Abstract
Abstract This article draws from the developments in pneumatology, especially in respect to how the Spirit calls God’s people into mission and missional endeavour, in order to offer a critical insight into how the Fresh Expressions movement continues to equip the church to live faithfully. To do this, the article utilises research from ecumenical partners in mission in the UK, before arguing that Fresh Expressions (as an organisation as well as a set of principles and practices), has inherited much from the work of the Holy Spirit, but had not gone far enough to draw further conclusions or to self-resource itself from a strong pneumato-missional perspective.
Highlights
This article draws from the developments in pneumatology, especially in respect to how the Spirit calls God’s people into mission and missional endeavour, in order to offer a critical insight into how the Fresh Expressions movement continues to equip the church to live faithfully
A Form Of This Essay Was First Delivered As A Fernley-Hartley Lecture In 2019 First, why is the topic of the Holy Spirit so pertinent to mission studies and missional praxis today? The now-almost twenty-year old Fresh Expressions movement (FX) is one response the mainstream (UK) Methodist and Anglican Churches have made to an international rediscovery of the power of the Holy Spirit as both a catalyst for mission, and as an academic discipline
Why are we so afraid of people who are different from us? When did we forget that the Holy Spirit was always working in people before we showed up
Summary
An age of innovation and equality, which would see Christendom models of powers and dominions crumble, but that the Holy Spirit would bring wildness and courage to God’s people In this mission-centred world, we often talk about mission happening on the margins of the church and on the margins of society. For Yong, this missional spirit in action is about the building of relationship, the repair of creation, and the full participation of all people from all places in the kingdom of God—rich in diversity and complexity All of these voices suggest that a day like today, focussed on the Holy Spirit, is more than just nostalgia for the good old days of charismatic worship experience. The missiological spirit is at work, and the ecclesiological tide is turning, albeit being such a force of money, power, and politics that any innovation has to fight hard to be anything other than an expensive extravagance in times of dwindling budgets and stretched clergy
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