Similarities Between Davison And Milbank

For The Parish [FTP] by Davison and Milbank (2010) is a literary paradox. It has the power at times to be resoundingly insightful, gracious and well considered, and yet can also often be misleading and discourteous. Its theological critique oscillates wildly between rich penetrating scholarship and poorly executed exegesis. As a critique of fresh expressions it is largely successful at exposing error and tempering sensationalist approaches to consumerist culture. As a viable alternative however, its reimagined parish system is largely abstract, mistakenly idyllic and woefully lacking in real-life application. A balanced reading, however, presents an opportunity to assuage fears that the traditional parish church is obsolete for mission, without
In 1988, Resolution 43 from the Lambeth Conference called ‘each province and diocese of the Anglican Communion, in co-operation with other Christians, to make the closing years of this millennium a “Decade of Evangelism” with a renewed and united emphasis on making Christ known to the people of his world’ (1988:24). In 1994, the report Breaking New Ground established a church planting strategy to ‘underchurched’ and ‘unchurched’ areas (1994:9) to ‘attract those who do not normally attend worship’ (35). It was the first widely reported Anglican document that grappled ‘positively’ with postmodernity and how that might effect how we ‘do church’ (Bayes, 2006:7). Shortly after George Lings’ important series Encounters on the Edge (1999-present) documented examples of contextualised church planting and mission in the Church of England to inspire other such projects. A decade after Breaking New Ground came the dialogue partner of FTP in the shape of the 2004 Mission-shaped Church [MSC] report. Where Breaking New Ground saw church planting and early forms of fresh expressions as ‘supplements’ to Anglican life which sustained the parish system (Bayes, 2006:10), MSC saw them as entities effectively separate to the governing life of the parish. This — along with supporting Bishops
This outlined expectations for churches to be authentically Anglican, which it first glance ran against the grain of MSC, (for instance having the provision for a licensed minister, Toyne, 2004:32). This report, however, acknowledged the extreme difficulties in defining how a church can be ‘distinctly anglican’ ecclesiologically in light of developing mission projects (Mobsby, 2007:9). This conceivably softened the tracks for the broader approach of MSC.

From MSC came the official branded Fresh Expressions movement, which was an ecumenical approach to local British mission that included the Methodist, and United Reformed Churches, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the Congregational Federation as partner denominations, and Church Army, Church Mission Society and 24/7 Prayer Movement as partner organisations.

It is to this far reaching and widely embraced result of a five decade paradigm shift that FTP is critiquing, the official Fresh Expression Movement as presented in MSC and — to some degree — the broader but less official fresh expressions by extension.

The Essence of the