THE PIONEER SPECTRUM
I’ve been reflecting on the Pioneer Spectrum for as long as
it has been around. And I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about it for a
good while. In fact I’ve written three separate 1000 word pieces about it.
While it’s been on my mind for some time, there have been some prompts on
social media that have got me thinking and wanting to write about the subject
again. What follows is a half-hearted, ranty, mumbling bunch of words as I try
to articulate something quite quickly.
Also, it’s worth noting that this post has lots of links to
other things, if you click the links and your computer is eaten up by a virus,
oops, don’t blame me, I can neither confirm nor deny the safety of links used
below!
So firstly, what is the Pioneer Spectrum? You can read about
it here: https://churchmissionsociety.org/resources/pioneering-mission-spectrum-tina-hodgett-paul-bradbury-anvil-vol-34-issue-1/
It’s been formulated by two folk in the pioneering world
whose work I have found really helpful, Tina Hodgett and Paul Bradbury.
Basically, for me, the pioneer spectrum enables a deeper and more focused
approach to defining what we mean when we say, ‘pioneer ministry’. The spectrum
identifies / articulates the range of pioneering from pioneer replicators to
pioneer activists. To find out more you should just read the article from CMS.
I really like the pioneer spectrum but I have one concern
about it that articulates itself, as a pragmatic thing and a philosophical
thing and both these aspects have bubbled up in social media lately which has
prompted me to spend sixty minutes hashing out some thoughts here.
WHAT I FIND HELPFUL
ABOUT THE PIONEER SPECTRUM
But first, what I really like about the pioneer spectrum, is
that as a pioneer, who has worked in different pioneer contexts I have found
the spectrum really helpful in enabling me to put a name to the type of
pioneering or pioneer context I’ve been working in. I think the pioneer
spectrum offers a solid foundation on which to build some really solid
theological work and I look forward to seeing what responses emerge from it in
the future.
In a previous pioneer post I was working in the fringier
fringe of things and when held up against the pioneer spectrum I could see that
my role was very firmly a pioneer innovator role / context and that my work was
very much at the periphery and pushing further and further into the liminal.
The idea of cultural distance used by Hodgett and Bradbury in this way was a lightning
rod for me.
My current pioneer role, whilst still being a ‘pioneer
innovator’ role is probably more connected to a ‘pioneer adaptor’ role/context.
I’ve rushed my explanation here, but basically, the previous
pioneer role I mentioned would (on the diagram) firmly sit within the third and
fourth (from left) circles. Whereas my current role sits more closely with the
second and third circles (from left). Again, while to the observer (especially
given the brevity of my explanation) that might not mean much, but to me,
recognising this was a really helpful thing for me to work through some of the
ways my two separate roles compared and to reflect on my own way of working.
WHAT I’M NOT SURE OF
ABOUT THE PIONEER SPECTRUM
Okay, so my question about the pioneer spectrum is the
inclusion of the first circle on the left, church planting / church
replicators. I see such differences between church planting and pioneering that
I find them utterly other to each other. And I suppose this is where my current
impetus for hurriedly writing this has come from. There has been a whole
blog/twitter/facebook thing going on, prompted by some tweets and a Giles
Fraser blog post: https://unherd.com/2020/08/the-neoliberal-revolution-within-the-church/
In response Paul Bradbury wrote a responding blog post https://hislightmaterial.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/is-pioneer-ministry-a-neoliberal-destruction-of-the-parish-system/
There have been some great facebook and twitter threads/what-nots
about this, Pete Ward, Paul Bradbury, Heather Cracknell in particular.
The reason the Fraser piece has led me to finally put a blog
post up about this is the way he very loosely holds pioneering, FX and church planting
together as some kind of gluttonous blob of neo-liberalism where for me, his
critique/diatribe stands up better in response to church planting and not well
at all with contextual, grassroots, ground-up, fresh expressions and
pioneering. On a facebook thread somewhere Rev Edward Green wrote something
along the lines of his parish context having more in common and working with
same principles as a grassroots fx very much unlike a finance heavy church
plant.
