need to find them elsewhere. Because mission needs this kind of fellowship.

About the author

Katharina Haubold lives in Cologne, where she is part of a team pioneering a fresh expression of church, and has been involved in the Fresh X-Network in Germany in various roles since 2017.

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