Issue No.2
Also inside: Y GOOD NEWS IN AN LANGUAGE TOP TEN TIPS FOR URBAN OUTREACH
the
hub stories from young churches
What’s happening in our cities? THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT
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Working together to plant a church in your community Since 1999, CPI has supported 25 independent church planting initiatives all over the UK to help them fulfil their mission but there are still many communities where a church is needed or an existing church is full and needs space to grow. Please pray for new church plants in all corners of the country and for the existing churches to grow and reach even more people in their communities with the good news.
Where CPI has worked
Church Initiative ting Plan aboration coll a (CPI) is Growth rch Chu between and GLO s, ntie Trust, Cou bring to s aim Partnership. CPI t den pen inde people and m sfor tran to churches together ities mun lives and com through church planting initiatives.
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CPI hubs
Welcome What’s happening in our cities? Reaching an entire city takes more than having one or two effective churches. But it’s a different thing to ask: Are we reaching our urban environments? By which I mean, are there better churches and more churches because the number of Christians are growing? In this edition, we’re looking at young churches in our changing landscape, where the lost, the least and the last share an urban experience whether in the inner city, Scottish lowlands, large council estates, or coastal market towns. We’ll also look at how we reach out to an ethnically diverse population and how migrants are successfully on mission. And we will celebrate ways we can integrate our urban evangelistic efforts with overseas missionaries. We’ve also started a CPI hub meeting focused on Urban and we invite you to pray for our young churches.
James Hyde Church Planting Initiative Co-ordinator
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News in brief
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Good news in any language
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BBQ with nine nations
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Top ten tips for urban outreach
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Friendship is the key to church in community
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Gospel in the driving seat
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Pray with us
The Hub mini-magazine is produced by Tea for Three (teaforthree.co.uk) and designed by Darren Chandler (sittinggiant.co.uk) Church Planting Initiative is a registered charity (no. 1085172) and a company limited by guarantee and registered in England & Wales (no. 3928850). Registered office: The Barn, Baines Lane, Seaton, Rutland, LE15 9HP.
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NEWS IN BRIEF
news
brief
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Working with the last, least and lost “We predominantly work with people who are homeless, jobless and hopeless. Once their hope that anything can ever get better again is gone, the way back is very difficult, and people can simply get stuck in hopelessness,” says Michl Kohl of Morecambe Community Church (MCC). The West End of the coastal town of Morecambe is one of the most deprived areas in England - low income, poor health, low educational attainment, poor housing and homelessness, high levels of crime and problems such as drug use and anti-social behaviour. “When we started Morecambe Community Church in 2002, we set up West End Impact as a separate charity alongside it. This opens up opportunities for working with and in the community, which for a church would be more difficult,” says Michl. Being a completely independent church plant, with no support from a denomination or sending church, CPI has been vital in keeping Michl and the team connected with other people in the North West and beyond. “We did not have a preconceived plan of what our church ministry would look like; we instead based it all on the kind of people God sent. We knew that God could establish a ministry through us, which he couldn’t anywhere else in town. To anyone thinking of church planting, I would say: Do it!”
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West End Impact served 85 people at their annual Christmas dinner for the homeless.
Church planting – a family commission Johnstone is a mainly working class town outside Glasgow with majority social housing and above average unemployment. Bobby Sneddon and his wife Mairi began a GLO/CPI church plant in October 2001 after their Gospel Hall closed in 1998. “We had a vision to maintain an evangelical
witness in the town,” says Bobby. “The spiritual condition of the town is dark. Apathy, nominalism, ritualism, disinterest and ‘getting by without God, thank you’ are the main challenges we face.” Dimity Street Church focused on children and youth work from the beginning. The church has recently taken on Bobby and Mairi’s daughter Joanne as a self-employed church worker to continue the ministries initiated over the years. Bobby says, “The church has experienced a lot of high and low points. Sense of anticipation, rapid growth, steady growth, plateau stage, some decline, obvious decline, steadying the ship stage, recasting the vision, some encouragements and signs of new growth. “Sometimes it seems impossible, but we know with God all things are possible. When we go back to the initial vision, we gain a fresh appreciation of where God by His grace and faithfulness has brought us and that has kept us from discouragement.”
