Category: church planting

Buildings, buildings, buildings  -short term and long term thinking

There’s been a bit of a discussion over the past few days about church planting and the importance of owning your own building.  There have been two big prompts for this. First of all, the FIEC posted this article from Adrian Reynolds discussing the pros and cons of not owning your own building: Secondly, David… Continue reading Buildings, buildings, buildings  -short term and long term thinking

Planter speed up – the core team isn’t coming

Dan Steel has written on the Acts29 site encouraging church planters to slow down and work more on building a healthy core team before they plant.  I’m loath to disagree with Dan, he’s an experienced pastor and planter who knows what he’s talking about. I also think that there is much in his article to… Continue reading Planter speed up – the core team isn’t coming

The Fragility of Church Plants

Over the past decade, there has been a renewed interest in church planting. It’s something I write about quite a bit with a particular focus on reaching urban contexts.  Since we moved to the West Midlands, we have been linked with an initiative first known as 2020 Birmingham and now as The Birmingham Collective. The… Continue reading The Fragility of Church Plants

Thinking about church planting but don’t know where or how to start?

I recently asked a couple of questions on twitter about church planting. One of the questions I asked was about the kinds of barriers that people experience that make it less likely for them to consider getting involved in church planting. Now, for a lot of people, it’s simply that they have no sense of… Continue reading Thinking about church planting but don’t know where or how to start?

When is the right time to plant a new church?

This is one of the big questions for churches and individuals looking at church planting.  Usually answers given will talk in terms of the pre-requisite health requirements of the existing church. Is it numerically strong enough to send people out? Does it have enough people covering existing ministries? Is its leadership team robust and healthy… Continue reading When is the right time to plant a new church?

Some problems with Tim Keller’s comments about passing on a megachurch

Tim Keller has recently made comments on social media about why he and the leaders of Redeemer, New York chose to split the church into different churches rather than hand it on to a single successor as one entity. These reasons have been gathered together into one article by Outreach magazine. Now, before I go… Continue reading Some problems with Tim Keller’s comments about passing on a megachurch

Church planters wanted

This is one of my occasional/regular reminders that I’m on the look out for people who are interested in getting involved in urban mission/discipleship to help plant churches. I’m particularly on the look out for people who would be interested in becoming part of planting teams to reach inner city and estate contexts in the… Continue reading Church planters wanted

Discerning a calling to the urban West Midlands

My desire is to see gospel communities planted into our urban inner city and council estate neighbourhoods in the West Midlands.  I believe that if this is going to happen then we’ll need two things. First of all, we’ll need indigenous church leaders from working class estate contexts and multi-ethnic contexts to be raised up,… Continue reading Discerning a calling to the urban West Midlands

Could you help reach the urban West Midlands with the Gospel?

The West Midlands is home to 2,607,000 people.  That includes over 1 million in Birmingham and half a million living in a cluster of towns and urban villages where the Industrial Revolution started known as The Black Country.  Over the past decade, significant work went into encouraging church planting via The 2020 Birmingham Initiative, a… Continue reading Could you help reach the urban West Midlands with the Gospel?