Our church family have just been on a weekend away. We are part of a family of churches that originated out of the same plant and are seeking to reach Birmingham with the Gospel. The church holiday brought the three congregations together. During the weekend, one of the speakers talked about our vision as a… Continue reading Swifter, smaller, simpler
Tag: church planting
A vision for urban West Midlands Church planting
My current focus is on encouraging church planting into the Urban West Midlands. My desire is not to see one church growing big but to see a city that is full of churches bringing Gospel light to needy neighbourhoods. My specific concern is for those areas that are often less reached with the Gospel. This… Continue reading A vision for urban West Midlands Church planting
What does your church value?
I’ve been writing a few articles on things like mission and vision statements. There is the risk that such things can feel corporate, slick and fluffy. However, if a mission statement is really simply “Matthew 28:19-20 with a date stamp and a postcode” then what we are doing is helping the church apply God’s word… Continue reading What does your church value?
A vision for your church?
The other day, I wrote about mission statements and value statements. I also mentioned that it can be helpful to draft out a slightly longer statement describing what you might call the vision for the church. This is not about arrogantly making grand claims about what you are going to achieve. Everything will be in… Continue reading A vision for your church?
Breaking up the hard ground (more reflections on Mark 4:1-20)
At Bearwood Chapel, we had a partnership with OM and over several years hosted a number of teams. As part of that partnership I was involved in training OMers in aspects of mission. One of the things I would sometimes do is take the team members into our car park. I would say to them:… Continue reading Breaking up the hard ground (more reflections on Mark 4:1-20)
Building myths
This article is a guest article from Bob Sharples. Following on from my article recently about the myths around assuming that getting a building is a solution to your long term problems, Bob highlights to further myths that churches can believe about owning their buildings. This is not a case for or against owning your… Continue reading Building myths
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
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?
Don’t let your church try to rebuild Babel
I’ve shared a couple of articles over the past few days about giving space to grow and permission to grow to a church. However, I want to spend a bit of time here focusing on one of the downsides and risks with a focus on growing one single congregation. In Genesis 11, the descendants of… Continue reading Don’t let your church try to rebuild Babel
Reminder – please fill in the Faithroots Survey (Feb 22)
Thank you to everyone who has shared feedback so far. If you haven’t, please spare a couple of minutes to answer a few questions.