PARISH CHURCHES STILL VITAL TO REACH NATION FOR CHRIST

This article by Cranmer's Curate first appeared in the Oughtibridge parish magazine, The Bridge:

The new bishop of Sheffield Dr Steven Croft is committed to the growth of local churches both numerically and in the quality of their Christian discipleship.

Before he took up his new appointment, Bishop Steven was the national leader of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Fresh Expressions of Church initiative in the Church of England.

What are fresh expressions of church? At the risk of over-simplification, they are new initiatives launched by established churches to reach unchurched people in their parish whom they are finding it difficult to reach through their main Sunday services.

At the grass-roots, these fresh expressions can take the form of mid-week services aimed for example at mothers with toddlers or a congregation meeting in a non-ecclesiastical venue, such as a cafe or nightclub or pub, aiming at younger people in their professional or interest-group networks. The mother church, which would have the necessary financial and personnel resources, would oversee these new congregations.

Fresh expressions would also encompass new ‘stand-alone’ churches led by a minister taking a group from a larger mother church – a new church plant in another parish.

Essentially, the idea behind fresh expressions is that more and more people in contemporary British society are living in networks rather than being rooted in local communities. That is unquestionably true – people inhabit communities that transcend their localities and need to be reached for Christ in their networks.

But it is also vitally important to emphasise that many people in our society are still rooted in local communities and parish churches are ideally placed to reach them.

One of the great privileges and opportunities of parish ministry is the ability to visit people in their homes. Because of increasingly flexible working patterns, I will often find a wide range of people at home during the day and can make contact with them in Christ’s name.

Furthermore, a parish church is a visible Christian presence in a community. A group of people meeting in a secular venue and commuting in from outside does not have the visibility in a local community that a parish church has.

The other factor very much in favour of parish churches is the age range. Younger people can hugely benefit from the experience and Christian maturity of older people. The age range in our regular congregation spans from 88 to a few weeks’ old.

Both types of churches – established and new – need to ensure that their growth is based on solid biblical foundations. There is no merit in ‘cutting the price so more will buy’ by trimming the message and leaving out the counter-cultural doctrines of God’s wrath on sin, Christ’s sacrificial death in our place and the need for repentance.

Growth is inevitably slower in parish churches than in network or peer group churches but by God’s grace they can grow.

May that be true of us here at the Parish Church of the Ascension as Christ builds His church through His Word proclaimed in the power of His life-giving Holy Spirit.