The FE day on Friday was an interesting experience. I have been quite critical about some of the institutional issues that come with FE, but agreed to be on the new DVD. The people involved are great, but the PR machine was in full swing as the Arch bishop was given a copy of the DVD, and a lunch put on for contributors, then sales and resources were pushed, and the pain of birthing something new was conspicuous by its absence.

Several of the questions from the floor related to the institutional control and the need for space. A good example was a question to Bishop Graham Cray about licensing communion to a gathering a of a number of youth groups who were coming together as an expression of church. The bishops response asked if the group existed for itself or for others and if the latter there was no issue. On one level this seemed fine but everything in me was screaming about the who were we to deny their right to work out their expression, if it was adults would they even be having the conversation, in a post christian world how could the group not be a witness to the other, and would the bishops ever have the courage to de-license all those groups up and down the country that seem to exist just for themselves and seem to call themselves church.

It was incredibly encouraging to see the call to follow the missio-dei and the closing of the gap between mission and church. The arch bishops address was excellent and summed up StreetSpaces approach to ecclesiology brilliantly. He talked about church begins where Jesus is with other, Jonny has pretty much got the whole thing down here.

I still have questions about if FE can change the landscape but they are certainly cutting down a few trees, but I am unsure if there would ever root out all the issues.