‘Co-Mission Sunday?’

Last weekend we held Co-Mission Sunday. We didn’t call it that. We couldn’t. Not without being lambasted by anyone who knows us! We’re not suggesting that it gets added to the Anglican liturgical calendar like Pentecost, Lent or Advent.

But at this time of year we usually have our annual Co-Mission Celebration. Let’s just be clear. We don’t celebrate Co-Mission (though we’re grateful for all that God is doing in, through and despite us). We celebrate the God of the Bible. That seems like a more wholesome thing to do at the start of the year!

This year the focus of our various church gatherings was the subject of prayer. All of us who preached did so on passages of our choice to try to encourage us to become a network of churches that expresses our professed faith in God in actual faith; namely through prayer. And to do that, we played musical pulpits. Andy Fenton came to Christ Church Balham in the morning and gave us Habakkuk 3. I went to  Christ Church Earlsfield in the afternoon and gave them Luke 18. Phil Allcock came to CCB in the evening whilst I headed up to Christ Church Mayfair. Somehow Matt Fuller got an evening off. He tells me it was much deserved.

It was great to invite trusted and treasured colleagues to come and encourage us. And I loved travelling to other churches to try to do the same for them. It’s also really interesting just to see what others are doing and how they’re going. These are my initial reflections.

1. It was wonderfully encouraging to see what God has been doing in the different congregations. CCE nearly fill their building. As Andy pointed out, Southfield’s Methodist is not the biggest building in the world. And that’s true. But God has really grown them since they went for a combined church meeting at 4pm. People of all ages and stages were mixed in together expressing a deep concern for one another. Christ Church Mayfair was virtually full of students and young professionals, all showing a real appetite for Bible teaching and displaying love in the Spirit towards one another. There were lots of people I recognised at both churches, largely from my involvement in Revive, our annual Bible festival for which I’ve been responsible. But there were loads of people I’d never met or even seen before. I chatted to people who’d only come to faith in the last year. At CCE I met a young woman who’d only recently become a Christian. I think I scared the living daylights out of her when I told her that we’d been praying for her since she first came into contact with the gospel!  But there she was, weeks after being baptised.

2. These guys felt like family. It didn’t feel like going to other churches. We have very good relations with local churches like Trinity Road Chapel and St Nicholas’ Church Tooting. We do things together, we support one another’s ministries, we pray for one another. We love them as Christian brothers and sisters. But they’re not family in quite the same way as these Co-Mission churches are. It helps that we know some of the people in these churches personally. But there are so many more that we’ve never met and may never meet. Not this side of heaven, anyway! But because we part of the same network of churches they share a common commitment to and participation in our shared gospel initiatives. And the way things work in Co-Mission, it wouldn’t surprise me if a year or two down the line we’re involved in some new church plant together!

3. These churches may not have been planted without help from the network. Christ Church Earlsfield and Clapham Central would not have been planted without people joining them from CCB, Christ Church Mayfair and Dundonald. CCB has contributed to the launch and growth of CCE, Clapham Central and King’s Church Walton on Thames. God willing we’ll be able to contribute to the launch of Sutton and Brixton in the near future. We’ve not sent huge numbers of people. We don’t have huge numbers. But we’ve sent one or two people, sometimes more than that. But then so have other churches in the network. And because of that we’ve been able to get new churches up and running in places where another gospel church is needed. That’s hugely encouraging. The mantra that often gets repeated (by Richard Coekin in all seriousness and by the rest of us in faux mockery) is that we’re ‘we can do more together than we can on our own’. And the truth of it is; it’s true. I think the last ten years have shown that. Under God we’ve been able to plant many more churches than we otherwise would have been able to do if we’d just remained as one church in Wimbledon. By co-operating together and deliberately trying to stay together we’ve done more for the gospel than we otherwise would have done. And that’s great for the kingdom.

4. There seems to be a growing understanding of the value of staying together. I think people are being persuaded that the mantra, though a little bit irritating at times, is nevertheless true. We’re not all about to go and get it tattooed on any part of our anatomy. Not even the staff. But the churches are increasingly full of people who’ve seen that by staying networked we’re learning from one another (perhaps especially our mistakes), we’re supporting one another (perhaps especially in prayer), we’re resourcing one another (perhaps especially with start-up finances) and we’re helping one another (perhaps especially with people).  The smaller churches, in particular, have been on the receiving end of the kindness and generosity of the larger churches. And they know how much they’ve gained from a bigger brother who’s helped them find their feet. We’re nurturing smaller churches towards self sufficiency and wonderfully some of the planted churches are in a position to become church planting churches. That’s valuable. And it’s wirth being a part of.

