From books co-authored by CMS staff to anticipated inspiration from (other!) brilliant minds, here’s this year’s list of tantalising titles…

Fringe Dweller, Jonny Baker and David Cotterill, Getsidetracked, 2026

Jesus was loved by fringe dwellers – the poor, lame, blind, lepers, the oppressed, the possessed, foreigners, beggars, outsiders, those deemed unclean, women who experienced shame, tax collectors and sinners. He spent time with them. Fringe Dweller is a collection of 40 reflections with 20 original illustrations by artist Jon Birch, based on encounters in the gospels with Jesus the Fringe Dweller. Each reflection includes a scripture reading, a practice and a liturgy. Ideal for personal use, for groups and for those preaching or curating worship.

Into All the Parish: Pioneering Practices for Every Local Church, Greg Bakker and Tina Hodgett, Church House Publishing, 2026

Arising out of the Pioneering Parishes project, Into All the Parish holds together pioneering and parochial forms of ministry, which are frequently in tension. It honours both as distinct yet connected modes of ministry, seeing pioneering as an integral dynamic within vibrant parochial ministry and essential for widening the possibilities to fulfil the “care of souls” in a local area. Into all the Parish offers practical principles, stories and case studies, forming a framework for corporate discipleship in which congregations identify their aspirations, commit to live out of shared values and create space to pursue ministry within and beyond the church walls.

In the Fullness of Time: A Story From the Past and Future of the Church, Paul Bradbury, Canterbury Press, 2024

This is a book about the present and future of the church in our own challenging context: a secular age, decline, stretched resources, complex and fragmented communities requiring diverse missional approaches. Weaving together storytelling, travelogue and poetry, Paul Bradbury journeys from rural Norfolk to inner-city London, from a radical missional community in Lincolnshire, to a traditional village parish in Dorset, to explore what the church looks like today, and how local parish communities are wrestling with the tensions between the value of inherited church and the need to look to the future.

Being the People of God: Missional Ecclesiology for Uncertain Times, Paul Bradbury, Isabelle Hamley, Andy Smith, SCM, 2025

In unsteady political, societal and ecclesial times, what might a missional ecclesiology offer? Drawn from a consultation by the Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission, this book seeks to offer a conversation involving theologians and practitioners across three key themes – the church’s worship as a gathered community, its witness as a scattered community and its walk as a pilgrim community. With contributors including: Jonny Baker, Angus Ritchie and Cathy Ross.

Decolonizing Mission, Harvey Kwiyani, SCM Press, 2025

For the past 500 years, the idea of the mission of God has been synonymous with that of the expansion of Western civilisation and its influence in the world. In Decolonizing Mission, Harvey Kwiyani traces the history of Christian mission alongside the history of empire, showing the influence that one had on the other. Imagining what mission without imperialism would look like, Kwiyani sheds light on the connection between colonialism and mission and invites us to realign our missional methods with God’s. One of the International Bulletin of Mission Research’s Ten Outstanding Books in Mission Studies, World Christianity, and Intercultural Theology for 2025.

Words Fitly Spoken: Everyday African Theology for Millennials and Gen Z, Joseph Ola, Word Alive, 2025

What does it mean to live faithfully as a young African Christian in a digitally connected, culturally complex world? In Words Fitly Spoken, Joseph Ola weaves together powerful quotations, African proverbs and personal testimony to offer a refreshing vision of Christian discipleship – one that honours both global wisdom and African identity. Through 13 compelling reflections, this book addresses the core struggles of millennials and Gen Z: the pressure to succeed, the fear of failure, the tyranny of busyness and the search for authentic faith in an age of performance and comparison.

Chinese Heritage in British Christianity: More than Foreigners, Alexander Chow (ed), SCM, 2025

This is a critical time for British Chinese Christians. On the one hand, the national churches of each of Britain’s four nations have experienced an unprecedented decline in attendance. On the other hand, British Chinese Christianity is among the fastest growing Christian populations in the UK. But there is a much longer history, with the first Chinese Christian in Britain dated to the 17th century. This book tells the story of the rise of British Chinese Christianity, and how British Chinese people have been shaping and reshaping the future of British Christianity. It brings together theological educators, church ministers and parachurch leaders, including a contribution from Mark Nam, chaplain to the Asian Christianity MA students at CMS.

The Starter’s Way: Leading New Contextual Christian Communities, Ed Olsworth-Peter and Dwight J Zscheile (eds.), Church Publishing Inc, 2025

A call for new ways of starting thriving church communities, based on global case studies of churches who have innovated from within their local communities. As many established churches struggle to connect with people in increasingly post-Christian societies, there has been a vital shift in focus toward starting new Christian communities. This book – edited by two leading thinkers around innovation in the Church, one from the United States, the other from the UK – brings a rich and international array of practitioners and scholars together to explore starting new contextual Christian communities as a way of life. Includes contributions from Jonny Baker, Ali Boulton, Tina Hodgett and Harvey Kwiyani.

Imagining Mission with John V Taylor, Jonny Baker and Cathy Ross, SCM, 2020

The impact that John V Taylor, former general secretary of CMS, had on our contemporary understanding of mission is vast – his determination that mission should mean engagement across cultural boundaries has deep resonance today. In Imagining Mission with John V Taylor, leading missional thinkers Cathy Ross and Jonny Baker invite us into a vision of church, mission and society which takes John V Taylor’s ideas seriously, seeking to imagine what Taylor’s insights might mean for these three areas in our contemporary context. The result is a clarion call to the church to take bigger risks and dream bigger dreams.

