Breaking through!

Wow, it's been a crazy couple of months since my last post.  Sorry about that...

In our church this year has been named "the year of Breakthrough!"  There have been a number of things seeming to hold us back for a long time now and we decided that this year as a church we are going to pray like we've never prayed before to seek God to change our situation.  We realize that only Jesus makes the difference, not how clever we are or how experienced we are!  Only by trusting in Jesus will any of our mountains move.

Our verse for the year is:

"Show me your paths, Lord, and teach me to follow" Psalm 25:4

So we have been praying and God has already been moving...  This may sound a bit odd but one result of our praying is more prayer.  As we have turned to pray under the inspiration of Breakthrough people are really starting a hunger for prayer.

People are meeting to pray and fast together (before we've even preached on fasting, that is this week!!)...

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." James 5:16  

People are confessing their sins together and praying for healing.  I used to think James 5:16 meant find a righteous guy and get him to pray for you because his prayers will be effective.  Now I realize that when you confess your sins to each other you are made righteous (1John 1:9) and then YOUR prayers are effective.  Our hunger for prayer, created a hunger for righteousness and confession and this has created a dynamic powerful prayer life among us already!

And a bunch of us are meeting every Sunday evening after church to pray together for the community around Cafe Church.  Those prayer meetings have been passionate and powerful!  I feel like as a church we are learning to pray all over again!

These are exciting days for our church plant and wider church family... Even if nothing else starts to happen (and I believe it will) this year is already amazing!  Breakthrough has already happened in the most important place it can... Our prayer lives!

And the secret... being desperate for Jesus!

Here is the run down of the Five-A-Side tournament I took some guys to the other day.  It's early days hoping to take twice as many next time!

City Gate Church Retain the Newham 5s Title

In a competitive Newham Community 5s on Monday December 13^th, City Gate Church won the last match of the tournament to clinch the Cup for a second time. A close 2-1 victory over early favourites Cliff Walk Church brought the trophy home.

The 5-a-side games were very high scoring at the Academy in Loughton with some tremendous goals being scored. The football followed a talk given by local footballer and West Ham Physio Seyi Oni. Seyi shared how his love of football is entwined with his Christian faith and how he had walked away from Church during his teenage years, but is so much happier now he is back with God first and then football in his life.

The Newham Community Sports Team is a branch of World Sport Ministries and stage regular sporting events in Newham, usually played with Christian Spirit and values! For more details please contact newham@worldsportministries.com . Sports quizzes and golf days are other events regularly staged.

Results

1^st. City Gate Church 12 points (scored 19, against 12)

2^nd. Cliff Walk Baptist Church 10 points (scored 19, against 9)

3^rd. Bonny Downs Green 10 points (scored 20, against 16)

4^th. Bonny Downs Orange 3 points (scored 13, against 34)

Why go all the way to New York to learn about church planting?

It’s a good question and I have been asked it a few times.  City to City is a church planting training centre set up by Redeemer Church in New York City.

Redeemer has a 5000 strong congregation of mainly young professionals and is led by Tim Keller.  One of the unique things about this church is its view on world wide mission.  It believes –as we do- that Jesus has given the church the job of sharing Jesus throughout the entire world.  But they don’t send out missionaries even though they easily could afford to.  They believe that the best way to share the good news of Jesus with everyone is by planting new churches, which reflect local people, in all the major cities throughout the world.
Over the 20 years Redeemer (itself a church plant) has been around, it has planted dozens of churches and helped to plant many hundreds more!  So they have a vast vision, depth of experience and amount of knowledge on the subject of international, culturally relevant church planting.

While we were in New York we had to go and visit many church plants.  Some actual plants of Redeemer and others supported by them.  Of course, none of them would have worked in East Ham, but then they shouldn’t!  But each one was mainly made up of local people, who had come to faith through the birth and life of the new church.  We went to a jazz church in the art district of Brooklyn, a youth & students congregation in the East Village, a posh church in the Upper West Side, to just mention a few.  We also got to have lunch with and hear the stories and experiences of the lead planters in each of these churches.

My favourite was the church that reminded me most of Bonny Downs.  It was a church of about 150 people and in a multi cultural district made up of Greeks, Jews and a variety of other people groups.  It was a poor community and had bags of life.! The church itself met in a Jewish Synagogue.    One of the coolest things about the church was that it was only 5 years old and had already planted another sister church and was in the process of planting another one, both in neighbouring communities.  Even with their limited recourses they had a vision for and were expanding and seeing the Kingdom of God grow!

It wasn’t just the churches we visited that helped to inspire me.  On the course were 15 other church planters from all over the world.  From Japan, South Africa, Mexico, Malaysia, Greece, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Czech Republic, Canada, Argentina, France, Romania and oh yes East London!  They were an amazing and encouraging bunch of people and full of inspiring stories.  We were able to share our troubles, questions, doubts and passions together.  It was a good reminder that even though we were all from completely different cultural backgrounds we were all part of the same family.