5. We share a similar sense of humour. Everywhere I went, the specially produced video made people laugh. It wasn’t meant to. And there are some good things about it. But it felt to me like a cross between a 1980s Open University broadcast and an episode of ‘Where’s Wally?’ Bit let me quash any scurrilous rumours that I’m piqued because I wasn’t asked to front it! It’ll undoubtedly appear on the Co-Mission website at some stage. It’s worth watching twice; once to get over the visuals. And then secondly to listen to the words. It’s a helpful introduction to what we’re about.

Read Full Post »

Revive 2012

‘One more sleep’! And it wasn’t just Digby who was excited.

Revive has come around again. It’s Co-Mission Festival time. It’s fun. It’s relaxing. It’s encouraging. And it’s one of the highlights in the year for me and my family. The kids love it. I love it. And Rosslyn loves it. By the end of the weekend as we drive home together towards the big smoke, we’re absolutely shattered but deeply satisfied. In trying to articulate the reasons why it’s such a good time for us, I’ll not be able to do it justice. But let me have a stab at it. I love Revive for these three reasons. And they’re all to do with time.

1. Revive is time together

The weekend offers us time to be together with others in our own congregation and with others from Co-Mission, our network of churches. We’re often not able to spend as much time as we’d like to with other people. Life is hectic. There are lots of urgent things that we feel that we have to do. And we probably do have to do. But there are so many more important things that we’d like to do that we simply don’t get round to. And chatting to others at church and others in other churches seems so less pressing a need than whatever else we end up doing instead. Having Revive is like an annual insurance policy to remind us on a yearly basis just how kind God has been in giving us others with whom to live the Christian life. And so, at Revive we can chat with the person sat next to us in the main meeting, whichever congregation they come from. And as long as we’re not meant to be collecting small children from kids’ club we can allow that conversation to extend and deepen over coffee. We can share meals together with others in our flat as we move the tables and chairs outside to watch the sun set and talk late into the night about whatever is occupying our minds at the moment. Or we can walk round the grounds with a pushchair as we talk with another Dad about the joys and challenges of fatherhood as our weary one year old decides it’s time for a kip. It’s this sort of quality time together that’s so valuable.

2. Revive is time away

This weekend offers us the opportunity to enjoy time away from the busyness of London life. Our time is pressured in London. Lots of things and people and activities have claims on it. At Revive we can be insulated from those demands (as long as we didn’t bring our work with us). Revive can force us to slow down and relax. Apparently even David Cameron feels the need to ‘chillax’. And who can blame him; it must be taxing telling the newspapers that Jimmy Carr that he’s immoral. At Revive we can sit and listen to gifted musicians as they entertain us. This year we might even be entertained by the comedy that’s being provided by Jam Cary. Yes people, ‘The Canterbury Tales’ is back in a new and much improved format. Rosie has procured a man with fireworks fro Saturday night so that we can ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ as we used to in Portsmouth (where we were when we were smaller). Saturday afternoon offers a gamut of sporting activities ranging from hockey to soccer, from ‘ultimate’ (frisbee) to cricket, from cycling to running. And you can even choose to be involved in a game of touch rugby with overly competitive South Africans. Or just join me on the grass and simply watch the kids play cricket with a cool drink in one hand! Revive offers us time away from the normal hectic schedule of an exciting but demanding life in this great city of London.

3. Revive is time out

This weekend offers us the opportunity to benefit from time out to consider the state of our Christian life. We’re often not able to give the attention we’d like to our spiritual health. Our Christian life can often feel that it’s been patched together with duck tape. We survive on a diet of sermons and the occasional home group we can get to. If we’re honest, we don’t pray as much as we’d like;  with our spouse (if we have one), with our triplet (even though we mean to meet up fortnightly), with the kids (if we’re back in time) and on our own. Time. We just don’t seem to have it. And our Bible reading is little more than trying to look at the new Good Book Company App on our iPhone on the commute up the northern line. It’s hardly conducive to becoming the mature Christian disciple we’d love to be. But at Revive we get time out. There are clear times when we have no other need than to listen to some great talks. This year they’re coming from Sydney’s David Cook and Chelsea’s Andy Mason. We can attend some extraordinarily varied seminars. And by that I mean varied in their subject matter, not in their quality! We can be encouraged by substantial conversations with others and make resolutions, plans and strategies for this year to be different. And find time for a walk and a pray with the Lord around the vast campus at the University of Kent. We all need this sort of time out to make sure that we don’t neglect our spiritual health. And we get it at Revive.