• The Gratitude Way: Creating Common Ground in a Divided World, Girma Bishaw, IVP, 2025
• When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor… and Yourself, Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, 2014
• Living for Jesus and Justice: Daily Prayers for Radical Christians, Simon Jones, Red Letter Christians UK, DLT 2026
• Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development, Bryant L Myers, Orbis, 1999
• The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission, Lesslie Newbigin, SPCK, 1995 (2nd edition)
• God’s Heart for Child Protection and Safeguarding: Practical Theology from Global Perspectives, Nativity A Petallar, Roseline Olumbe and Martin Munyao (eds), Langham Global Library, 2026
• Positive Urban Theology: Finding God in the Grit and Glory of the City, Revd Dr Cris Rogers, CCX, 2026
• Liturgies of the Wild: Myths that Make Us, Martin Shaw, Rider (PRH), 2026
• Justice of Jesus: Reimagining Your Church’s Life Together to Pursue Liberation and Wholeness, Joash P Thomas, Baker Books, 2025
• Love made me an inventor: The story of Maggy Barankitse, Humanitarian, Genocide Survivor, Citizen without Borders, David Toole, Orbis Books, 2025
• Solidarity: The Work of Recognition, Rowan Williams, Bloomsbury, 2026

• Grace Abounds: God’s Abundance Against the Fear of Scarcity, Walter Brueggemann, Westminster/John Knox Press, 2024
• Earthbound: God at the Intersection of Climate and Justice, Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Orbis, 2025
• Reconciling Mission: Realizing God’s Reign through Community Engagement, Alastair McKay and David Brubaker, T&T Clark, 2026
• The Cross and the Olive Tree: Cultivating Palestinian Theology amid Gaza, John Munayer and Samuel Munayer (eds.), Orbis, 2025

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New monastic community, church and mission: A faithful fit?

by Matt Richards

Introduction

Recent decades have seen significant and sustained interest across the United Kingdom in a concept commonly known as “new monasticism”. This ancient-yet-modern embodiment of Christian community is something I have long felt called to explore, and am beginning to do so in practice here in north-west Cumbria.

Within the wider church, however, it remains a relatively unknown entity – a fringe concern that is treated with varying degrees of curiosity or suspicion. I believe this to be at least in part due to a theological and relational disconnect between mainstream church and new monasticism. In other words, people struggle to understand if and how the two might properly relate to one another.

This felt like a subject worth exploring, which I gladly undertook for my undergraduate dissertation with CMS. The following essay is drawn from that work, and examines the relationship between new monasticism and church through the lens of mission. My hope is to demonstrate a relationship that is not only theologically sound but also, by God’s grace, wonderfully fruitful.

Church

In his classic work, Models of the Church, Catholic theologian Avery Dulles offers an array of ecclesiological typologies, each emphasising different aspects of the nature of the church. At one level, he introduces us to ‘The Church as Mystical Communion’ – an image of the universal body of Christ, “with particular stress on the mystical and invisible communion that binds together all those who are enlivened by the grace of Christ”.¹ This communion in Christ transcends cultural and historical barriers, making the past instructive to our present endeavours, as is very much the case with new monastic community.

Dulles recognises however that “the Church of Christ could not perform its mission without some stable organizational features”² – leading him to introduce ‘The Church as Institution’. Such structural manifestations of the church are a necessary feature of Christ’s pilgrim people in the present day. I myself am held within the Anglican tradition, but new monasticism tends to sit more lightly towards institutional structures. In this sense it addresses itself well to a contemporary world with “little interest in theological siloes or ecclesiastical brand loyalty”.³

Between the poles of church as institution and church as mystery, Dulles offers ‘The Church as Sacrament’, whereby “The Church becomes Church insofar as the grace of Christ, operative within it, achieves historical tangibility through the actions of the Church”.⁴ In other words, this is the existence of church at a local level, manifesting the grace of God within the warp and weft of daily community life. The further models of church as ‘Herald’ and ‘Servant’ complete this understanding of the church’s call to proclaim and enact the good news of Jesus in the lives of local communities. It is at this local level that I am particularly drawn to the practice of new monastic community.

Recent developments in ecclesiology have fostered an appreciation of the rich variety of ways in which the church can be locally expressed, with the language of a “mixed ecology” challenging the assumed ubiquity of the congregational parish system. Rather than seeing this as a novel development, however, I would suggest it is instead the recovery of the church’s dual charism deeply rooted in history.

Alongside the ‘normal’ structures of the local, rooted church, there have always existed other elements of church no less ecclesial in nature but also somehow differentiated. An understanding of this dual nature of the church throughout its history is described by Ralph Winter through the terms “modality” and “sodality”.⁵ The former term derives from the root word ‘mode’, referring to the customary way things are done. “One might say it is the default position, or prevailing fashion or custom.”⁶ Sodality, meanwhile, comes from the Latin root, sodalis, which can be translated as ‘comrade’. “The first is open to everybody, and is represented by the parish church or the congregation. The second, however, is open only for those with a special vocation and who are prepared to make special vows.”⁷ Instances of sodality can be found in the early church example of Paul’s apostolic missionary band, or more recently in the international missionary agencies which proliferated throughout the 19th century. Yet, perhaps the most consistent example throughout history is that of the monastic movement.

Monasticism has a long and distinguished tradition within the life of the church, although it was largely rejected by Protestants after the Reformation, added summarily to the pile of Catholic traditions to be jettisoned.⁸ Such a move was not without reason, for as Lings notes, the monastic life “became seen as an achievement of the elite that the laity could not emulate. By allowing specialists, it justified low standards for the majority.”⁹ This distinction is exemplified by the words of Pope Urban II in 1092, who described the religious as the “strong ones”, stating that “from the beginning the Church has always offered two types of life to her children: one to aid the insufficiency of the weak, the other to bring to perfection the goodness of the strong.”¹⁰ Such a division certainly invites critique, for did Christ not call all to follow him, without preference or distinction?

