The Art of Church Planting
From the 21st to the 22nd of October, a group of us from across the CCM sites around Manchester attended a church planting conference down in the South of England. This included two of us CCM: City Centre goers. When there we met with around 30 people from across the UK who were all seeking to plant a church or had been involved in planting churches before, to pray together for each others visions, encourage each other and share do’s and don’ts of church planting. So why are people across the UK choosing to uproot families and jobs to move to new cities and countries to plant churches?
Church planting can stem from an expansion of an already established church or planting of a church in a new location where there is need to bring the gospel.
At CCM, we are quite accustom to the model of planting a new church every year, I’d almost forgotten that it was a totally alien concept to me before moving up here. Within Manchester we are very blessed with a multicultural and energetic city with plenty of churches across the city offering different approaches in how they worship God and serve people. However it can be easy for churches to fall into patterns of tradition and domestic maintenance, and stop meeting the needs of local people. As the first point of contact for many non-Christians residing in a community, it’s important that we are always stepping up and out to serve them.
Church planting can be used to encourage other churches in the area as well as present an opening for new ideas and visions for the community. This allows people to step out with God, to take on new challenging roles in order to personally grow, and serve the young church.
We have to be discerning and ensure we are stepping out with the right attitude, with God at the centre of our vision. We need to avoid becoming competitive with other churches in the area, but instead complement each other as part of the body of Christ.
Psalm 37 v 5 says: “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.”
We need to keep our perspective focused on God’s greater design and trust in God’s vision for the new church family we are creating.
All church plants can be very different in how they approach it. Some people we met were starting churches with groups of 40 people and they felt relatively small when compared to their parent church. The city centre plant launched with 5 people around a table about 6 weeks ago. Since then, we have tripled in the number of people who have come along to share in meetings, discussions and prayer as part of the City Centre family, and we’re excited to see how God reveals His vision for this new church over the coming months.
On Friday the 4th of November 2016, we look forward to hosting a free Open Mic Night in the Nexus Art Café in the City Centre at 7pm-10pm, so we can also have the opportunity to share in worship together. Please come along and join us for as much or little time as you can. We look forward to seeing you.
If you’d like to find out more information about us and to stay tuned of exciting updates for the city centre over the coming months, head to the CCM:City Centre page, contact Tom, like us on Facebook or come along to Costa at 7.30pm on a Tuesday evening.
We’d love to have you.