So, to my two specific concerns about the pioneer spectrum
containing churchplanting. As I’ve said, other versions of this blog, drafted
however long ago mention a few more concerns, but over my extended reflections
I’ve found that my two key concerns have risen up above the rest. And they were
there long before the recent soc med blog hum-dingers but both concerns seem to
have currency in the current conversation.
THE PRAGMATIC
The first, the PRAGMATIC one: I have seen the pioneer
spectrum weaponised to direct funding for pioneering into church planting. I
won’t say more than that about it. Though Giles Fraser’s concerns about
asset-stripping make an interesting companion piece to this concern.
But it’s not just the funding. I’ve seen the pioneer
spectrum used to legitimise church planting as a form of pioneering. I’ve been
in meetings with hierarchy where the pioneer spectrum has basically been used
to justify a way of looking at church planting and pioneering as basically the
same thing. And you might read this and say, “so what”? I’ve always held church
planting and pioneering separately due to methodology etc.
Now, if you take a look the jobs section of the church Times
it is always interesting. You sometimes see jobs for pioneer ministers that are
actually more like jobs for associate ministers. Very rarely do you see jobs
for “church planters”. Often it feels like the words get used interchangeably.
The New Wine Network used to link church planting and pioneering, they may
still do.
I’m conscious of the potential tensions for people working
in these posts and the interchanging vocab being unhelpful. If you were a grassroots
pioneer and you went for a pioneer role but that role turned out to be more of
an associate minister role there may well be tensions. I’ve seen this played
out with friends. If you went into a pioneer role but what the church really
wanted was a church replicator there could be tensions if you came in with a
contextual, ground-up methodology/approach.
In this rush my pragmatic concern is really a pragmatic
concern about the methodologies of church planting and pioneering. For me, they
are different, one is primarily shaped by the context and the outcome is not
yet known, one is primarily shaped by an existing ecclesiology and while
elements of the thing that emerges may look different to suit the context, the
primary, central shape of it will hold to particular patterns of ecclesiology, working
and methodology.
If I establish a grassroots, ground up, contextual, shaped
by listening ecclesial community I won’t know what the thing will look like.
If I establish a top-down replicating church plant there are
many things that will perhaps be a given, a style of worship shaped by the
planting church/organisation, the use of particular Christian basics courses.
While there may well be contextual responses that emerge to engage with local
issues.
There could be all sorts to add about the driving mentality
of both church planting and pioneering. We could talk about the idea of
emerging, of organic, of slow, of neighbourhood, of colonialism, lots of stuff
I’m not getting into here.
My hope is that what is clear is that I see them as
different beings working in different ways. Now as it happens, I like the grass
roots, ground up fx model more than the top-down church plant model (yes
simplified). In fact I have some real concerns about the church planting model,
but that’s not for here.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL
All this leads me to my second concern about the inclusion of
church planting in the pioneer spectrum. This is more of a PHILOSOPHICAL
concern and it resonates with the current soc-med blog post stuff. This concern
is a teleological one so it has some overlap with what I’ve written in the bit
up there, specifically with methodology. But it’s the crux of the matter.
Church planting and pioneering are teleologically different.
Here’s a fun little video about teleology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoPjFnqO7j4
Here’s what the google dictionary thingy (with definitions
from Oxford Languages) says about teleology: ‘the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather
than of the cause by which they arise.’
What is it for? What is its end? What is its finality?
Well, we could say that church planting and pioneering end
with new churches. So, straight forward…
Yet the pioneer spectrum has as its fifth from the left
circle, Pioneer activists might never start a church community, and yet their
pioneering work is distinct and important. As the CMS article points out (and I
think it’s Paul Bradbury writing):
‘There are also those we call ‘pioneer activists’, whose
gift and vocation is to shape place in ways that seek to align a community,
network or industry with the values of the Kingdom. Seeing themselves as
missionaries, but without the express
intention of planting a church, these pioneers are nevertheless creating
highly innovative Kingdom responses to the pressing issues of our communities.
Theirs is an important vocation which deserves recognition and support.’