Dutch theologian Stephan Paas considers this dilemma in his astute work Pilgrims and Priests, where he questions, as did the Reformers, the ecclesiological implications of this “hierarchical complementarity”. While noting the challenges it raises, he ultimately concludes, “There are, in short, people whose Christianity is the sun in their universe around which everything else turns, and people for whom their Christianity is one of the planets in a universe that orbits another centre. And I think that this – admittedly typological – difference has always existed.”¹¹ Despite the understandable distaste of the Reformers for the monastic life, it perhaps expresses something universally intrinsic to the human expression of life and faith.

Lings also reaches this conclusion, offering the analogy, “Just as Formula One racing has led to more efficient engines and better brakes and tyres in everyday cars, so monastic life was intended to be a way to raise the quality of the whole church.”¹² This reminds us that rather than seeking to excuse a laxity within the modal church, monasticism at its best will act as a source of inspiration and encouragement to all. So too in our time, new monasticism should not seek to replace or denigrate the wider body of Christ, but rather to serve faithfully within it.

Mission

Any concept of church is incomplete without reference to mission. Not without reason is Emil Brunner so often quoted as declaring that “the Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning”.¹³ Steve Bevans and Roger Schroeder explore this in Constants in Context, writing that “the church of Christ does not so much have a mission as the mission of Christ has a church”.¹⁴ They ground their reasoning in an examination of the first account we have of the life of the church – the Acts of the Apostles.

This, they argue, demonstrates that it is only as the first followers of Jesus respond to the Spirit’s call to continue his mission (and not prior to it) that they are formed into the church. Thus the book of Acts “shows that the origin of the church is intimately connected to its consciousness of the mission that it saw before it”, providing “a strong biblical basis for the dictum that the church is ‘missionary by its very nature’”.¹⁵ This scriptural foundation also reminds us that mission is not owned in any way by the church, but rather flows from the life of God. Mission is intrinsic to who God is, and therefore becomes our primary calling “because to be Christian is to become part of God’s life and God’s vision for the world”.¹⁶ When we speak, therefore, of new monastic community expressing the mission of the church, we are not describing an optional extra, but rather something indispensable to the church’s identity.

We turn now to consider the place of mission within monasticism throughout history. This witness is surely instructive to the possibilities of new monasticism, as it likewise seeks to embody the mission of the church today. In his foundational work, Transforming Mission, David Bosch considers the missional impact of monasticism within medieval Europe, writing, “At first glance, the monastic movement appears to be a most unlikely agent of mission. The communities were certainly not founded as launching pads for mission.”¹⁷ Bosch is not alone here, with many seeing the intention of the early monastics as a flight from the ‘sinful world’ into the desserts of solitude and silence. “Monasticism’s one object,” continues Bosch, “was to live in purity and die in peace.”¹⁸

Despite this apparent juxtaposition, the resulting missional impact of monasticism within Western Europe can hardly be overstated. To begin with, there is the missional effect of monasticism on the church itself, about which Bosch enthuses greatly, arguing that throughout Europe’s ‘dark ages’ monasticism “saved that medieval church from acquiescence, petrifaction, and a loss of its vision and truly revolutionary character.”¹⁹

The outworking of this monastic witness was arguably most pronounced in the British Isles, where monastic influence far preceded the establishment of diocesan and parish structures. Ian Bradley, a leading voice on the history of the early British church, writes, “For Christians living in the British Isles between the fifth and eleventh centuries, the monastery rather than the parish church was the primary focus for worship, pastoral care and religious instruction.”²⁰ This was particularly suited to the tribal culture of the time, yet even beyond the establishment of the modal church in Britain, monasticism retained a central and influential place. “In England, alone among the major European nations, many of the cathedrals continued until the Reformation to be Benedictine houses,” notes Rowan Williams, suggesting that “the centrality of the apostolic and monastic vision in the life of the Church could find expression in setting community life visibly at the centre of a diocese”.²¹

A second facet of the monastic mission was its witness of countercultural presence within the surrounding milieu. Rather than concerning themselves purely with ‘spiritual matters’, monastic life grew to embrace all spheres of life as holy, with the rule of Benedict placing particular emphasis on the sanctity of manual labour.²² Each monastery was therefore “a vast complex of buildings, churches, workshops, stores, and almshouses – a hive of activity for the benefit of the entire surrounding community”.²³ The monastic life was ordered pointedly and publicly about the person of Jesus Christ, an everyday witness to a radically different way of life. It willingly embraced the harsh rigours of labour usually reserved for the lowest in society, doing so with a “a spirituality of the long haul”²⁴ that shrugged off barbarian invasions and inspired others through its persevering tenacity. “Even without knowing it and without intending it, their conduct was missionary through and through,” concludes Bosch. “Small wonder then that, increasingly, their implicitly missionary dimension began to spill over into explicit missionary efforts.”²⁵

This brings us to the final element of monastic missional witness, that which was explicitly and intentionally evangelistic. Here Bosch notes, “It was Gregory the Great, himself a Benedictine monk, who first conceived the idea of a planned ‘foreign mission’, when he sent the monk Augustine from the heart of Benedictine monasticism in Italy to the kingdom of Kent on the British isles to initiate a missionary venture among the pagan English.”²⁶ Far from being an exception, this missional enterprise was the norm in Britain, where evangelisation in “the Romano-Celtic and Anglo-Saxon eras occurred through the missional endeavours of monks, nuns and friars, and not primarily through bishops, priests and parishes”.²⁷ Thus developed within several streams of British monastic life the apostolic conviction “that one should not remain in the monastery for one’s own salvation, but save and serve others”.²⁸

New monastic community

Having now examined the concepts of church and mission, we turn finally to consider new monasticism itself. As a movement, it can be traced to the middle of the 20th century, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer foreseeing its advent in 1940: “The restoration of the Church must surely come from a new kind of monasticism, which will have only one thing in common with the old, a life lived without compromise according to the Sermon on the Mount in the following of Jesus. I believe the time has come to gather people for this.”²⁹

As is often the case with new phenomena, there is a multiplicity of language currently being used to describe overlapping and evolving entities. None are without issue, as identified by Andy Freeman when he writes that “each time I hear of expressions of monasticism around the world I realise there is not much that is ‘new’ about what we do”.³⁰ Simpson concurs, suggesting that “the discovery of monasticism among protestants is more a new discovery than a new monasticism”.³¹ There is indeed a risk that the phrase might suggest a degree of originality which is unwise to claim. Personally, however, I find the explicit mention of ‘monasticism’ provides a meaningful anchor in the tradition of what has gone before, while recognising the ‘newness’ and difference of contemporary expression.

