Places Practitioners Play—The “Where” of Fresh Expressions

Part Six: A Vine of Many Branches

We have built it, and they have not come.

One of the key assumptions of Fresh Expressions is that followers of Jesus can no longer hunker down at the church compound waiting for people to show up. The Spirit is calling us to go out into the world and cultivate communal life in Jesus in every nook and cranny of life.

Most of Jesus’s ministry took place outside the walls of conventional religious spaces. Throughout history, a form of incarnational mission has been recovered by various movements. This refers to a way of being church that mirrors the way Jesus entered human life and culture. The term “incarnation” itself means “in the flesh” or how “the word moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14 MSG).

In practical terms, this involves Christians immersing ourselves in the places, rhythms, and practices or ordinary life. A couple key traits of this approach, include:

·       Presence: Being physically and relationally present in the community.

·       Contextualization: Understanding and engaging with the cultural context.

·       Service: Meeting practical needs and demonstrating love through actions.

·       Kenosis: Setting aside personal desires to serve others, following Jesus’s example of humility and self-emptying.

These characteristics are inherent in the “loving first journey” described earlier, as we listen, love, build relationships, and form community slowly over time.

Historically, we have seen a stream of incarnational mission flow from Jerusalem down to Ethiopia, over to Damascus and Antioch, then to Tarsus, Iconium, Ephesus, Cyprus, across to Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens and Corinth. Beyond Rome, Carthage, Gaul, Constantinople and Nicaea, it flowed through Armenia, Georgia, Yemen, then onto Kildare, Iona, Lindisfarne, Glastonbury, and later to Wittenburg, Geneva, Zurich, Augsburg, and a field outside of Bristol. Celtics, Beguines, Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines Protest-ants, and Methodists rediscovered some of these incarnational principles. From open-air preaching to Hush harbors, Camp meetings, Azusa Street, the Civil Rights movement, Base Ecclesial Communities, and Fresh Expressions today, followers of Jesus have been taking it to the fields.   

However, the “fields” have changed. In sociology, field theory refers to the environments in which interaction between individuals and groups take place. “Fields” simply refers to the social space and various positions that social actors can occupy. Information technologies have had a profound impact on the spatial organization of society. Manuel Castells suggests that networks are shaping contemporary social and economic structures, and this has transformed the human experience of space and time. In a “network society,” Castells suggests we must now recognize the difference between two kinds of space: the space of place and the space of flows.

Castells believes that space, throughout human history, has been “the material support of simultaneity in social practice.” So, cities for instance, are communication systems, increasing the chance of communication through direct contact. He calls the space of place the space of contiguity.^[1] Through an amalgamation of technologies, along with computerized transportation, “simultaneity was introduced in social relationships at a distance” (distanced contact). Meaning, humans no longer need to interact face to face in a physical place to have “contact.” This transformation of the spatiality of social interaction through simultaneity creates a new kind of space: the space of flows.^[2]

This is the networked space created by the movement of information, capital, and people across global networks. Unlike traditional physical spaces, the space of flows is characterized by its dynamic and interconnected nature. Just consider how we gather in a digitally built environment every time we have a Zoom meeting or join worship online through YouTube or Facebook. These are social spaces enabled by real virtuality.

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg furthers our understanding of the “space of place,” in his description of first, second, and third places.

First Place: The home or primary place of residence.

Second Place: The workplace or school place.

Third Place: The public places separate from the two usual social environments of home and workplace, that “host regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals. . . .” Examples are environments such as cafes, pubs, clubs, parks, and so on.^[3]

Today these places are interconnected by a complex web of flows. This technology connects people who share common passions, hobbies, and interests across geographic spaces. Long ago, community decoupled from locality. It is now centered around leisure, work, and friendships.

Fresh expressions have tremendous potential in third places, these physical or digital, public locations where local residents informally gather to converse with each other. Oldenburg posited that third places were unique from other public venues because they were places of informal conversation.

In The Great Good Place, Oldenburg summarizes the shared characteristics of the third place:

Neutral Ground—Individuals may come and go as they please, no one is forced to “play the host.” Thus, individuals can visit without a sense of obligation.

Leveler—Reduces everyone in the space to a shared equality regardless of rank or class. It’s an inclusive atmosphere, typified by downward association in an uplifting manner, where social strata distinctions are leveled; rich and poor, king and pauper, commune as equals.

Conversational—The atmosphere is informal. Jovial discourse is the main activity.

Accessibility—People can easily access the place beyond normal working hours. Third places often keep late or early hours. Also, they are typically proximally close to the first and second places of our normal rhythms. Proximity and convenience are keys to this accessibility.

Regulars—The grassroots community forms among fellow patrons, not something management provides. The regulars provide the sense of conviviality. Like in the television show Cheers, it’s a place “where everybody knows your name.”

