Category: Planting

Why minus four is greater than plus twenty: the curious maths of a growing church

We had about twenty new people at our newcomers event last time we ran it.  But in the week afterwards, a couple of church families warned me they might be moving away for job reasons. Still, twenty new adults in, four adults out, 20-4=16 – sounds like church growth, doesn’t it? Not so fast, young Jedi.

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Enter the Dragon: #Waleswide

To Wales, then, for a couple of conferences on church planting.  Waleswide is an initiative of a range of evangelical churches, to establish the idea of Wales as a 21st century mission field.  Those two sentences contain at least three ideas that should make us shake our heads in disbelief and wonder – and the reason

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Eleven lessons from being part of a church plant

Church p;anting

We said goodbye to a church we’ve known and loved for seven years – its first seven years. It had been a privilege to be a member rather than a leader, and to be part of a little Christian community take its first steps.  Seven years before a team of 35 adults and 12 children

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2013 Top posts #4 – My 10 top take-aways from Matt Chandler

We had a really encouraging and enthusiastic afternoon with Matt Chandler. Here are my top takeaways:- Parents – We need to keep articulating the gospel, otherwise our kids will believe that either legalism or licence is the way to go. The gospel must NOT be assumed Otherwise we, and they, will continually want to get

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Un-church for the un-churched

There’s a little flurry of atheist ‘churches’ at the moment. Meetings of like-minded secularists who listen to some music, hear a talk, reaffirm their views, have a collection, and then afterwards have a cup of coffee and some home-made cake. It’s very earnest (and therefore very funny), but they are deliberately trying to put into

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Simmering sermons

One time, I decided to cook a surprise meal for my family. I cook for them fairly often, so Dad in the kitchen wasn’t the surprise. The key is, because it was to be a surprise, I didn’t check that I was doing the right meal. Steak was in the fridge – lots of it,

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