Church Army Research Unit Archives
For over a quarter of a century, Church Army’s Research Unit (CARU) and its predecessor, The Sheffield Centre, were at the forefront of research on mission, evangelism, church planting, pioneering and fresh expressions of Church. In June 2025, it was announced that due to financial challenges at Church Army, CARU would sadly close. Church Army have kindly shared CARU’s church planting archive with the Bede Centre to ensure its reports can continue to be accessed and used by church planting practitioners and theologians. A wider collection of CARU reports and publications on various topics can currently still be found at www.churcharmy.org/research.
The Day of Small Things - 2016
This report was commissioned by the Church of England and published in 2016. It was one of the most extensive pieces of research on the growth of Fresh Expressions of Church. There were also a number of related pieces of research attached to the report itself.
The Day of Small Things Report
Encountering the Day of the Small Things
Messy Church Research - 2019 & 2021
CARU conducted two pieces of research on Messy Church, one of the most widely replicated models of Fresh Expressions.
Playfully Serious – Investigating the effectiveness of Messy Church
Portfolio of Research Documents
A Voyage of Discovery – Deepening discipleship in Messy Churches and beyond
Paid Pioneers - 2022
The Paid Pioneers report (2022) sought to investigate the impact of the financial investment into pioneering across the Church of England and other denominations.
Paid Pioneers – From the margins to the mainstream?
On Church Planting and Pioneering in Scotland and Ireland
2024 - Seeing the Shoots (Scottish Church Planting Network)
2020 - Pioneering Pieces (Church of Scotland)
Diocesan reports and evaluations
2023 - Evaluation of the Mission Areas and Resourcing Churches Programmes (Diocese of Bristol)
2021 - New Communities Pioneer Pilot Projects (Diocese of Oxford)
2021 - Pioneering in Portsmouth (Diocese of Portsmouth)
2019 - God at Work: Fresh Expressions of Church (Diocese of Leicester)
2017 - Fresh Expressions of Church (Diocese of Litchfield)
2017 - Fresh Expressions of Church (Diocese of Bath and Wells)
Snapshots: Stories from the Edge
Between 2014-15, CARU published a series of reflections on specific contexts engaging in pioneering.
2014-15 Snapshots – Stories from the Edge
Encounters on the Edge
Between 1999-2012, CARU published Encounters on the Edge, a regular publication highlighting pioneering in the UK.
1999-2012 Encounters on the Edge Booklets