My prayer is that we’ll benefit enormously from time together, time away and time out. I think we will.

Read Full Post »

Planting for Christ – Media

Last Wednesday was the Co-Mission ‘Planting for Christ’ Conference. It was a good day. There was a good turn out, though not as many came as did last year. Mark Driscoll must’ve been quite a pull.  The talks from the conference are now available here.

I left the day (early if truth be told – to pick up various children) hugely encouraged. I missed Al Stewart’s talk but I got Richard’s and two seminars.That was enough for me. I was hugely stimulated. The conference aims to be ‘Biblical, Missional  and Practical’. And it did it for me in each of those areas.

Richard’s talk was especially helpful in causing me to re-examine the biblical principles that underpin and inform my passion for church planting.If you only listen to one talk from the conference, this should probably be it. It was excellent. Look out for his lightning summary of some of Ed Stetzer’s comments choosing church planters. There’s real wisdom in his observations.

I came away wanting to plant another church. In that sense the conference helped me to be missional. I’m desperate to think about how we at CCB can launch another congregation to reach another area with the gospel. I don’t want to lose the recklessness of youth as I move into middle age. Wisdom tempers the arrogance of the young but old men can become worryingly conservative. I’d rather have a go and fail than wait till all the ducks are in a row and never get round to it.

Justin Mote’s and Andrew Evans’ seminar made me think about what we’re doing and how we’re trying to do it. Andrew was very gracious in answering  a barrage of questions (largely from me, I think) about the practical details of what they did, where they did it and how they did it. That’s just so helpful for practitioners!

Dex has managed to record both the main talks, as you might expect. But he’s also recorded some of the seminars.

I’m looking forward to hearing what William Taylor had to say about ‘Priorities in City Centre Plants’. I’ll be amazed if it’s not teaching the Bible! But I’ll get back to you on that. Mike Cain took a seminar on preaching that’ll be pure gold. Andy Patterson talked about congregational identity and planting networks, which is something we face within Co-Mission.

You can get the talks here.

Read Full Post »

Driscoll & Coekin: The Sofa Sessions

Dex has got his finger out. [Good job my friend].

So now the eagerly awaited ‘Driscoll & Coekin: The Sofa Sessions’ is online. It sounds like something deserving of a superinjunction. It’s not. Let’s be clear.

Richard, in that characteristically casual way he has with the camera, asks Mark one or two questions about life, faith and ministry. Have fun working out for whose benefit Richard is asking the questions!

Read Full Post »

Planting for Christ – Media

The mp3 talks from the Planting for Christ conference are now available on the Co-Mission website. I heard Richard Coekin’s talk from Romans 15 on on why we should church plan. Essentially he argued that we should church plant to glorify Christ and to reach the unreached. Hard to argue with that! I heard most of Mark Driscoll’s talk, which was more about how to lead than who should lead. Nevertheless it’s well worth a listen. Some of the older guys who remembered said that Mark’s style and prophetic analysis of our cultural idols reminded them of Phillip Jensen in the 1980s. I’m not sure what Phillip would make of that or Mark, for that matter. Markpoint that no-one else in the history of the world had the opportunity to preach the gospel to 2 billion people made me realise just how much more the Bishop of London should have said. He touches on that!

I Mark afterwards because we interviewed him for the website; lovely man. It’s easy to see why guys follow him; he’s warm, witty, self effacing and a shrewd operative. Richard and Mark sat on the sofa and chatted about ministry, mistakes and so on. Mark was very relaxed and very assured in his answers. Richard was very aware that not everyone in the wider evangelical constituency on either side of the pond is unqualifiedly positive about Mark’s style! Have I put that right?! But it was heartening to hear Mark talk about repentance for past mistakes, the way he’s benefited from the advice and wisdom of older saints in the US and he even promised not to say anything that’d cause me to lose my job at the London Men’s Convention this Saturday. That remains to be seen! And it’s not really a job; more of a hobby.

