Foulger, Will. 2023. Present in Every Place?: The Church of England’s New Churches, and the Future of the Parish

Will Folger is an ordained priest in the Church of England and a theologian.He has been involved in church planting, has led the Centre for Church Planting Theology and Research at Cranmer Hall, Durham and is currently vicar of a Church of England church.This book engages with the often polarized debates around church in the Church of England and of the significance of place.Folger proposes that if you can get past the polarization in the discussion of parish and Fresh Expressions what you actually find is a common commitment to place, although often expressed in quite different ways.Locating himself much more in the church planting and pioneering camp, he recounts his surprise at how much he agreed with the questions and critiques of the likes of Alison Milbank, Andrew Davidson, Marcus Walker and the Save the Parish movement.However, he found their proposals somewhat baffling.By exploring the debate, the common commitments and the way place is understood more broadly, he tries to distinguish between the commitment to parish and place, and the structures of parish.To do this he turns to language of vocation.He argues that if instead of defending parish in terms of the current structures and rather seeing it as a commitment to a vocation to be present in the particular place, then there actually quite a lot of common ground between those who want to "save the parish" and those committed to church planting and Fresh Expressions.I have heard Foulger described as an apologist and interpreter for church planting and Fresh Expressions, and he is clearly someone who wants to locate himself in the middle of a polarized debate, encouraging reconciliation and a renewed vocation to be present in place.The book itself is made up of an introduction and four chapters.It begins by looking at the understanding of place, particularly the way it was disrupted and brought to the