In 2010, a number of churches and Christians agreed to partner together to see 20 new churches planted by 2020 in Birmingham and then after that, to seek another 30 planted by 2030 with the hope that if each of the 50 churches planted again within our lifetime, that would be about 100 new churches. To date, we’ve seen around 25 churches planted, though not all of them have survived whilst other Christians, unconnected to this particular movement have been planting too.
It’s worth observing a couple of things. First, that Birmingham is a city of around about 1.2 million. If 3% of the population profess Christian faith, then that’s only about 36,000 Christians (without going into details about what that expression actually means). The city’s population is growing at something like 600 people per month. This means that even if we see all of those churches planted, we are unlikely to be doing much more than treading water in terms of the number of Christians and impact on the city.
There’s another factor that we need to consider. I recently heard that in one inner city area of Birmingham alone, there used to be 8 churches and now there are just two or three, Whilst churches are being planted, others are closing.
This should cause us to consider something. Often the churches that close are in inner city areas and the reason why they are closing is that the population primarily adhere to other faiths. We are also seeing increasing secularisation along side this. What this means, I would suggest is that a lot of our church planting has been in effect about relocation as Christians move to different parts of the city.
This does not mean that planting those churches was the wrong thing to do. We need beacons of light in every community. Those churches are witnessing discipling and giving believers opportunity to grow and to use their gifts. That’s not to be sniffed at.
However, we want to do more than simply move the chairs around. There is a strong desire among those who are committed to seeing church planting gather pace in the West Midlands to specifically see churches planted in those neighbourhoods which we might consider unreached or harder to reach.
I believe that there are two elements of this. First, that if churches are closing in those places, we need to look seriously at revitalisation and replanting.
Secondly, that we need people who are willing to move into the hard to reach areas and begin to church plant as pioneer missionaries.
If either of those possibilities is of interest to you, please get in touch
Faithroots 