I especially enjoyed hearing about the type of people Mars Hill are reaching with the gospel. It’s not middle class Surrey, that’s for sure! His context is so very different to ours. It made me realise that the people he counsels in Death by Love aren’t fictional.

The interview should be uploaded some time soon; when Dex pulls his finger out. And we’ve edited out the lewdness and swearing. Just kidding. We’ll leave that in. They’re the best bits.

Not all the seminars were recorded. Ed’s, Andy’s and mine wasn’t deemed worthy of recording for posterity. I’m trying not to take that personally or, as a negative assessment of my ministry by my boss and his administrator. I’m over it now.

The good news is that almost all of my material is available online. I’ve posted it here. It’s stuff on apprenticeships from the perspective of church planting. It’s not rocket science but I hope it’s helpful.

Read Full Post »

Planting for Christ

We’re just about to go public on a new church planting day conference. It’s called Planting for Christ. It’s on 4th May 2011. It’s at the Factory, Raynes Park, London SW20. You can find details here.

An ever increasing number of us have been meeting up a couple of times a year to talk about the nuts and bolts of church planting. And it’s been invaluable in helping me think through the judgment calls in ministry situations. I’ve mentioned the benefits before, when I blogged on it here.

Of the main attractions at the conference, I’d identify the following

1. Mark Driscoll will be speaking on ‘Who can plant churches?’, which given his experience with Acts 29 should be insightful and full of wisdom. But I can also imagine him ruffling a few feathers with some of his observations.

2. Richard Coekin will be speaking on ‘Why should we plant churches?’ It’ll be good to see how much Richard can add to Tim Keller’s material on this.

3. But it’s the seminar streams that I’d be most excited about. I happen to be doing one. But that’s not my point. Ed, Andy and I will talk about trying to identify, recruit and managed limited resources in a church plant but that’s about as far as I’ve got in my thinking on the matter. I’ll let you know whether it’ll be worth coming along to. But I’d be excited about the others. It’s an extraordinarily good line up of speakers. I can’t think of another conference where you’d get access to the likes of

• Perkin (that’s Paul from St Mark’s Battersea Rise),
• Barth (that’s Al from Redeemer and Tim Keller’s right hand man),
• Powell (Neil, planter and blogger),
• Timmis (Steve, of Crowded House, Acts 29 Europe Director and Total Church fame),
• Green (Chris, Oak Hill VP),
• Koleoso (Tope, Jubilee Church and New Frontiers mover and shaker),
• Smallwood (Simon, UPA church planting pioneer in Dagenham) and
• Dowdy (St Helen’s Bishopsgate church planter in Dulwich).

That’s a good cross-section of Reformed Evangelicalism.

I’m hoping for mates rates.

Read Full Post »

Church Planting Consultation

Wednesday was church planting consultation day. It comes around six months or so. The Senior Pastor of Dundonald and the Director of Co-Mission, Richard Coekin, chairs a gathering of likeminded friends from around the country in the Factory. They come to talk about the nuts and bolts of launching and running small congregations. It’s an informal gathering, it takes up most of the day and it’s hugely stimulating. It grew out of Richard’s inability to deal properly with the increasing number of requests for a chat about church planting. These were filling up his inbox and clogging up his answer machine. So he convened a day to kick around some of the common issues that many of us seem to face. It went down well. It’s been well receieved. People keep coming back and each time there are newcomers to the group.

Strangely I’m often in two minds about whether to go or not. It takes up the lion’s share of the day and Wednesday night is Ministry Matters. I always need to prepare so that I’m on my game! The topics we tackle there aren’t straight forward. I can’t blag. And they can be a feisty lot. And they have high standards! I ’forced’ myself to think about the value of the consultations and, to my mind, whether I go or not has become a ’no-brainer’. Here are the six reasons why.