Indeed, as Paas notes, “innovation that burns all the bridges towards the old and traditional will not be recognised as innovation. Renewal is always the renewal of something; it is not creation out of nothing.”³² By this, he cautions us not to jump clean off the pier of Christian heritage, convinced that our new expression will float with a life of its own. Writing in a similar vein, Steve Aisthorpe suggests, “Rewilding the Church begins by drawing from the deep wells of Christian identity.”³³ This provides a valuable counterculture in a time when an idealised future is often our overriding frame of reference.

The possibilities for applying the fruits of the monastic witness to new contexts are widespread indeed, with writers such as Simon Reed exploring how monastic practices might enrich mainstream ecclesial life.³⁴ Others have sought to apply the Rule of St Benedict to business management,³⁵ while Rowan Williams has examined how the Benedictine way might positively influence contemporary European culture at large.³⁶ Yet, rather than applying monastic principles to a particular field of life, I would understand new monasticism as being a further iteration – or a new embodiment – of the monastic tradition. Ray Simpson concisely describes it as “a fresh expression of committed Christianity for the post-modern age.”³⁷

While new monasticism does not seek to replace that which has gone before, it is nonetheless enacting what Paul Bradbury describes as travelling “home by another route”. Recognising the huge cultural shifts of the past century, Bradbury writes convincingly of our need to look “for a way home in a cultural landscape that has lost the familiar paths and landmarks of the past”.³⁸ While therefore recognising the essential place of traditional monasticism to the understanding and practice of new monastic community, it is also important to acknowledge the places where old and new part company. Indeed, we should not expect it to look the same, for as Ray Simpson writes: “True monasticism is never an end – that would be to make it an idol – it is a means to a transformation, a fullness of humanness in Christ, and must only be followed in as much as it serves this purpose.”³⁹

New monasticism’s change of approach is arguably exemplified by its focus on communal living, rather than a life of solitude. As Andy Freeman admits, “there isn’t too much ‘mono’ about who we are and what we do. Prayer and contemplation, for me at least, sit alongside community and mission and so we look more like Franciscan Friars than monks.”⁴⁰ It is less that prayer and isolation are entirely shunned, but rather that a different and more flexible balance is sought in their practice. The Northumbria Community, for example, uses the phrase “alone and together” to describe their communal charism, an approach which more closely approximates the Orthodox monastic tradition than the Roman Catholic model of differentiated ‘active’ and ‘contemplative’ orders.⁴¹

This move typifies the kind of flexibility that new monasticism is seeking to embody. Simpson argues that contemporary Christians “are wary of structures that are imposed from the centre; they do not want to be trapped in a new legalism; they don’t want to be shut off from ordinary people”.⁴² Where traditional monasticism is typically defined by strict adherence to an ascetic rule of life, the adaptable nature of new monasticism is arguably more suited to the complex fluidity of postmodern culture.

This raises the difficult question, however, of how far one can depart from the well-trodden paths before what is left ceases to be authentically monastic, or indeed authentically Christian? “When is a spiritual community truly a New Monastic Community?” postulates Ian Mobsby. He offers the suggestion that “there needs to be some form of shared rhythm or rule of life; just having values is not enough. These rules then need to define some form of shared practices.”⁴³ I would see this comment as being representative of wider practice, and while each community will vary, they will nonetheless aspire towards some embodiment of such values-driven, communally held practices.

It is important to recognise, however, that many communities will still be on that journey of aspiration, with an outward expression far less developed than the monastic ways we are used to. After all, the most ancient communities were themselves once new, and we would do well to remember that “those early God-seekers of the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries followed no written Rules – there were none”.⁴⁴ The final word on new monastic community is yet far from being written, such is the emergent nature of this missional movement within the church.

Conclusion

I hope to have shown throughout this essay that new monastic community is something very much related – and relevant – to the church today. It may well exist at the fringes, yet so too did the Desert Fathers in the early days of the monasticism. Rowan Williams, exploring their relevance for today, indeed reminds us that “the church is always renewed from the edges rather than the centre”.⁴⁵ If new monasticism is to play a faithful part in this renewal, it will need both the rich inheritance of the monastic witness, and a bold embrace of an unknown future.

In doing so, I believe new monastic community to be a living, local, beautiful sacrament of the church’s call to mission. How this happens in practice was the central focus of my dissertation research, which I could share another time! Personally, it has led me to explore what this might look like in my own life, leaving the realm of the theoretical and diving into the adventure of discovering this calling in Christ.

About the author

Matt Richards is an ordained pioneer minister in Cumbria, where he finds joy seeking God amid the quiet beauty of the fells, the chaotic delight of family hospitality and the constant adventure of community life.

