it was fun to be at my first kirchentag, a festival of the protestant church in germany that happens every couple of years in a different city. a lot took place at the messe exhibtion centre but also in venues and stages indoor and outdoor in hannover. i have no idea how many people attend – maybe 100k? loved the cardboard boxes used for seats!

i was invited to take part in a panel reflecting on the experience of loss in our culture and church and how we navigate the experience of loss while looking towards newness. i hope my contribution translated ok – i was largely focused on imagination and new possibilities rather than being overly concerned with the preservation of what is dying. it sent me back to look at brueggemann’s prophetic imagination again. there was a fun moment where after i had shared a resolution was presented. this is a kirchentag thing encouraging participation from the ground floor as it were. i didn’t fully understand the detail of the resolution or what it will mean in practice but it was backed by a choral society, brass instrument group and a bishop among others, and was about the importance of church music and paying professionals. the photo above is people voting for the resolution which got passed. i love music so you can’t argue with that but it also almost felt like a spoof or a piece of performance art but it turned out to be real. i guess it was a good example of peoples reaction to what is being lost – longing for the old to continue. it just felt so random to have come at the moment.

there has been a lot of exchange over the years between germany and the uk in relation to pioneering and fresh expressions of church. i loved catching up with katharina, sandra, martin and others. it was good to hear of a growing pioneer movement (and interesting to know that the word pioneer is still the word being used in germany), the training that katharina leads with others over an 18 month period, and an ma in pioneer ministry which sandra bilss teaches on which sounded great and something we could learn from. i will find out more.

and there is a familiar mixed tale of the diffusion of innovation. this picture perhaps narrates a story. this is the fresh expressions stand. having had pioneer ministry and fresh expressions catalysed with a lot of patient work and networking and so on it took off and grew, to the degree that now under the umbrealla of the ekd (protestant church) each region (which is governed by its own board) has taken the idea of fresh expressions into its own ordering. so the posters you see are the way each describes what it is doing. each one is also using its own language to describe it. what is good about that is that the innovation is being diffused into the system. what is challenging about it, at least from the conversations i had, is that the church, as everywhere, tends to pull in on itself so the kind of innovation the church copes with best and imagines it needs is more of what it already knows (i had worked this out in 2012 a few years into the pioneer training – see point three). we see exactly this in england. we will have pioneering as long as it is a new worshipping community that we can recognise. what is also needed when this happens is some way that also stretches out or pulls the church forwards in innovation that is not controlled by the governing boards (or bishops) and imagines beyond that trajectory. this is why for many years i have argued that the mixed ecology we need is not just a mix of styles of church, but a mix of modal and sodal expressions of church. forgive the jargon – modal is the local expressions governed in say a diocesan structure. the sodal is spread out community with a particular focus or purpose and crucially it is free to focus on that so it can resist the gravitational pull inwards. this article may help. i don’t know if that makes sense. my own view is that in the church of england when it comes to giving money to support the mission outcomes of the church of england which happens on a regular basis, a central question should be ‘what sodality are you partnering with?’. but i fear i am a marginal voice on that one. as a member of a sodal community (cms) i am not neutral on that.

it was a lovely surprise to get to hear bishop maryann budde, the bishop who spoke in the name of god to donald trump calling upon him to show mercy, reminding him of the dignity of all people and what landed in the wake of that. she was very inspiring and it was interesting to hear her sense of the usa, how to navigate a culture of contempt, the founding usa story she perceives of christian nationalism and white supremacy which is completely counter to christ. there was a euphoric response to her – i think it is the sense of solidarity with someone calling for mercy, saying what so many are feeling. much like pope francis she demonstrates that when people take seriously the life and words of jesus it is very good news, powerful even and catches the imagination of a lot of people looking for hope, possibility, truth telling in a culture that is brutal and chaotic.