Supporting people with mental health struggles Matt Merriam, leader of Birchfield Church in Yeovil, has been on a steep learning curve in regards to supporting people with significant mental health struggles for the past ten years. He is now using everything they’ve learned from these journeys to support and encourage other churches and individuals to do the same thing. “We have journeyed alongside people with a wide range of disorders; from depression to panic attacks, from anorexia to psychotic hallucinations, from obsessive compulsions to suicidal exhaustion, helping people discern how to live for Jesus when life is full of darkness,” Matt says. “Our heart is also to provide a safe space for families to grow friendships, be encouraged, get the practical help and support that they need, and hear the wonderful good news of Jesus that will give them the hope they are looking for.” “CPI has been a constant source of support and encouragement. The coaching we have received from CPI has helped us navigate some very difficult times as well as encouraged us to pursue the unique calling God has placed on us as a church.” Matt and Claire Merriam have been serving in Birchfield since 2006
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FEATURE
GOOD NEWS IN ANY LANGUAGE
Many church plants in urban areas focus on serving a community with people from all over the world. David Williams is the pastor at Partnership church, Bearwood Chapel, Smethwick. He also hosts the CPI West Midlands Urban Hub. Jose Galindez leads a church plant called Nueva Vida, supported by Bearwood Chapel and Raglan Road Christian Church. What is Smethwick like?
What is Nueva Vida?
Dave: Smethwick is in one of the largest urban populations in the UK. The population is ethnically diverse, with a lot of transition. People move temporarily into hotels and hostels in the area, including people recently out of prison, waiting immigration decisions or who were previously homeless.
Jose: Nueva Vida, which means ‘new life’, is a congregation for Spanish speakers in the West Midlands. It began in February 2015. We never thought we would end up involved in church planting. Nueva Vida just happened.
Jose: At our Christmas Day meal, several who came are homeless and many were lonely. Some asylum seekers come through the area and they need help making sense of the system and getting linked to the right people for legal advice and representation.
Dave: God just started sending South Americans our way! We were praying and thinking about how to move things forward and God linked us up with Jose. Jose did not know what would happen when he simply opened his home to study the Bible with some people he met.
What are the other ways you are serving your community? Dave: We have a coffee shop, English classes, children’s and youth work etc., but at the heart of everything we do we are building relationships and seeking opportunities to share the good news.
What are your hopes for the future?
A few years ago, Jose had no idea he would be leading Neuva Vida.
Dave: My prayer for Bearwood Chapel and Nueva Vida is that they will grow into genuinely diverse congregations that reflect the communities we serve. Photography by Simon Hadley
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Dave is building relationships in Bearwood Chapel’s community cafe. I’d also love to see 2-3 new churches planted or struggling churches re-vitalised in this area. We’ve started a partnership with Union School of Theology to help train workers for this harvest field. You can find out more at faithroots.net/partner-with-us/
sharing challenges and encouraging each other.
What advice do you have for those who may be feeling the Lord is nudging them to plant a church?
Jose: We want to see spiritual growth. We Dave: First, talk with your church elders. As recently shared communion together as a we seek to hear God, body discernment is congregation for the first time, a real important and a church planter should sign of growth. We had a lot of be sent. They can also help you questions about who could to see what your gifts are and t r hea and who shouldn’t take where they are best suited. At the e w ing communion, which helped h t y There are different types r e v of e ilding people to think about where u b of plant so don’t assume e r a do, we they were spiritually. you must copy someone ips and
Dave: The West Midlands Urban Hub is in its early days but the key thing for us has been the encouragement of knowing we are not on our own but others share this concern for reaching urban Britain and especially the urban West Midlands with the Gospel. We are getting to know each other in the group and this is good for prayer support,
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else, find the approach that suits the needs of where you are planting and your own gifts/style. Be ready to Pa be surprised. There is often a Dav e Williams point where intentionality and the unexpected meet.
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How does the CPI hub help you?
sh relation ortunities p o p seeking e the good to shar news.
Jose: Vital to the journey has been prayer and the advice and help from Bearwood Chapel elders, and Pastor Kevin Sadler from Raglan Road Christian Church. My relationship with my wife and her insight is crucial.
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STORY
A BBQ WITH NINE NATIONS Tim and Tammy Aho came to the UK from the USA in 1994 with Christian Ministry Fellowship International. They lead the Midlands Urban hub. The Hub spoke to them about their latest adventure, Companions for Hope. Tell us about Companions for Hope In 2015 we moved to a diverse inner city community of Birmingham. Companions for Hope is the missional community we started with Sam and Rosalee Ewell and Madeleine Tappy. Close to Birmingham City Centre, our neighbours include a prison, mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples and the largest Gurdwara in the UK.
At the end of the summer we hosted a neighbourhood barbecue. We ended up with seven different nationalities represented: Iranian, Jamaican, Pakistani, Trinidadian, Guyanese, Turkish, Brazilian, American and Irish!
How has CPI helped you in this journey? We have been embraced and encouraged. Hearing the stories of others, both challenges and celebrations, encourages us. When we started a prayerful discernment process to ask God what he had in mind for us, both Andy Hodson and James Hyde were particularly helpful. We started the Midlands Urban Hub to encourage church planting and church planters with more of an urban view in mind. It is also a way of being more Kingdomminded than denominationally-focused.