I’ve added the bold type to the extract from https://churchmissionsociety.org/resources/pioneering-mission-spectrum-tina-hodgett-paul-bradbury-anvil-vol-34-issue-1/
Pioneer activists might never have ‘the express intention of
planting a church’, yet this work is pioneering. This might seem a pedantic
point but I think teleology is a really important aspect of this. If there is a
clear understanding of what is expected “it is known” (church planting) or “who
knows” (pioneering) then at least there’s a working methodology and some
expectations to hold on to.
Now, I recognise that if my concern is teleological I could
have drawn a line here and said, church planting to pioneer innovators is one
thing, pioneer activists is another.
But instead, if there is a line to be drawn, I’m splitting
the first circle on the left - church replicators up from the rest.
And the reason I do, is teleological and methodological: if
the questions are, What is it for? What is its end? What is its finality? With
church replicators it feels like there is a clear answer.
Teleologically church planting is there to replicate
churches (recognising different models do this differently and that each model
may make space for contextual ministries within a wider replicated
ecclesiology).
The rest of the pioneer spectrum, pioneer adaptors, pioneer
innovators, pioneer activists, don’t (or at least shouldn’t) know what the
outcome will be, what it will look like. Because what the thing will look like
will be shaped by context, listening, the journey of formation, perhaps even
the fresh expressions journey! https://freshexpressions.org.uk/find-out-more/practicalities-the-fresh-expressions-journey/
Now some ‘pioneer jobs’ do say what they think the thing
will look like, though thankfully we see less of those.
What might be helpful to think about is the image of mineral
formation stalactites and stalagmites (though there is a flaw in the analogy –
but hey it’s my blog, so I’ll use it anyway)
Here’s a website that talks about stalactites and stalagmites.
https://www.britannica.com/science/stalactite
According to Britannica, Stalactites hang down like icicles.
Whereas stalagmites rise up from the floor.
The flaw in the analogy being that the drips all come from
the top down no matter what forms, though perhaps the drips could represent the
church resources / or inclination for something to happen.
I see church planting as the formation of stalactites, they
are top down, shaped from above. Pioneering is more like stalagmites rising up
from the ground.
Yes, as I’ve said, the analogy doesn’t really work. Maybe
think of the drips as the agency of the Spirit?
Going back to teleology – and the Google dictionary definition: ‘the explanation of phenomena in terms of
the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise.’
Church planting and pioneering may have drastically
different purposes to serve and the finality may well be very different. Our
understanding of the finality of each is interesting.
With a replicating church plant the end for which it exists
is replication. Bradbury and Hodgett do recognise the risk of this:
“There are also contexts in which replication is applicable,
where a context is seen to be sufficiently comparable so that a successful
model of church can simply be repeated. There is a risk in replication without
sufficient reflection on context, or openness to the innovative influence of
local culture. Some models by their very nature leave little room for
adaptation. They are freighted heavily with the culture of those leading it and
may struggle to engage deeply in cultures disconnected from inherited forms of
church. We term the leaders of such initiatives ‘church replicators’.”
It’s ‘end’ is to replicate what exists elsewhere.
Whereas with pioneering the ‘end’ will very much be shaped
by the process of listening, discerning, of letting the context speak…
Going back to teleology – and the Google dictionary definition: ‘the explanation of phenomena in terms of
the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise.’
The teleological ‘end’ of pioneering is unknowable by a
clearly defined outcome. If there is to be a clearly identified teleological
outcome for pioneering, perhaps it would be something more like this grab from
the CMS post: ‘a broader range of ways of being church than those we have
already imagined and begun to see emerging.’ Or a ground-up, grassroots
movement.
Perhaps pioneering itself is more shaped by the (according
to Google dictionary thing again) ‘the cause by which they arise’ rather than
the, ‘purpose they serve.’ There is definitely more to explore here.
So, after 2000+ words of mumbly rants, in summary:
· I find the pioneer spectrum helpful
·
I’m not sure of the inclusion of church planting
in the pioneer spectrum for pragmatic reasons
·
I’m not sure of the inclusion of church planting
in the pioneer spectrum for philosophical reasons.
·
The conversation feels current given Giles
Fraser’s writings about a ‘Neo-Liberal Revolution’ in the Church
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