A Short Report of the Fresh Expressions UM National Gathering, 2025

Overview: This three day gathering took place at Peachtree Road UMC in Atlanta, GA from Thursday February 27th-March 1st. The theme was “Love Alike: We Can Do Hard Things”. There were over 400 participants in person and online, I would guess that around 250-350 were present in person. Most of our time was in a large session featuring speakers, panels, and times of worship. We also had 5 meetings for “connectives” that were small groups focused on different focal points within fresh expressions - antiracism, listening church, LGBTQ expressions, Church@Play, rural expressions, yoga church, digital church, gaming church, etc.

Featured Voices: The platformed voices represented three major groups: BiPOC clergy within the UMC and Fresh Expressions movement, Bishops, and National Fresh Expression leaders and trainers. 

Participants: I was the only participant from Rio Texas. Participants were from United Methodist congregations with a strong contingent from the ELCA. The bulk of participants were UM pastors and lay people who were interested in learning more about fresh expressions or were in the early stages of exploring fresh expressions. There was a large group of District Superintendents and conference office staff as well. There were a number of church planters and fresh expression practitioners as well. 

Themes: The gathering theme “Love Alike: We Can Do Hard Things” focused on:

1. Addressing and working to overcome economic and racial injustices in our communities 

2. Having the courage to follow the Holy Spirit beyond the inherited church when doing so is costly

3. Designing our Fresh Expressions to address issues of systemic and local injustice and oppression.

4. Leaning into our Spiritual Disciplines and life of prayer to discern and empower courageous mission

   
   

Other Notes: I would describe this gathering and the community it convenes as “Socially Progressive and Spirit-Led Holiness” Methodists. This is a group that wants to share Jesus Christ with the lost, to reclaim the Wesleyan fervor to “save souls”, to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit before institutional allegiances, but all with a commitment to racial, economic, and LGBTQ justice in the church and the world. This was only the 2nd national gathering. I will offer this suggestion to them: create multiple spaces in the gathering for the diverse needs within the movement: those new to and wanting to learn about FX, those who are practitioners who want to go deeper and further in their work, and those denominational leaders who want to help support/nurture FX from the inherited church or conference office. 

Takeaways for Rio Texas: 

1. There was no representation of our work of fresh expressions and fresh expression adjacent work among hispanic churches and communities in Texas. This leaves out a huge work of God in our midsts as a part of the national movement. We should invest in sending some hispanic pastors and lay people who are interested in this to next year’s gathering. 

2. Many conferences have designated “Fresh Expression” teams and leaders. We do not and it would be easy to create this, even as an informal task-force.  

3. This is a significant movement within the post-disaffiliation UMC in the USA. It is galvanizing and has the strong support of many Bishops and creative leaders in our connection. 

Gratefully, 

Ray Altman