'A glimpse into the engine room of church planting in the UK'

Asher Wiggers, a young leader at The Well, Sheffield, shares themes from the latest networking and strategy day of the National Church Planting Network (NCPN)

It was a pleasure to join the National Church Planting Network (NCPN) for its networking and strategy day in late November. I thoroughly enjoyed getting a glimpse into the engine room of church planting in the UK.

I was invited by Alex Harris as a young leader in the church with a call to church planting to come and observe, learn and absorb the environment, ethos, culture and ‘vibe’.  
 
The main purpose of the day was threefold; to get some of the key people together in one room to learn from one another; hear testimony of those who are pioneering in church planting; and to discern ways in which the UK church could grow, what might be needed to that end; and how those in the room could help it to happen.
 
We began the day - primarily with coffee - with a look at some of the mapping work that has been going on in the Australian church and here in the UK, followed by a why, what and how of the micro-church movement. We then, as periodically through the day, was interspersed by prayer and reflection - such a crucial ingredient - and then followed up by four seminars by key church plating strategists in different denominations. 
 
 
A numbers game? 
 
During the gathering, as previously alluded to, there was a wealth of success stories, testimonies and wisdom being shared from places where the church is growing and thriving. The research and mapping was met with optimism as its usefulness and a concern about the resources it takes to map the health of the church UK-wide. 
 
I found the research that was done was a great resource and an attractive opportunity to consolidate the effort to grow the church in our nation. There was an offer to replicate the Australian system of data collection straight into the UK as a pre-made package. 
 
As a young person myself, it appears that, although this data would put a number on the health of the UK church, I fear it would transform use of resources into a numbers game. People of my generation are more concerned with authentic relationships, people of integrity and the transformative power of the Holy Spirit working in their lives and the lives of those in their circles of influence.  
 
The attractiveness of the data was self-evident as it immediately provides a manifestation of a very organic and dispersed ‘Church’. I also see its utility as a unifying title under which we can say ‘this is The UK Church’, and the unity of resources and identity - along with success and failure - may do much in the way of concentrating efforts and resources in the pursuit of growing the Church together.  
 
I would, however, err on the side of caution and encourage leaders to weigh whether the reward is greater than the cost, mindful that 'culture eats strategy for breakfast'.


The relational nature of the micro-church movement
 
As the day progressed, we looked at the ‘Who, What and How’ of the micro-church movement, highlighting its simple and repeatable pattern, its deeply relational nature, and its flexibility to circumstances, and the will of the Holy Spirit. 
 
This was music to my ears and was very welcome in the room. It is a sharp contrast to previous generations of church planting which have been very structured and resource-heavy. It was rooted well in scripture and early church ethos as well as being backed up with examples of where this is working well already.  
 
I already see this at work in my context, where young adults in my home city of Sheffield are searching for family, community and truth - all of which is met with micro-church style missional community lifestyle. It is this lifestyle that feels crucial in reaching Generation Z&A in my opinion.  
 
I was greatly pleased to see this conversation happening in such a crucial meeting, at such a crucial juncture in our journey as the UK church. One of the paramount things discussed at this point was about changing the narrative from one of ‘church decline’ and even ‘church death’ to revival and new life - something Jesus of Nazareth talked a lot about!
 
 
Praying for the growth of the church 
 
Another element of the day was the interspersing of prayer from a member of the 24/7 Prayer team. This is exactly what I wanted to see coming after every time of strategy, a time of prayer of surrender to the will of the Father.  
 
We exercised writing our best prayer; our best prayer for the growth of the church and the various ministries, ideas and dreams that had come up through the day.

Then after reflectively doing so, we were told to pray our best prayer over someone else - to give it away - and that only through surrendering our desires and blessing ‘the body’, the Holy Spirit would really be free to use us and move through us.  
 
This is something I see as crucial in today's context. I find that my generation, although less sceptical of authority than our millennial counterparts, are opposed to ‘art for art's sake’, and by that I mean strategy with no actual authentic change in hearts and minds.  
 
As Christians, this translates to allowing God to move and change us, rather than allowing us to ‘be god’ and just carrying on the same control we see in the secular world, in the ‘Christian bubble’.
 
 
A change in culture
 
In the final part of the afternoon, we had the opportunity to hear from any two of four speakers from experienced UK church planting backgrounds. I heard from two who were concerned more with the UK church.  
 
The first covered the change in culture that can be achieved from replacing appointments within institutions with experienced church planters and apostles who desire to grow the church, rather than the previous modus operandi of filling church appointments with pastor-teachers that maintain the church.  
 
Referencing the work done within the Yorkshire Baptist Association over the past ten years, where 0.8 per cent of people go to church, we saw how the mission of the YBA is that everyone should be planters, some are pastors, some apostles etc..  
 
This, I believe is a crucial message for the UK church as the current narrative of decline and maintenance is not what Jesus preached and not what Gen Z, who seek authentic people who walk out what they believe with integrity, are looking for. 
 
I see a real hunger in my generation for truth, life and freedom. If we are the ambassadors for Christ and preach life and life in all its fullness and transformation through the Spirit, then we need to be a people who arrange ourselves in such a way to allow God to do that and walk as a light and salt, modelling Jesus’ transformative power.  
 
My takeaway is that growth in the church is not hard, it's as simple as an attitude change; the language we use to describe ourselves, or our perspective on what our Father can do.
 
 
‘A refreshing take on organic church growth that uses the existing structures’
 
The final talk I went to was looked at allowing church to emerge in our contexts. It focused on a change in perspective from adding ‘bums on seats’ as our metric for growth, to dispersion of hierarchy, multiplication rather than addition and making disciple-makers. Primarily it is about lowering the bar for leadership and raising the bar for discipleship.  
 
This looks like empowering young leaders and sending them out, permission giving and championing, training on discipleship pathways and providing a safeguarding covering, and letting the Holy Spirit guide the rest.  
 
It was a refreshing take on organic church growth that uses the existing structures to maximum advantage rather than it being ‘the old way or bust’. It was a perspective on synergy and relationship between the inherited church and the growing church where giving and receiving needs to occur without a pull back to the established centre. 
 
This is exactly in line with what I see in my generation; that there isn’t a scepticism of established institutions, but an awareness of potential conflict if things are done differently. Seeing pioneering church leaders use this language of dispersion and permission giving through relationship to mutual advantage, was a breath of fresh air. 
 
 
Final reflections
 
I see that the future of the church is smaller, riskier and more organic because of the way my generation approaches life, as well as what we see God doing around the world at this time. It needs an approach from the UK church of openness, surrender and collaboration with a view to low control, organic and ‘way of life’ church that is authentic and carries the transformative power of the Holy Spirit to our friends and neighbours.  
 
And I am glad to say that I saw a lot of that happening in the discussions at the networking day in question. The church seems to be tracking with what the Holy Spirit is doing around the world in our time: the question is will the call of God to grow the church be met with further unity across denominations, and the action that it warrants?

 

Asher Wiggers is a young leader and former intern in church-planting at The Well, Sheffield. 

He leads a discipleship group with his wife Laura and helps lead the Deeper School of Ministry.

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