More from this issue

Notes

1. Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (New York: Random House, 2002), 43. ︎
2. Ibid, 27. ︎
3. Steve Aisthorpe, Rewilding the Church (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 2020), 150. ︎
4. Dulles, 61. ︎
5. Ralph Winter, The two structures of God’s redemptive mission (The American Society of Missiology, 1974). ︎
6. George Lings,Why Modality and Sodality thinking is vital to understand future church (Church Army), 1. ︎
7. Steve Bevans and Roger Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today (New York: Orbis Books, 2015), 67. ︎
8. See Craig Gardiner, Melodies of a New Monasticism (London: SCM Press, 2018), 97. ︎
9. George Lings, Seven Sacred Spaces (Abingdon: The Bible Reading Fellowship, 2020), 123. ︎
10. Gerald Arbuckle, Refounding the Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1993), 135. ︎
11. Stephan Paas, Pilgrims and Priests: Christian Mission in a Post-Christian Society (London: SCM Press, 2019), 27–28. ︎
12. Lings, 123. ︎
13. Quoted in Bevans and Schroeder, 8. ︎
14. Ibid, 8. ︎
15. Ibid, 30. ︎
16. Ibid, 303. ︎
17. David Bosch, Transforming Mission (New York: Orbis, 2010), 231. ︎
18. Ibid. ︎
19. ^[19] Ibid, 230. ︎
20. Ian Bradley, Colonies of Heaven: Celtic Models for Today’s Church (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2000), 2. ︎
21. Rowan Williams, The Way of St Benedict (London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2020), 45. ︎
22. Ibid, 68. ︎
23. Bosch, 232. ︎
24. Ibid, 233. ︎
25. Ibid. ︎
26. Bosch, 235. ︎
27. Ian Mobsby, “The Importance of New Monasticism as a Model for Building Ecclesial Communities out of Contextual Mission”, in New Monasticism as Fresh Expression of Church, edited by Graham Cray, Ian Mobsby and Aaron Kennedy (London: Canterbury Press, 2010), 12–18, 12. ︎
28. Bosch, 235. ︎
29. Ray Simpson, High Street Monasteries: Fresh expressions of committed Christianity (Stowmarket: Kevin Mayhew, 2009), 11. ︎
30. Andy Freeman, New Monasticism, Mission and Young People, in New Monasticism as Fresh Expression of Church, 50–56, 50. ︎
31. Simpson, 41. ︎
32. Paas, 44. ︎
33. Aisthorpe, 27. ︎
34. Simon Reed, Creating Community: Ancient ways for modern churches (Abingdon: BRF, 2013). ︎
35. Kit Dollard, Anthony Marett-Crosby and Abbot Timothy Wright, Doing Business with Benedict (London: Continuum, 2002). ︎
36. Williams, 66–83. ︎
37. Simpson, 9. ︎
38. Paul Bradbury, Home by another route: Reimagining today’s church (Abingdon: The Bible Reading Fellowship, 2019), 85. ︎
39. Simpson, 8. ︎
40. Freeman, 50. ︎
41. Abbot Stuart Burns, Reflections on New Monasticism, in New Monasticism as Fresh Expression of Church, 140–145, 143. ︎
42. Simpson, 57. ︎
43. Mobsby, 16. ︎
44. Mother Mary Clare, quoted by Philip D. Roderick in Connected Solitude: Reimagining the Skete, in New Monasticism as Fresh Expression of Church, 102–119, 109. ︎
45. Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes: The wisdom of the desert (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2004), 109. ︎

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In 2019 the first CMS Pioneer Mission Training students embarked on a doctorate in theology (DTh) at the University of Roehampton. In February this year, the first of those students, Paul Bradbury, successfully defended his thesis in his examination and was awarded his doctorate.

Dr James Butler, leader of CMS Pioneer Mission Training, talks to Paul about his experience of doing the doctorate,  what he studied and what’s next.

James: Why did you want to study for a DTh?

Paul: I started a DTh because I wanted to explore an issue that arose through my ministry as a pioneer. So much resource from the central Church of England was going into particular models of mission and particular forms of church that many pioneers were struggling to find the space or resource to carry out their ministry.

J: So, what did you discover?

P: In my thesis I argue that the nature of the church can’t be reduced down to particular models or forms. Instead, the very nature of the church is a becoming: it is always being formed and reformed through its engagement with the world.

I discovered that pioneers often resist predetermined models. Instead, pioneers build community through conversation with people in their context. Their focus is on prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit who they regard as present and active in the midst of the community that is forming. As I listened to the stories of how these new communities were forming, I heard how the pioneers involved were often surprised by what happened, finding that their assumptions about forms a church could take were disrupted.

I also learned from two dioceses about how they were trying to encourage pioneer ministry alongside more traditional parish ministry. I’ve argued that the tension experienced in this process might be seen as a creative tension as we develop toward a mixed ecology of church.

J: Sounds interesting, how can we find out more?

P: I hope to develop the thesis into a book soon. In the meantime, if anyone wants to have a conversation about what I’ve been learning they’re welcome to get in touch. [You can contact Paul via CMS here]. I’m also working with CMS to create a space for the kind of listening and discernment that is needed to support and enable a becoming church. We are looking to develop a resource of theological accompaniment, research and reflection to support pioneers and others.

J: And how has it been studying a DTh with CMS at the University of Roehampton?

P: The DTh has been a great experience. It’s honestly been the hardest but best thing I’ve ever done. There was never a point where I wanted to give up, though there were numerous times when I was pushed to think harder and more deeply than I thought I was capable of! It has answered the question I set out with, in ways I hope will be helpful to others. It’s also raised a whole host of other questions for the future!

J: It’s been a pleasure working with you on this Paul, and we’re so delighted that you have achieved your doctorate. All the best with sharing your findings more widely.

The DTh programme is designed for those who are actively involved in mission, ministry and pioneering and want to explore the things they are discovering in more detail. The first two years are taught part time, helping you to focus your ideas into a research project, before you then carry out your research over the following three to four years.  Do get in touch if, like Paul, there is something you’d like to explore.

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The post First CMS student awarded a doctorate appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Are we letting buildings, structures and practices distract from conversation, the lifeblood of community?

