New Churches: A Theology
New Churches: A Theology
The feasting of Christmas and Epiphany may be over but behold! – arriving in bookshops and online is a feast of thought, research and story from the community of people who have in recent years enabled the genesis of new churches.
by Tina Hodgett,
New Churches: A Theology by Will Foulger and Joshua Cockayne (eds)
A number of teachers on CMS pioneer courses as well as contributors to the Anvil journal have provided chapters, along with practitioners and thinkers from across the church.
They serve up a tasty banquet of 12-page reads reflecting a diverse range of approaches to starting and thinking about starting new churches.
Topics cover, for example, Anglo-Catholic church-planting (does it happen?!), church planting as a craft based on medieval guilds, an exploration of church planting hints in Romans 16, and community organising as a resource for church planting. Plus Thomas Aquinas on asking for help!
Is your appetite whet yet?
The editors offer a thoughtful introduction as to why such a book is needed. They suggest that the doers – those who get on with the business of starting new things – and the reflectors – those who are wary of ‘jettisoning the task of real, slow, deep theological reflection’ on any area of practice may need a conversation with each other if new churches are to arise faithfully (if at all).
The introduction addresses some of the binaries that have grown up around the conversation: theory and practice; old churches and new; pioneering and church planting.
The book takes a non-partisan stance, speaking generously of pioneers and planters, recognising their different instincts, suggesting that pioneering has a particular part to play in enabling the church to remember that mission is about the slow, patient and emerging work of God in real people’s lives among those who will never come to any of ‘our’ churches.
It was a joy to me to see how many of the CMS pioneer community had peppered (or salted) the book with some compelling themes to a wider readership.
Paul Bradbury writes about small, simple, slow communities; James Butler about contextualised mission spirituality and the agency of the Holy Spirit; Paul Adekunle offers an ecclesiology drawn from the overlaps between Yoruba culture and Christian ethics; Cathy Ross directs our attention to the edges and to the place of surprise in mission work; I (Tina Hodgett) write about co-creating churches playfully.
There is much to savour, digest, find nourishment from. It’s pricey at £30 but I hope your resourceful networking may enable a copy is shortly delivered to your door. Bon appetit!
More from the blog
How a cafe created a church
CMS Pioneer Mission Training graduate Fiona Mayne shared her story of growing a new church with the Pivot podcast of Luther Seminary in the USA.
New Advent carol from Jonny Baker
Smoke is Rising is a new carol for Advent written by Jonny Baker, Britain mission director for CMS, and Niall Dunne.
