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fresh+re:fresh: church planting and urban mission in Canada in post-Christendom

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Fresh and Re:Fresh listens to the stories of ten Canadian church planters from Vancouver to Montreal. In their own words they describe the challenges of cultivating new faith communities in Canadian soil. As church planters and urban and suburban missionaries, they reflect on the context of pluralism, the relation of church and kingdom, describe the spiritual traditions and practices they embrace, the networks that support them, and the challenges of missional engagement in their communities.

Fresh and Re:Fresh also engages the mentors of church planters. These ones reflect on the changing cultural landscape, and describe the new challenges faced by church planters as they seed kingdom outposts. They also consider the specific skills needed by mentors and spiritual friends of church planters in the unique soil of post-Christendom Canada.

Finally, Fresh and Re:Fresh tells the stories of some Canadian churches in transition. Established communities of faith face particular challenges as they attempt to move from attractional to incarnational, from service-providers to stakeholders, and from an isolated and inward stance to neighborhood and community engagement for the purpose of transformation.

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From the Introduction

In this volume we explore the Canadian cultural landscape and the intersection of faith and culture through the lenses of three groups of practitioners. It's helpful to begin that exploration with a taxonomy. Stuart Murray in Church After Christendom distinguishes between "inherited" and "emerging" churches, a more helpful framework than emerging vs. institutional. Murray notes that all church is "inherited" to some degree, then suggests three types of emergence, some of which are closer than others to inheritance.

* churches emerging from inherited church through processes of renewal and transformation. The outcome is not another church, but a church more or less radically different from the past in structure, ethos, style, focus or activity
* churches emerging out of inherited church through processes of community engagement, liturgical exploration, church planting or missional reflection. The outcome is a new, or embryonic church, that becomes more or less autonomous.
* churches emerging within a particular context without the shaping influence of or significant connection to inherited church.
The outcome is a new church, which may be more or less radical, that will need to build links with other churches.

Contributors: Church Planters

Phil Harbridge - Breathe Christian Society. Vancouver.
Jamie Arpin-Ricci - Church planter in Winnipeg with Mennonite Church Manitoba
Jamie Howison - St. Benedict's Table - Anglican Church of Canada, Winnipeg
Scott Cripps - Awaken, Calgary. CWBC Baptist.
Rob Scott - King's Bridge Community, Calgary, The Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches
Kim Reid - Open Door Community Church, Free Methodist Church, Kingston, Ontario
Jim Loepp Thiessen - The Gathering. Kitchener, Ontario. MCEC
Daryl Dash. Park Lawn Baptist Church, Toronto.
Frank Emanuel. Freedom Vineyard. Ottawa, Ontario

Mentors of Church Planters

Paul Martinson, Western Canada Director for YWAM
George Werner - George Werner serves in Mission Canada, a team of leaders who
facilitate missional work across Canada though the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada
Jared Siebert - The Free Methodist Church as the National Director of Church Development. His main responsibility is to build for the future through the planting of new kinds of churches
Ray Levesque - Ray Levesque ("She-nex-kaw") is Tlingit and Cherokee and serves an
indigenous church network - New [...] - with over 200 gatherings located in the Canada, the US, Brazil and Guyana. He edits the Talking Circle Journal, and the Red Road Journal.

Special Contributors
David Fitch - Life on the Vine, Chicago
Alan Roxburgh - VP of ALLELON Canada

This is the first in what I hope will be a growing collection of emerging church stories from Canada. I know emerging is not a favoured designator for Canadians, but I mean it in the more generous and positive way. I have a bit of history (through Resonate.ca) with many of the authors, and they are a source of the hope I have in the evangelical church. This book is for those who long for a relevant urban expression of Christianity. It is not the book to tell you how to do it, but the book that will encourage you to try the very thing that is already in your heart. Get this book if you want to know what church can be in the future. (Just to be upfront, I have a chapter in this book.)