What has been the low point or the most difficult challenge of the last year? The original makeup of the Companions team didn’t work out which was quite painful in a variety of ways. Still, it was better to find this out early than for it to be prolonged or pressured to ‘work’.
What has been the most fruitful? One area continues to be in discipling, coaching, and mentoring young people, university students, and young adults.
What has been the most enjoyable?
Tim Aho at Rhema church.
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We gather with the Eritrean church Rhema every Sunday afternoon, working with the youth, and developing the English language service. These brothers and sisters in Christ are full of life and the Spirit, passionate
about sharing the Gospel, and deeply hospitable and generous.
Tell us about your busstop cafe? The Bus Stop Café was an initial experiment to build relationships in the community and look for people of peace. We simply set up a small table and pump carafes on Thursday mornings each week during the morning school run and asked people if they wanted a coffee or a tea. In future, when we determine the next place to setup the Bus Stop Café, we will be more intentional in two ways. First, we want to have something to which we can invite people such as the community ‘bring and share’ meal Companions have started. Second, we will be more intentional in looking for people of peace with whom we can suggest joining in a Discovery Group / Discovery Bible Study.
Companions for Hope is a Christian intentional collective of neighbours rooted in Summerfield and Winson Green, Birmingham, UK. At its core, the collective is committed to cultivating abundant community from the ground up through discipleship, friendship, and hospitality. Members of Companions for Hope engage with and participate in the community through a wide array of meaningful activities and groups, notably those dealing with: church life, urban agriculture, prison ministry and resettlement, neighbourhood gatherings, and homelessness.
There were 22 neighbours at the BBQ. Buying and cooking halal chicken was a first for Tim and Tammy.
What would you say to anyone who may be feeling the Lord is nudging them to plant a church?
• Yes! First, listen to that still small voice. Take time away to discern. Trust a few other people to speak into your life of what they see in you. • Put yourself in the company of other likeminded travellers. Be a part of a learning community where there is peer mentoring. • Put yourself in uncomfortable and ‘risky’ situations where you can build relationships and test your pioneer spirit. • Take part in a missional training initiative such as Forge (formission.org.uk/ trainings/forge) where you will be encouraged, trained, equipped, but crucially will also be coached by practitioners.
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STORY
TOP TEN TIPS FOR URBAN OUTREACH Martin Korchinsky, a Counties evangelist and CPI planter in Brinnington, a priority 1 council estate in Stockport, South Manchester. The Hub asked him to share some of his strategies for effective urban outreach. Martin says, “We operate a food bank, a youth club for teens, and a drop-in café as well as a traditional toddler group. These bless the community by meeting needs and provide opportunities to engage. We also encourage locals to volunteer in all of these ventures to meet their
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Community engagement is vital — run a drop-in café and get to know people
Offer activities for young people – run a weekly youth club
Bless the area by meeting the needs of the community – run a food bank
Don’t forget traditional church activities such as toddler groups
Encourage locals to volunteer in church ventures, as this helps to show they are valued
need to be productive and valued and so we can disciple them into Christ.” Martin has also adapted the Neighbourhood Chaplains scheme from Counties to fit their context. The journey at Brinnington has been a difficult one. Martin says, “we have really had to press into God throughout this whole process. He is in control and is really all we need. If God is for us, who can be against us?” He says CPI has been invaluable in encouraging, mentoring and supporting them from the beginning and especially through the tough times. “Their knowledge and experience has been worth more than gold and their financial assistance through the time of our transitioning towards being self-supporting also made a difference,” he said.
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Looking to the future, Martin says, “We hope to grow the church plant from 20 to 40 in the next few years to plant gospel communities in the estate and for every person on the estate to have heard the gospel.” Martin has been leading the church since 2011 when he and a small team came to Brinnington from Heaton Chapel Christian Church. He had a vision to impact the community with the love of Christ, through the Gospel message and Christian presence, and through this to gather together new believers to worship Jesus. From this simple beginning and with God’s blessing and provision, Brinnington Community Church is growing.