A few years ago, I was involved in a series of round table discussions, focused on the church and its mission. The room was full of people invited from the wide range of traditions within the Church of England. Our task was to explore what a missional ecclesiology for the future of the church might be.

The day involved facilitated discussion on three themes: mission, kingdom and church. And what was interesting was that, while discussion on mission and kingdom revealed a high degree of common ground, the discussion on church saw a few sparks flying!

Out of that day the idea was developed to publish a book that reflected the spectrum of perspectives and missional practice represented by that conversation. Being the People of God (SCM 2025) continues the conversation and, we hope, widens it by giving people a chance to hear how, in a variety of contexts, the church is responding in mission to our changing cultural context.

Clare Watkins, a Catholic lay theologian and a professor at Durham University, has said that the church might understand itself as “a community of discerning conversation, open to the necessary incomplete and flawed contributions of all who seek what is most true”. But do we see the church and its ongoing life as “a discerning conversation”? I am not sure we do. Most often our attention is drawn to more concrete things like buildings, or to the organisational structures of the church. Or it is drawn so easily to the practices of the church, what we are doing (or not doing), and how we can do it better (or do it at all!).

Yet conversation is the stuff of healthy communities and healthy organisations. Without conversation, through which ideas, information, innovations and ideals flow, are reflected on, adapted and reinforced, organisations ossify into rigid institutions or machines. Good, open conversation is the life of any community. Conversation is also a key locus of discernment, making space and time for that slow work of reflection and evaluation as communities navigate their life and purpose through changing circumstances.

It is in the spirit of that need for discerning conversation that Being the People of God was put together. We recognised that the struggle to find sufficient common ground when talking about the church was not a problem to be fixed. Instead, it simply highlighted the nature of the church. That the church is not a fixed star somehow detached from the world, but an ongoing communal conversation on what it means to live together as disciples of Jesus in the world as it is.

Furthermore, the world as it is undergoing a period of change perhaps unlike any other in human history. We are engaging in this conversation in wildly turbulent days. The strapline for the book therefore reads “Missional ecclesiology in uncertain times”.

I invite you to join in this conversation at the next CMS conversations day on Tuesday 17 March. The day will explore many of the themes of the book. And we will be helped to do this through the contributions of some of those who wrote chapters for it. As you might expect there will be plenty of space for you to engage in conversation! We look forward to seeing you. Book your place now

About Paul Bradbury

Paul is an ordained pioneer minister in the Church of England, based in Poole, Dorset. He is a freelance practical theologian, writer and researcher, and a tutor and lecturer in missional ecclesiology.

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Independent research has found that Pioneering Parishes is impacting the fulfilment of the Church of England’s six bold outcomes at the parochial level.

Recent independent research demonstrates that the small, start-up training organisation is giving long-established parish churches the tools and confidence to revitalise for mission, enabling them to reach out to children and families in the wider communities, and cultivating a framework for growth in discipleship. Read the Executive Summary here.

The research was independently commissioned by the Church of England Vision & Strategy team to evaluate the impact Pioneering Parishes is having on those who have attended courses and on the parishes they are part of. It was carried out by Paul Bradbury, ordained pioneer minister in the Church of England and associate tutor with Sarum College, Church Mission Society and Ripon College Cuddesdon. This research evaluated the experiences of Pioneering Parishes attendees against the six bold outcomes of the Church of England’s Vision and Strategy.

The data in this research indicates how Pioneering Parishes enables parishes to renew their life of worship and witness in their communities. The result is a move toward community listening, prayer, new initiatives and to changes in existing provision which makes it more welcoming and accessible.

Parishes are complex places, with long histories and multiple influences. Yet, it is also the case that many participants credited PP directly with many of the changes they were seeing in their parishes.

This is the work of culture change; work to help move parishes toward renewed vision and values for their common life. Such work can be slow and difficult. This research indicates that Pioneering Parishes is a significant and powerful tool to help parishes make substantial progress in this area in a relatively short period of time.

Read the Executive Summary of the research.

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CMS’s Britain team were delighted to welcome visitors from the board of Fresh Expressions Germany in October.

“God, we need seven Bavarians to send into context!”

This prayer, written by a German visitor to CMS House in Oxford in October, refers to one of the founding stories of CMS: that the first missionaries sent by the newly established charity were seven Bavarians.

The story goes that the search for UK volunteers proved fruitless, but there were seven committed Jesus-followers from south Germany who were willing to go overseas to share the good news of God in Christ.

The story testifies to a strong connection past and present between the German church and CMS which is underpinned by warm friendship lived out through learning exchanges.

The Fresh Expressions movement in Germany looks to the UK as if – it seems – to an older cousin or sibling, and on 20 October a group of 17 visitors dragging damp suitcases and shaking wet umbrellas arrived in the foyer of CMS House to a very warm welcome from us.

The visit was organised by the Fresh Expressions board of Germany and made up of Protestant and Catholic office holders from different parts of the country in a variety of roles connected with pioneering mission. First order of the day was to agree on an understanding of mission as participating with God through Christ in the healing of all things.

Jonny Baker shared something of the more recent history of CMS in the context of UK church planting and pioneering, inspiring with his understanding of Jesus’ desire to cross social boundaries to engage with people like Legion in the story of the Gerasenes ‘on the other side of the lake’.

I was delighted to be in a room for several hours with old friends whom I first met through online webinars with Paul Bradbury as we launched and tested the Pioneer Spectrum tool online during the pandemic.

Since then a number of the visitors have worked hard on contextualising and translating the Pioneer Spectrum for a German audience. 

The overarching inquiry for the visitors was ‘How does mission shape the church?’ and it was great to be able to share the learning of Greg Bakker in this area over three decades as a parish priest in multiple contexts summarised as the five key dynamics of a Pioneering Parish as well as the Beatitudes for Pioneers and Priests we have been featuring in our monthly newsletter, ably backed up by the Beatitudes map designed by our gifted graphic designer Sophie Killingley.