1. It’s eminently practical
People submit their questions beforehand or throw them in on the day. And that sets the agenda, so there‘s always a fresh feel to the discussion. Richard has a stab at answering them and that usually generates supplementary questions. He does the vast majority of the talking. And so although the word ‘consultation’ has a certain semantic nuance, we’ve limited it! It’s consultative in the sense that we ask Richard’s view on things and he gives an answer. It’s interactive in the sense that people interrupt Richard when he draws breath and he stops talking for a moment! And that’s OK. It’s why people have come. Occasionally and very generously he asks for my wisdom but people haven’t come for that! And every now and again there’s a quip to be made, which is something I rarely pass up. Typically the range of questions is very broad so we end up talking about all sorts of things. For example, on Wednesday we talked about how to raise money to finance a church plant, we thought about how to persuade a school to let a church hire a building, what thought about what to look for in a second staff member amongt other things. It’s the kind of ministry issues specifics that you simply don’t get at most other ministry conferences. Let’s be honest, there’s no point in flying Tim Keller or Mark Driscoll over from the states to ask  them where you should run an evening church in Balham or start a lunchtime ministry in Bradford. Our focus is at the ministry practice end of things. We‘re dealing in tactics not the big picture strategic stuff.

2. It’s brutally honest
Richard doesn’t pull any punches. Phrases like ‘you’re not the man to lead it’ are occasionally heard. He doesn’t beat around the bush but gets to the heart of the issue pretty quickly. But he says what needs to be said. Often he manages to say things with sensitivity and he’s savyy about the delicate issues. But he says what needs to be said. And people appreciate that. They haven’t come to have their egos massaged. They’ve come because they want some answers and they’re concerned about the growth of the kingdom and want to know the best way to grow it. I’ve not been in the firing line and so I’ve been happy with the level of honest assessment. It might be different if I was being told what was wrong with my well conceived plan. But for the sake of the kingdom, the churches we lead and the effectiveness of our ministry we just need to get over it. And they have.

3. It’s accumulated wisdom
People come because they want to download what Richard has learnt over fifteen years of church planting. He’s a few steps ahead of most of us. He came to run an established church plant, Dundonald Church, twenty years ago. He planted an evening church in 1996 and he’s been planting ever since. Under God and with the sacrificial support of key elders, he’s established a network of church plants. In the past five years or so we’ve been able to plant at about a rate of two churches a year. He’s made some mistakes that I can think of, though not many. And he’d admit to fewer! He always seems to forget that momentous decision in November 1996, when the evening church plant was about a dozen strong to tackle the book of Ezekiel in four 50 minutes long sermons. Genius! You won’t find that in most church planting manuals! But overwhelmingly there’s credibility to his comments and wisdom. He hates being the centre of attention. Genuinely. But he knows that it’s useful because that’s what people keep telling him.

4. It’s unavoidably contextual
This is where I get most frustrated. Although he’s been involved in leading a handful of church plants and he’s initiated several others, he’s unavoidably bound by his own ministry context. He often reverts to type. And that’s Wimbledon. Not everywhere is like Wimbledon. And church planting in Balham, Bristol or Bradford isn’t the same as church planting in Wimbledon. And he sometimes forgets that. I’m not saying that Wimbledon is an easier place to plant a church. But I am saying that it’s a different place to plant a church. And though the principles for planting may well be the same, how those principles are applied in a specific location will need to vary. That became acutely obvious when we started talking finance. You could see the Free Church boys from the north wide eyed at the sums of money we’ve been able to raise to support the church planting initiatives in south London.

5. It’s inevitably  opinionated
That goes with the territory. It’s inevitable. We’re not dealing in the realm of right or wrong where we can measure our convictions against the Bible’s teaching. We’re in the realm of wise or unwise. And so the kinds of things that we discuss come down to judgment calls. And so there’s scope for disagreement. We might take issue with Richard’s analysis, and that’s OK. But rarely. What he says is so often sensible. And that’s why people come. If they could stay on their own and bat it around with their own elders and staff team then they wouldn’t travel to London, but they do.

6. It’s hugely encouraging.
We feel like a band of brothers. We’re all on the same team; we’re conservative evangelicals and we’re all trying to do the same thing; lead recent church plants. There‘s camaraderie that comes from sharing the same issues, facing the same challenges and knowing the same experience. There’s no testosterone, which is nice. I don’t pick up any sense of competitiveness. That might be different if we were all planting in each other’s areas. But we’re not. There’s a wide geographical spread to our locations. And so we’re all just trying to do what we’re doing better, more effectively. It’s been hugely encouraging. I never fail to learn something. Richard asked my why I take notes and scribble throughout the sessions. It keeps me engaged and it stimulates my thought processes. Invariable I end up doing things at CCB differently as a result of these sessions. And that’s a good thing.

Read Full Post »