The teaching was amazing and Emelie and I are full of vision and ideas for how we can help grow a congregation that will transform the Flanders area and beyond!
So why did I go to New York?  The quality teaching, the great examples of diverse churches, the international church planters…and it was a beautiful city to explore.

I was excited to go to New York but I am ten times more excited to be back and I can’t wait to see what God is going to grow out of our little but mighty church!

BenAboutLondon

Vision Part 1: "We want to see Jesus..."

Hi guys, sorry it's been a while.  I had a loooot of thinking to do after New York and didn't want to let anything slip about any changes without speaking to key people first.  I've done that now but still have a lot to think about.  One of the first things I am thinking through is our church vision.  

Our awesome vision is this "We want to see JESUS transforming LIVES, changing our COMMUNITY and the WORLD!"  Great isn't it!?  But how does this work out?  What does it mean for us?  Those are a couple of the questions I'm bashing out at the moment.  Over the next couple of weeks I'll be putting up on my blog thoughts as to how this vision fleshes out in my mind.  I'm not wanting to change our vision just want to understand it better in order to share it better.

So here we go...

Vision Part 1: "We want to see JESUS..." 
Colossians 1:15-18, Philippians 2:5-11, 1John 5:20

Everything we do is about Jesus!

Jesus is fully God revealed in person.  Through Jesus everything was created.  Everything was created to shine with Jesus beauty.  Not only is Jesus our amazing creator but He wants us to be in relationship with Him. 

"Christ is exactly like God, who cannot be seen.  He is the first-born Son, superior to all creation.  Everything was created by him, everything in heaven and on earth, everything seen and unseen,  including all forces and powers, and all rulers and authorities.  All things were created by God's Son, and everything was made for him.  God's Son was before all else, and by him everything is held together.  He is the head of his body, which is the church. He is the very beginning, the first to be raised from death, so that he would be above all others." Colossians 1:15-18

That’s why Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago as a person like you and me, so we could really see and understand what He is like.

 

That’s why Jesus grew up and taught us about His Heavenly Father, so we could understand that God wants us to be part of His forever family. 

That’s why Jesus loved, helped and healed all sorts of people that others looked down on, so we could understand that it doesn’t matter what other people think of us, He loves us!

"Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God.  Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us. Christ was humble. He obeyed God and even died on a cross. Then God gave Christ the highest place and honoured his name above all others." Philppians 2:6-9

That’s why Jesus was treated like a criminal and died on a Cross.   Jesus saved us from our selfishness and sin by taking the punishment we deserve. 

That’s why Jesus defeated death when He came back to life, so that death wouldn’t be our end either and we can know Him forever.

"We know that Jesus Christ the Son of God has come and has shown us the true God. And because of Jesus, we now belong to the true God who gives eternal life." 1John 5:20

That is why Jesus now lives in Heaven ruling as King, so we can live to know Him and share His forever love with the world.

As a church we want to know Jesus more and more and share Him with others.

This is a working progress so please let me know what you think.  What is missing?  What you like?

BenAboutLondon 

Two stories to inspire

As you know I am currently on a church planting course called "The Fall Intensive" by Redeemer: City to City in New York.  We are on our second week and it's been amazing so far.  As part of the course we get to meet some of New York's church planters, to hear their stories and ask them questions about what it's like to plant in a major urban City.  Here are two stories that particularly inspired me.

1. Jon Tyson: A vision of church

When Jon arrived to preach at one of Trinity Grace’s sister churches, he felt God tell him to pay attention to what was going on around him.  So he picked himself up and watched.  He was greeted at the door by a member of the church who was obviously homeless.  This rough looking homeless man was on the Welcome team handing out church notice sheets as people came in.  Jon moved further in the church and looked back to take a second look at what God’s grace was doing at this moment. 

Then in came the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.  This woman was a model and very classy.  Then the model and the homeless man greeted each other by name and then gave each other a real big hug.  Jon then watched as these two friends chatted and shared there weeks with each other then both walked up the stairs and into the service.

"Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all." Colossians 3:11

Jon used this story to illustrate the awesome radical social power the church has.  No other human society has the kind of message that can unite and bring together vagabonds and models!   The church is God’s vehicle for Gospel centred cultural transformation.

Let’s pray our churches don’t become cliques for like minded and socially acceptable people.

"For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility..." Ephesians 2:14

2. JR Vassar: God’s call

Before JR was planning on church planting in NYC he was looking else where.  He started by putting pins in maps in all of the major cities in the US.  He prayed, fasted and sought wisdom from Godly friends.  One day JR asked a friend, “If you could plant a church in just one city in America where would it be?” It didn’t take long for his friend to say “New York!” To which JR replied, “Where would you second choice be?”  New York was the last place he wanted to take his family.