In the afternoon I tested out some theories I’ve been considering that connect the character of Jesus, neuroscience, play and clowning with a new audience.

The group did amazingly to engage with this topic across language barriers and joined in with some embodied activities aimed at awakening their more lateral-thinking ‘baby brains’.

There was lots of laughter, plenty of wonderment and some insights for me from the subsequent discussions.

We finished by creating a shared poem in which each participant shared their key insight from the day (below).

Wir sind die kirchliche No-Go-Areas die dich zittern lassen wie Espenlaub, dort, wo alles heilvoll werden kann.¹
Let’s be fringe-dwellers!
Little things matter to a bunch of lake-crossers to help others focus on worlding the world.

Become a baby brain and don’t stop playing.
Wenn ich nicht werde wie ein Kind… ²
We need more baby brain in our church.
Be the change you want to have with a playful baby brain!

Finally finding my own tribe and play space
Trust in the playful guidance of the Holy Spirit!
God, we need seven Bavarians to send into context.
Don’t be so serious!
Schaut Tina mit ihrer roten Nase an…³
Spot the niche to intervene, be playful, and live your job as a clown.

Clap for the failures
Folge seiner Intuition⁴
Let’s go to the other side of the lake
Cross the bridge of understanding.
Be brave, be even more brave, just try it and dance!

1. We are the No-Go-Areas for the church, that make us tremble like an aspen leaf, where everything can find healing. ︎
2. Unless I become like a little child… ︎
3. Look at Tina with her red nose… ︎
4. Follow your intuition ︎

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Our professional doctorate programme run in collaboration with the University of Roehampton adds to the richness and depth of the conversation about mission and pioneering.

On a sunny Thursday a few weeks back, Cathy Ross and I travelled into London on the train, to the University of Roehampton to meet with a group of doctoral students (pictured above) to help them put together their research plans ahead of beginning the research phase of their programme.

This is the sixth year we have had CMS students studying their doctorate at the University of Roehampton, focusing on themes around mission and pioneering.

We see having doctoral students as a key way to encourage and support research into mission and pioneering and it has been great to see the wealth of subjects being studied by our students.

We have students studying questions of innovation, emergence, the Holy Spirit in mission, pioneering and church, spirituality, prayer and many more, all through a lens of mission and engaging with lived practice. 

One of the beauties of the DTh programme at Roehampton is the fact that for the first two years students get to journey with fellow doctoral students as they focus their research topic and develop the skills they need to do the research.  

As Jo Allen, in her first year of the DTh with us, commented, “I love the opportunity to design my research with others on my course, bouncing ideas of each other and exploring new avenues that I wouldn’t find on my own.”

They study two modules each year and meet six times throughout the year to learn together. 

While Cathy and I were meeting with the second year students who are reaching the end of the taught stage and putting together the details of the research plans, the first years were also meeting, thinking about the other voices and writings within their chosen fields of study.

Ben Morgan Lundie, who is coming to the end of the second year, reflected: “I chose to study my DTh with Roehampton and CMS because the team are experts in practical theology and bring a missional edge to how we shape our projects. The last two years of the taught programme have stretched me intellectually and I am really looking forward to the next few years of research and writing.”

On each DTh teaching day we also have the opportunity to come together for the Practical Theology Seminar, where various academics in related fields are invited to come and share their research and thinking. 

On this most recent visit it was the turn of Dr Pat Jones from the University of Durham, who shared her research into abuse in the Catholic Church and the learning which has come from listening to a wide variety of voices and experiences. It was a powerful session, not just because of the content, but also Pat’s engaging and reflective presenting.

I look forward to these teaching days and the chance to think deeply with students and learn together. It has been a real joy to see people develop their research around their passions and their pioneering and mission practice, and to see the kinds of deep insights beginning to emerge from their careful work. 

I enjoy hearing people express the same feelings of joy and privilege that I feel from doing qualitative research; having the opportunity to listen to people talk about their lives and seeing the ways in which deep and careful listening opens up new learning and practice.  

Paul Bradbury, coming towards the end of his doctoral research commented, “The DTh programme gave me such a good grounding and support for carrying out my research into pioneering – it has been a fabulous process.”

We anticipate our first students finishing their doctorates over the next year, and look forward to helping them to share their learning and findings more widely. 

If you have something you have a burning passion to explore and find out about, do get in touch to explore the possibility of doing the doctorate with us.

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A recent research conversation day at CMS looked at fresh ways to express and think about pioneering and church planting.

One of our priorities at CMS is enabling thinking and theological engagement around mission and pioneer practice.

One of the ways we have sought to do this is through the doctoral programme that we offer in partnership with the University of Roehampton.

Another way has been through our conversation days where we invite different contributors who have been thinking and researching around mission, church, and pioneering. 

In March these two things came together when Paul Bradbury, one of our first doctoral students, gave us a snapshot on his doctoral research and the implications for pioneering and church.

Fresh expressions of pioneering?

Paul has been looking at the experience of pioneers within two Church of England dioceses. 

Through listening to what the pioneers do in their work, and how they talk about their pioneering, he is expressing pioneering and church in ways which take seriously the more emergent nature of their work.

He has noticed a tendency when thinking about church planting and new worshipping communities, to turn to models, but what he heard from the pioneers was a much more responsive approach to the formation of ecclesial communities. 

He described how:

• pioneers create space through their work for mutual dialogue, where the primary aim is be with each other, and learn from one another;
• this is part of what it means to participate in God’s mission, being together and learning together;
• in this space the pioneers journey with others, noticing how church is coming into being through the work of the Spirit;
• this idea of becoming church allows a much more dynamic understanding of church as a community on the move, rather than a fixed sense of what church is.

