The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and General Secretary of the Methodist Church, Rev Dr Martyn Atkins backed the development of regional support teams for fresh expressions of church.

The Church leaders were addressing a national conference this week looking at the way ahead for fresh expressions of church.

It was the first major Fresh Expressions gathering since the United Reformed Church became a formal partner in the movement last year. URC General Secretary Rev Roberta Rominger also attended the event.

Speaking to more than 450 delegates at the conference in Lincoln, the Archbishop said, “As Fresh Expressions gets more successful, more widely known, more active and innovative, it’s really important to remember that Fresh Expressions is not first and foremost about capturing a new market for a product.

“Fresh Expressions ought to be, and I hope and pray is, the Church’s way of pushing back against static, infantilising forms of religious belief, pushing back against trivialisation, against the shrinkage of faith and discipleship to boring and manageable dimensions.”

Describing the Church as an "echo chamber of the divine Word", he urged patience from both traditional and fresh expressions of church. “Fresh Expressions is not an instant solution to the Church’s problems of membership and support, or whatever – it’s not a quick fix for the issues and needs of those involved. And that means, of course, that it’s quite a risky territory to be in.”

Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops’ Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, said the aim of the day was helping fresh expressions of church "grow through to maturity and sustainability and how we can own and encourage those developments regionally”.

Dr Atkins said that partnering in the Fresh Expressions initiative was symbolically important to Methodism.

“It’s a means of embodying the covenant relationship between our Churches in a particularly apt model of ecumenism for today," he said.