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chapter 2

the story since Breaking

New Ground

Since Breaking New Ground, new styles and approaches to mission have

been developing. In the changing mission context, identified in Chapter 1,

new movements by God are evident. Things have been happening, and

there is growing understanding of the need for fresh approaches in mission

and church planting.

snapshots since 1978

In the late 1970s, church planting in England was largely unknown. The

Church of England was familiar with the idea of daughter churches, and 

in the decade following each world war the century wide overall decline 

in opening new church buildings was reversed. A good example of newer

starts was the clutch of Area Family Services, begun in local secular 

venues in a single parish, under two successive incumbents in the town 

of Chester le Street.

Church growth thinking arrived in the UK via the Bible Society in the mid 

1970s, sowing ideas that growth   both in quality as well as quantity  

could become normal. This growth was understood as developing the 

work of existing churches, not creating additional ones. This may have

assisted the birth of a more outward looking church, but was not a 

direct precursor of planting and unhelpfully has often been confused 

with it.

Only three fresh expressions of church were planted in 1978, and of those

one was the reopening of a closed church building. It is not clear why, by

1983, this number of church plants had trebled to nine, or in 1985 fifteen

examples were begun.

1

In 1984 the first book on the subject was 

published for the English market   How to Plant Churches   from the 

British Church Growth Association.

2

It comprised papers from an earlier

interdenominational conference, but the essays mixed enthusiasm and

caution. The first Church of England church planting conference was at 

Holy Trinity Brompton, London in 1987.

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