Make yourself available for community consultations, show a passion for the area
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Take part in regular door-to-door work to meet people where they are at
Offer practical help to neighbours through providing transport, shopping or gardening
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Be a mentor for individuals with specific needs
Always signpost people to relevant church activities
Martin & Angie Korchinsky Photograph by Darren Chandler
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STORY
FRIENDSHIP IS THE KEY TO CHURCH IN COMMUNITY “Developing friendship skills is the best and most effective way of reaching out with God’s love to our communities. It is through friendship that most new Christians are added to our church,” says Sam Gibson, GLO Mission Director (Ireland Hubs) and member of Crescent Church, Belfast. “We are a city-centre church located beside the University, the nightclubs, the hospitals and various visitor attractions so we try anything we can to connect with people but nothing beats friendship.” Last summer Crescent Church organised an open week (all day every day) with the help of a GLO mission team. In one week people from over 50 nationalities came through the door and put a flag on their country of origin on a large map of the world. Sam and the team chatted with them over a cup of coffee and prayed with them before they left. In another outreach adventure, Crescent Church contacted the city council about using a nearby park for a family fun day. “They replied positively as they want the green spaces in the city to be used more for families. They provided games, various displays, a large tent, a football cage and another football penalty game measuring the speed of the kick - as you can imagine there was a long queue for these! They also sent a stage with a powerful PA system for free and a grant towards the event. “We were surprised, as our church has been here for 150 years and has never been able to do this. We had live music in the evening
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with many different styles including Bollywood, put on by exmissionaries from the Asian subcontinent,” Sam said. Crescent Church try to get involved in the community any way they can. Sam explains, “We also have members of the church who work with a food bank, others are street pastors (supported by Sam Gibson is a CPI the police, the council trustee and was the and retailers), others first CPI Director. work with the homeless, others with students from the nearby university, some members offer help with CVs for job seekers, others offer classes in speaking English. We have a men’s group, ladies group, children’s and youth groups, and senior citizens also not to mention the various sports that take place in the sports hall.”
Please pray for • church plants in Ireland - Omagh, Armagh, West Belfast, Enniscorthy and a new start for a church in Bray. • ten GLO outreach teams in the UK and Ireland in 2017. • God to raise up more church planters here in the UK and Ireland.
STORY
GOSPEL IN THE DRIVING SEAT A bus packed full of the latest gadgets for young people is helping Counties Cardiff evangelist Mike Thomas reach out to challenging city schools and estates in Cardiff and communities across South Wales. The Eden Bus from the Message Trust - kitted out with two Xboxes, a Playstation 4, three Apple Macs, 3D TVs and a recording studio – is being managed by Mike Thomas. Mike is an evangelist for Counties, a charity which helps to make Jesus known across the UK through the work of evangelists, innovative exhibitions and resources.
Mike said: “The Eden Bus exists to take the gospel into areas that don’t necessarily have a place for a church-based youth group to meet, or to help start a new youth group. “Managing the bus project is going really well. We’ve had hundreds of young people on the bus over the last three months at weekly sessions and one off events, it’s definitely been a huge success everywhere we’ve been.” If you are in South Wales and are interested in booking the Eden Bus contact Mike on mike.thomas@countiesuk.org Please pray for • more bookings. • volunteer bus drivers. • finance so no churches miss out.
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PRAYER
PRAY WITH US Morecambe Community Church • Hope for the hopeless. • Strength for those who minister to homeless, jobless and hopeless. • Opportunities to share our faith with our ministry partners. • More workers, because the harvest is plentiful.
Dimity Street Church • Seeing our many contacts become genuine seekers and eventual followers of Jesus. • Continuing to reach the next generation with God’s word. • God blessing our outreach to mainly senior citizens at the Tuesday “Coffee and Chat”. • Maintaining the good spirit and unity we enjoy at present within the fellowship.
Birchfield Church • For hope, healing, and rescue to come to the individuals we support that are barely holding on to life and God. • For our capacity to reach our community, support families/individuals, and develop this model of church to grow through God calling individuals and families to join us in this missional work.
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• For continued perseverance and complete acceptance of where God has us and what he is doing with us and through us.
Nueva Vida • For some of the new believers at Nueva Vida to take the step of getting baptised. • For people to come and join us here in church planting “The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send workers into His field.” • For wisdom, humility and more faith.
Tim and Tammy Aho • Development of the local hub. We are coming up to our first anniversary. We have formed a leadership team to step it up a level in creating a local church planting strategy and to pray for personnel and teams. • Next steps for our local Companions team. The rhythms we have as a team for prayer, meals, Bus Stop Café, finding people of peace. • The Eritrean church plant within a church. Especially the next generation and their children who are third culture kids and how to engage their spheres of relationships with the good news of the Kingdom of God.
Martin Korchinsky • Please pray that I will find time to refresh myself in the Lord every day in the business of ministry and family needs. • Pray for my wife Angie who suffers with fibromyalgia and copes with being a mother, a foster carer and a church planter’s wife!
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• Pray for our daughter Lydia who is 17 and struggling with college and direction in life. Pray that she will allow God to guide her steps.
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To find out how you can help support or plant a church in your community: Call
James Hyde, CPI Co-ordinator on 07899 670924 Email
planterdiscovery@cpi-uk.org Visit
cpi-uk.org Pray
Join us in praying for the needs in our young churches on pages 14-15.
the
hub stories from young churches