We live today in a culture of ‘Big’.  Big box stores, Multiplex Cinemas, massive subdivisions, and across North America in the last two decades, something else big-the megachurch.  Because these churches are big they can offer the very best music, audio-visual presentations, great sound systems and specialized teaching skills.  They are among the fastest growing [...]

When you hear the term ‘fresh expressions’ being used as a bit of a joke, at least you know it’s arrived! You can hear people talking about proposals for new arrangements in a PCC [parish council] or Synod as fresh expressions of church admin; or music groups as a fresh expression of organs…
What is obvious [...]

Thomas Brauer has written a number of fine posts on the Barnabas Initiative blog. Here’s a sample of his most recent post: 
“We speak of the Church, we pray for the Church and now we are growing in our capacity to plant Churches… BUT how do we know it’s Church????
As the grain from which the bread we [...]

Church Planter and Filmmaker Joe Manafo’s 43-minute documentary on new and evolving forms of church in Canada, One Size Fits All? has just been released on DVD and is available for sale at http://www.onesizefitsall.ca/.  Manafo visits fresh expressions of church across Canada, including Emerge and St. Benedict’s Table, Anglican fresh expressions of church in Montreal [...]

Once upon a time in a parish far away lived a charming and dedicated youth pastor-me! One Sunday morning an agitated church warden approached me at the end of the liturgy and asked my why it was that no young people had shown up at the annual parish cleanup day: “I even put special announcements [...]

If the hospitality of Jesus is appropriated into the very heartbeat of our congregations, the natural outpouring of this will then flow outside of ourselves into our lives in the world. It becomes natural and normal for us to be Kingdom hosts, inviting others to come and see, to come and share in the way of Jesus and the Kingdom. We are able to extend this hospitality to others because we are confident about what it is that we are inviting them into.

 
Vision Day in Rosemere, Quebec
Fresh Expressions…honestly?  Sounds like an air freshener.  Reality?  It is.  Unfortunately, the air surrounding the institution of the Anglican church these days seems to be stagnant; as such, we need to refresh ourselves and  re-evaluate who we are as CHRISTIANS.  Christ commissioned us to “GO and make disciples of every nation…”  [...]

Brad has now been in a multi-point rural pastoral charge for four years. Melissa is currently serving as an associate priest in a larger urban congregation. They are classmates from their seminary days. Imagine them meeting again in the lunch line at an evangelism conference.
Community Change — A Universal Challenge.  At the table, they share [...]