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mission shaped church

a sharpened understanding of the process

This list is still useful. The last characteristic affirms that planting is best

done intentionally, with a particular context in mind. The discovery since

then has been that church planting that sets out to serve an `identifiable

group, culture or neighbourhood' cannot begin with a clear understanding

of what form or expression the resultant church may take. A New Testament

analogy, from 1 Corinthians (used there for another purpose) reflects what

is now known about all planting:

When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed

. . . But God gives it a body as he has determined.

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The experience of best practice in planting since 1994 has been that the

previous verse in 1 Corinthians 15 is equally relevant   `what you sow does

not come to life unless it dies'. This echoes Jesus' own teaching on the

significance of his own death (John 12.23ff). Jesus presents a picture 

of seeds dying ultimately to enable creation of further seeds. Planting

inherently involves movement and change. Seeds must be taken out of the

packet and placed in the soil of the mission context, where the seed itself

(in this context the planting team) dies to its original life. The seed loses 

its previous identity, which was to be part of the sending church with its

particular manifestation and culture. It will become something different

from what it was before. Dying to live is inherent in the planting process.

Breaking New Ground used language of `transposition' and `transfer'. The

first was better, for it implied some internal change, as well as external

relocation. `Transfer' only carries ideas of the latter. But neither word does

justice to the radical change involved. The planting team (or seed), by

mixing with its context, becomes rooted there and draws nourishment 

and resources from that environment. By this process it dies as a seed,

changing from what it was. It becomes a new body of believers, as well 

as, hopefully, a body of new believers.

The planting analogy has real strengths, for it conveys idiomatically what

should occur theologically in all cross cultural mission. In the UK of the

twenty first century it may be fair to comment that everything we face 

in mission is now a cross cultural task. It is not implied here that all old

churches must die and that only new ones have a right to live. Churches 

of whatever age, when they embark on planting, will find themselves

confronted by the dynamic of dying to live.

The remaining characteristics of the above list are more to do with the

features that a planted fresh expression of church will need to exhibit.

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