A while later JR and his wife set their minds on Seattle as the place to go.  He planned a recon trip to start networking with leaders in Seattle.  But a few days before he was to go his friend called and asked JR to travel to NY with him for a few days.  JR thought, “why not a free trip to NY? Then I’ll get started in Seattle.”  JR went to NY and met many people who lived, worked and ministered in the city.

On his return home his friend asked, “Well will you consider New York?” JR immediately replied “No!”  His friend enquired why and JR replied, “New York is a dangerous city!  I can’t take my wife and children there it will destroy my family!”  His friend didn’t press the point but asked JR to keep his options open.

New York now firmly out of the picture JR travelled to Seattle to do his recon.  On his first day there he was reading the story of the 12 spies in his quiet time and came across these verses:

Then the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are."  Numbers 13:31

"Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" Numbers 14:3

He then realised that his criteria for where he should plant and of keeping his family safe was based on a wrong perspective of the call and power of God.

Five years ago JR moved to New York with his family and together they started Apostles Church NYC.  The church is growing strong by God’s grace and the are about to plant their third congregation. Oh yeah… and JR’s family are thriving in New York!

Lord, when you ask us to do the impossible help us to say with Caleb:

"Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it." Numbers 13:30

Forgive me Lord for running from your amazing mission to reach the hardest and darkest places in the world.   May we always remember ho much God loves our cities!

Let me end by saying thank you to all the church planters we’ve met on the Fall Intensive.  Your stories, honesty and call have been inspirational, challenging and a great encouragement.

BenAboutLondon

The core of church planting from the Big Apple

Hi everyone! I just wanted to make a post to say, we've arrived safely in New York.  Well we're actually in New Jersey but from where I'm sitting we have amazing views of NY.  I am looking over the Hudson and can see a lot of the cityscape including the Empire State building (as well as other landmarks we don't know yet).  We're staying in a new apartment building called 70 Greene.  It's much nicer than we expected and on the 43rd floor! But I'm not in NY for the stunning views and high rise apartments.

"On this earth we don't have a city that lasts forever, but we are waiting for such a city." Hebrews 13:14 

As I look over the city I am realising in a new way that planting a new church here is a completely different challenge to planting one in East London.  So why come here?  I hope to find the core of what it takes to plant a church in any major city.  That's what the Fall Intensive is all about.  The people are different, the houses are different and the economies are different... But the Jesus & His gospel is aways the same.

Redeemer is a church based in NYC with lead Pastor Tim Keller.  They have not only helped plant churches in many of the diverse communities in NY but have also done the same in many churches across the world.  I believe what I will learn here will help me trust in Jesus more and help me with vision and practical tools to plant our little church back in Bonny Downs (the best community in the world!).

At the same time however, I don't want to get sucked into the dream that "plans" or "strategies" are what you need to really plant a church.  I've heard all sorts of different ideas for what you "need" to plant a church and every time they offer success if you follow them properly.  However, the bottom line is not "strategy" is the saviour of church planting...  Jesus is the only saviour!  

That's what Redeemer is all about and that's why I'm here! 

BenAboutLondon

City to City's Fall intensive for Church Planters

Church Planting Around the Globe from Redeemer City to City on Vimeo.

In less than two weeks my small family are heading off to the Big Apple.  I will be attending City to City's, Fall Intensive training programme for Church Planters.  Although I have been in ministry for about 10 years now I have never had any real training on how to plant a Church.  I feel this is long over due.

While I love what I am a part of in London I often feel like I'm just about keeping my head above water.  I sometimes struggle seeing a way forward.  By going to New York I hope not only to learn things so I may have more wisdom in future plans but also to seek sound advice and council from experienced people and those in the same boat to myself.  New York may be a long way to go for a London boy but I'm praying that getting some distance will also help me to see things from a fresh God perspective.

"For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me!" Psalm 31:3 

The course is based around Tim Keller's vision of Gospel centred Church planting in major world cities and will cover the following subjects:

• Gospel Theology
• Grace Renewal
• City Vision
• Integrative Ministry
• Church and Culture
• Gospel Preaching
• Contextual Mission
• Church Planting
• Movement Dynamics

Those all sound pretty fancy (I normally prefer to use words with one or two syllables) so I need to get my study brain back on before I go.

Emelie, Gabriel and I will be sharing an apartment in New Jersey with another couple attending the course.  It will be quite intense training for me (hense Fall Intensive) but I am more worried about Em.  While Emelie is really excited to go, she is a bit scared about being in a big city with a baby, without the support that she gets from her church family.  Please pray for all three of us in this.

I'll leave you with this vision of Tim Keller's that has greatly inspired me over the past few years.

Redeemer City to City from Redeemer City to City on Vimeo.

Thanks for your prayers,

BenAboutLondon

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