His account stimulated a great conversation with people in the room and those online, whose questions and comments encouraged discussion around discernment, the work of the Spirit, what a ‘models’ approach to church planting might offer, and how what Paul was discovering resonated with the practice of many pioneers in the room.

New churches: working with the Spirit

Later in the morning we reflected on the recent book New Churches: A Theology which a number of people from across the CMS network had contributed to, including Cathy Ross, Tina Hodgett, Paul Ayokunle, Paul Bradbury and me. 

Through a panel discussion format, the contributors discussed what we had valued in one another’s chapters. 

Paul Ayokunle’s chapter explored an omolúàbí understanding of church planting, drawing from a tradition within his own Yoruba Nigerian background. 

Through this tradition he expressed an emphasis on both the character of those planting churches, and on the way in which human agency and the Spirit’s agency work together.

In fact, Cathy pointed to an emphasis on the work of the Spirit being a theme across the different chapters we were discussing. We were pleased to have Rachel Edge from SCM Press with us, offering a discounted copy of the book. Do get hold of it and have a read.

We have two Conversation Days a year, which cover themes relevant to mission and pioneering and draw from the wealth of wisdom across our work and networks, particularly connecting it to the pioneer, African and Asian conversations we are developing in our MA programme.

Look out for future Conversations through our Pioneer Newsletter and Events page.

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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.

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!

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The word ‘pioneer’ is a classification. Our brains are wired to classify things in the world around us to help us manage the huge abundance of information we have to take in. There are broad classifications and within them usually lots of varieties.

by Rev Tina Hodgett

I opened the shed last week and was amazed to be met with the sight of a huge male peacock butterfly perched with open wings on a box. On the back of my utility room door is a poster detailing in words and pictures the most common types of butterfly, which is how I knew I was looking at a peacock. I was chuffed I immediately recognised it for what it was and went back to the poster to check and compare with other varieties, excited about extending my knowledge of the natural world.

Within the pioneer world there are equally many varieties. Pioneers are influenced in their approach by a range of different factors. Personality, for example: you will pioneer in a different way as an introvert than as an extrovert. Education and training – often influenced by personality – will direct a person’s attention to different things, and give a person different skills and approaches: an engineer will approach a creative task differently from a fine artist, a personal shopper to a nurse. Theology in all its variety will play a major role. How does the pioneer see God and God’s world? What do they understand worship to be? What church practices have influenced their faith development, and what do they see as the essential nature of church?

Beyond the principles and preferences, nature and skills of the pioneer or pioneer team engaged in missional activity there is the context. A pioneer is always in relationship with the place she or he is set. The local people and the local environment shape the pioneer’s thoughts and actions as a child is shaped by the context and culture into which he or she is born.

Some years ago Paul Bradbury and I gave some thought to all the factors that go to make up individual pioneer approaches and gave birth to the Pioneer Spectrum; an aid to identify and potentially classify pioneers. You can find it here: pioneerspectrum.com It consists of diagrams, games, explanations and questions to enable newcomers to this conversation to understand the range of varieties of pioneers you might be or might encounter. Enjoy!

Whether you’re taking your first steps as a pioneer or grappling with the challenge of developing a pioneering culture we have tools that can help you. Find out more.

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Created for any curate designated as a pioneer or with a specific pioneer brief to their curacy, join this learning community to access dedicated pioneer training.

Run on a three year rolling programme in partnership with Church Mission Society, these sessions are designed to support the fulfilment of the learning criteria for pioneer IME2.

Examples of learning include:

• Listening in context
• Pioneer Leadership
• Pioneer Priest and Pastor
• Pioneer Spirituality
• Resilient Pioneer Ministry
• Pioneer Ecclesiology

Drawing on relevant texts, resources and experience you will explore what contextual pioneering looks like and what it means to be a pioneer leader. During these sessions we’ll be exploring issues such as:

• How do we listen and respond in context?
• What do worship and the sacraments look like in fresh expressions of church emerging from pioneer ministry?
• What does it mean to be a pioneer leader inhabiting two different spaces?
• What is church? in what ways is pioneer ministry posing new and creative answers to this question?
• The pioneer spectrum attempts to identify different expressions of the pioneer vocation, we’ll look at where you sit on the pioneer spectrum and also explore the theology and language around pioneer spirituality.
• What do we mean when we talk about sustainability? What models are emerging for resourcing pioneer ministry for the longer term?

Facilitated in the South and the North

The training is facilitated online.

You must get permission from your DDO/IME2 officer to access this course. Please do this before filling in the Google form (link below).

For more information please contact:

The South – Paul Bradbury: paul@poolemc.org.uk
The North – Richard Passmore: richard.passmore@carlislediocese.org.uk

Explore

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Welcome to the Toolbox

Here you will find all the relevant material to help you understand and use the pioneer spectrum.

Guidebook

Before leaping in, we invite you to take time to engage with the Pioneer Spectrum and its theology.  Our guidebook will take you through all you need to know:

• how to use all the tools provided
• how to get the best out of the Pioneer Spectrum
• how to use the card game
• how to facilitate discussions using the downloadable resources
• glossary: how and why certain language is used

Introductory videos

Diagrams

Version 1

Download version 1 Related article

Version 2

Download version 2 Related article

Card game

This activity is to help you as a pioneer – or someone who supports and enables mission – to investigate and explore two things:

1. Yourself, your beliefs, practice and personality as they shape your missional work
2. The context where you are engaging in God’s mission

NB For the card game you will need a desktop computer. 

Play

Discussion resources

These downloadable discussion sheets and images are designed to help you develop constructive conversations around the theology of mission and church planting. 

They probe into the different perspectives in theology, practice and personality people bring to missional leadership. 

They explore how these perspectives connect with the cultural diversity in which we live today.

Download

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