Fresh ExpressionsScot Bower - 24 Jan 2011

Church on the beach, church in the skate park, Churches that bake and Churches that get messy(!), Goth's gathering to celebrate communion and football fans worshiping together (even after the 90 minutes are up). The Fresh Expressions initiative has seen hundreds of these new forms of church spring up around the United Kingdom and Europe in the last 5 years. Fresh Expressions do all they can to support and encourage these new churches, whatever they may look like, with the aim of seeing churches planted into communities to which people actually belong.

At the beginning of this year Fresh Expressions, who work with a variety of denominations and traditions, invited 24-7 Prayer to partner with them as they continue to see new congregations planted (alongside more traditional models) across the UK and internationally.

Andy Freeman who leads the team from 24-7 Prayer that are developing the partnership writes:

Conversations have been going on for some while between Pete Greig, director of 24-7, and Bishop Graham Cray as leader of the Fresh Expressions team, about the possibility and potential of partnership. I had also talked to Bishop Graham about it in relation to my own training as a priest. The result was that it felt like the right time, something that God wanted us to do.
There are a lot of parallels between the work of Fresh Expressions and 24-7. I think the biggest one is that fresh expressions start with the process of listening. This listening to culture, listening to what's going on and listening to each other is also very important within prayer rooms and nearly all of our communities would have started from that same place.

If you'd like to find out more about the new partnership between 24-7 Prayer and Fresh Expression you can read this article from Christian Today or listen to Andy in a podcast from Fresh Expressions available on their website.