Church for Every Context. Michael Moynagh

churches? Chapter 6 maintains that mission should be a first step for the church. Chapter 7 argues that this mission should take communal form in the different places where people now lead their lives. Chapter 8 contends that these communal forms of mission should be thoroughly contextual, while remaining true to Jesus. Chapter 9 argues that being contextual will mean focusing on specific cultures. It suggests that this is consistent with the New Testament vision of a diverse but united church. Chapter 10 claims that these contextual churches are faithful to the Christian tradition.

      Part 3 builds on the theology of the earlier chapters. It argues that founding new churches should be viewed as an essential Christian practice, which is beginning to be expressed in new ways. As the beginning of a contemporary description of this practice, Chapter 11 describes what it means for mission to take communal form in the many settings of society. As a crucial step toward this communal expression of mission, Chapter 12 discusses the process of gathering a mission community (the founding team of the new church). Chapters 13 and 14 describe how this mission community can begin to engage in contextual mission – by researching opportunities to serve the context and engaging with potential partners. Chapters 15 and 16 describe two processes – action-based learning and what I have called team awareness – that support the gathering, researching and engaging activities.

      Part 4 is about laying down pathways to maturity. It describes the outlines of four such pathways – making disciples, worship, community and sustainability. It points to some of the directions of travel, recognizing that we still have much to learn about the stepping stones within each pathway.

      The final chapter argues that contextual churches should grow to maturity within the setting of a mixed-economy church, in which new forms of church and inherited church (churches with inherited structures and patterns of life) exist alongside each other in relationships of mutual support. The book can be read as an extended argument for the mixed economy. New contextual churches are theologically well founded. We are learning how to practise them. This learning should continue within a mixed-economy setting.

      In organizing the chapters, I have tried to respond to pleas that training for church founders integrate theory and practice (Croft, 2008a, p. 49). Thus a number of chapters are designed to build bridges between the practice of contextual church and specific academic disciplines. The disciplines include Old Testament (Chapter 19), New Testament (Chapter 1), systematic theology (especially Chapters 5, 6 and 21), church history (Chapters 2 and 10), worship (Chapter 18) and, of course, themes within mission studies such as sociology (Chapter 4), contextualization (Chapters 5 and 6) and evangelism (Chapters 12 and 18).

      Resources

Church for Every Context draws on a variety of material. It is informed by over 150 case studies compiled by the UK national team, Fresh Expressions6, by the Sheffield Centre’s important Encounters on the Edge series of studies, and by other examples of contextual church with which I am familiar.

      It draws on an extensive body of literature arising from the four tributaries of church planting, emerging church, fresh expressions of church and communities in mission. Within this are case studies and case study-based reflections such as Glasson (2006), Male (2008), Gibbs and Bolger (2006) and Gray-Reeves and Perham (2011); contributions to the debate about the validity of these new forms of church, such as some of the essays in Croft (2008b) and Nelstrop and Percy (2008); introductions to specific types of church, such as organic church (Cole, 2005) and mid-sized communities (Breen and Absalom, 2010); studies that address particular themes or issues, such as liquid church (Ward 2002) and new monasticism (Cray, Mobsby and Kennedy, 2010).

      Church for Every Context also dialogues with wider streams of theological literature, not least on the nature of the church, the mission of God, contextualization, the church as the carrier of the Christian story, and Old and New Testament studies. In addition, the book plunders insights from commercial and social entrepreneurship to throw light on how contextual churches start and grow, and draws on complexity theory, especially complex responsive process theory, which emphasizes the role of conversations in organizational life.

I write as a Church of England minister who is a member of the UK’s national Fresh Expressions team, which since 2005 has encouraged new forms of church for a fast-changing world.7 This inevitably means that my perspective has something of an institutional feel. However, the church is not primarily an institution, but a variety of interlocking relationships. History is full of ecclesial institutions emerging and dying. There is nothing sacrosanct about today’s denominations. So although I write from within one particular institution, which I believe still has something to offer the world, I have sympathy for critical voices outside the denominations. My passion is the mission of the church.

      Like many in the emerging church conversation, I have a low-church evangelical background, but in the early 1990s my journey took me to a more sacramental church, where we pioneered – in today’s language – several fresh expressions of church. Though my voyage resonates with many in the conversation, I have not travelled to the radical shores a number have reached. Some in the conversation would think me rather tame, whereas several of my evangelical friends would wonder if I was conservative enough.

      I have used the phrase ‘new contextual church’ to span churches founded by people who would describe themselves as conservative evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics, radical emergents, new monastics or some other label, while being willing to stand under this umbrella term. The book is an apologetic for these new types of church within the mixed economy.

      Further reading

      Gay, Doug, Remixing the Church: The Five Moves of Emerging Ecclesiology, London: SCM, 2011.

      Lings, George and Stuart Murray, Church Planting: Past, Present and Future, Cambridge: Grove Books, 2003.

      Mission-shaped Church, London: Church Publishing House, 2004.

      Questions for discussion

       Of the four tributaries