Low Profile—The physical space does not refocus attention away from interpersonal communication. The focus is on relaxation and support that fosters feelings of acceptance.

Playful—The persistent mood is one of playfulness. Leave your overly serious attitude at the door.

Home—This place glows with the warmth of home, it truly becomes a home away from home.^[4]

The church once embodied the accessibility and neutrality central to third places in many US communities. In some rural locations, this is still the case. But across the North American landscape, the church largely no longer exists as a third place for the surrounding neighborhoods. For emerging generations, the church is another kind of secret-society lodge, where a peculiar group of people gather to enact strange rituals and use coded language. For many, it is not a viable space to gather and form community.

While in some sense the beauty of a third place has become lost in the relentless work-anxiety cycle of our postmodern culture, understanding how mobile human community forms regularly in these places is essential to our missional task. The formation of community around practices is indeed the space where adventurers play.

The power of harnessing these third places to form communal life with Jesus is evidenced by the diversity of fresh expressions emerging among the wide array of common practices that take place in accessible, neutral, inclusive, conversational, spaces. Shared practices may include gaming, tattooing, yoga, kayaking, running, eating burritos, gathering pets, drinking coffee, practicing tai chi, co-creating art, reviewing books, and the list goes on ad infinitum!

However, to be clear, fresh expressions of church are not merely about places or practices—they are about people—love of people. The guiding questions are not: Do I love this place? Do I love this practice? The questions are: Do I love “the regulars” of this place? Do I love the people who participate in this practice? Rather than asking: Do I love burritos, ask: Do I love the people who love burritos? Not Do I love tattooing, but Do I love the people who find tattooing to be the external artistic expression of their inner lives? Not simply Do I love yoga, but Do I love the people who practice yoga that may or may not have any connection with the church?

This is a missional approach that focuses on the activities that bind people to each other in time and space (i.e., practices). Place becomes secondary to the social space of connections enabled by micro-electronics-based information and communications technologies. Diverse people flow in and out of practice-centered communities. These movements involve adventurous teams of Christ-followers who engage these practices through establishing an incarnational presence within the common community.^[5]

In the Blended Ecology, we imagine that the world is truly our parish. We see our community as a living breathing ecosystem. The church building is one habitat within that ecosystem, but now every first, second, and third place, are spaces where communal life in Jesus can form. This includes digital spaces. This diagram is a representation for what a single community can look like, with multiple fresh expressions gathering in different places throughout the week.

Within this ecosystem we must make a distinction between “bounded and centered” sets. In a bounded-set, a community has clear boundaries, established around beliefs and behaviors, which are patrolled and enforced. One is included or excluded based on adherence. In a centered-set, a community is comprised of non-negotiable core convictions, which are enthusiastically supported and maintained. While an inclusive community, the core convictions shape behavior. One is free to explore moving towards the center, regardless of where in proximity they may be to those beliefs and behaviors.^[6]

Fresh expressions of church, operate primarily in a “centered-set” way, rather than as a “bounded-set.” They are communities that primarily follow a “belonging before believing” journey.^[7] In a blended-ecology ecosystem, both bounded and centered sets are valuable. The blended-ecology church harnesses the power of both.

Fresh expressions communities live in a continual tension of openness to others and a radical call to discipleship. They exist primarily as communities centered in the Risen Jesus, in which people are moving towards Jesus at their own pace.

Yet we noticed in our own community that many people who connected with us in our fresh expressions of church would eventually visit our Sunday morning services. Many also didn’t return. So, for the blended ecology to work, we needed to create a “fourth place.” This is a space in between a fresh expression and a traditional form of church.

For example, on Sunday morning we have three distinct worship experiences, Fresh Worship, Recovery Church, and Vintage Worship. Vintage Worship is a conventional Methodist experience with liturgy, pews, hymnals, and Holy Communion in our traditional sanctuary. Recovery Church is a fresh expression for people in 12-step fellowships that are exploring Jesus as their higher power. Fresh Worship is a mixture of elements people would be familiar with in a fresh expression, and a more conventional service. It’s a soft place to land for “nones and dones” who want to experience a more traditional form of church.

Understanding our communities as living social systems, helps us more faithfully engage in incarnational mission, and in so doing, become a church that looks more like Jesus.

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[1] Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), xxxi.

[2] Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, xxxi.

[3] Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community (New York: Marlowe, 1999), 16.

[4] Oldenburg, The Great Good Place, 20–40.

[5] Ryan K. Bolger, “Practice Movements in Global Information Culture: Looking Back to McGavran and Finding a Way Forward,” Missiology 35, no. 2: 181–93 (2007), 189–90.

[6] Stuart Murray, Church After Christendom (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2004), 28–31.

[7] Murray, Church After Christendom, 71.