Theology
Cray says that two key biblical principles underlie fresh expressions:
- God grows churches, not just individual Christians (1 Corinthians 3:6-9; 12:13).
- Those starting churches must do so from within the cultures they are trying to reach (1 Corinthians 9:19-23) so that those who respond face only the challenge of Christian faith (1 Corinthians 1:18-25), and not that of having to adopt a foreign church culture. Such new Christians are thus able to remain within their own culture as change-agents.
According to Fresh Expressions such churches are:
- missional – serving people outside church;
- contextual – listening to people and entering their culture;
- educational – making discipleship a priority; and
- ecclesial – forming church.
The more pioneering forms of Emerging Church ("those exploring new forms of church mainly for or with people who don't attend church") may be considered as fresh expressions.
Success for a fresh expression may not be measured by the normal three (or four) selfs, but by viability (for as long as it is appropriate); flow (of members from one Christian community to the next) and appropriate independence.
Read more about this topic: Fresh Expression
Famous quotes containing the word theology:
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)
“Only men of moral and mental force, of a patriotic regard for the relationship of the two races, can be of real service as ministers in the South. Less theology and more of human brotherhood, less declamation and more common sense and love for truth, must be the qualifications of the new ministry that shall yet save the race from the evils of false teaching.”
—Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)
“A theology whose god is a metaphor is wasting its time.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)