Last week I attended the Church Planting Today conference run by the Baptist Union of Victoria and the Churches of Christ, featuring the English church planting guru, Stuart Murray Williams. Stuart had a remarkable collection of stories to tell about church planting and emerging church efforts in the UK ranging from the relatively tame to the outrageously extreme.
Something from the conference which struck me in a new way was how important church planting efforts are in the mission strategy of the church as a whole. When you look at the areas of substantial population increase (growth corridors) predicted for Melbourne over the next 25 years, you can see all too clearly how many people won’t have a nearby church to attend even if they want to, unless some church planting work is done now.
I also found out that Crossway is engaged in some excellent church planting efforts. I had a chance to visit Craigieburn, where Brett Mitchell is leading a Crossway planting team. Their public services started less than 3 weeks ago. Brett is a great guy, and he exudes excitement and enthusiasm. I’m sure that Crossway Craigieburn is in for a great future. Many more churches need to catch the planting vision.
2 replies on “Planting new churches”
Hi John,
My colleague Rebecca Lambert introduced me to your blog. I actually have known Rebecca since she started here at Moores.
My husband and I have just moved to Craigieburn to be part of this church plant. Brett Mitchell asked us to be part of his Core Team last year; since then it has been awesome! God has confirmed time and time again that we are meant to be part of it all!
The build-up to the first service was very exciting, to say the least and for want of a better word! God has brought a diverse and gifted group of people together for this Church plant, led by Brett and Michelle. It is so exciting to be part of it all and to see what God is going to do in Craigieburn and beyond, which has been a very “dry” area.
The week prior to the church opening – we did a great prayer-walk around Craigieburn. We started up at Mt Ridley which looks out over the whole area and different groups went out prayer-walking into different areas of Craigieburn that we had earmarked.
It is so exciting to see the support of other Christians.
Blessings,
Diane
John,
I am a long-term member of Crossway, and the (fairly) recent aggressive move towards a “church planting movement” is so wonderfully exciting… and God is really showing up.
I encourage every church leader reading this to press into God for a vision for new churches.
One of the best ways to catch this vision is to stay up-to-date with the Next 1000 website, of course!
Blessings,
-Alister