Consultation on Church planting in the UK
[if gte mso 9]><xml> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 </xml><![endif][if gte mso 9]><![endif][if gte mso 10]><![endif]In the middle of March Adrian McCartney (Director of Boring Wells) was invited to a UK Consultation on Church Planting and Fresh expressions of Church. This was organised by George Lings of the Sheffield Centre, and Stuart Murray (Spurgeon's College).
The group photograph below includes representatives from Anglican Church Planting Initiatives, Fresh Expressions, The Elim Church, Salvation Army, The Methodist Church in England, Waleswide, Messy Church, Seventh Day Adventists, The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, URC, Urban Expression, and some of the newer church movements.
In the photograph, and with a fascinating perspective on the subject, was a representative from the fast growing movement of Black Pentecostal Churches. Over the two days we were considering church planting in the UK over the last ten years, looking at the growth of training opportunities and reviewing best practice and the things we will never try to do again.
It looks like there were many hundreds of new churches planted in the first ten years of this century. Of course, this raises many questions about sustainability and reproducibility etc. The research will be published later in the year as a Grove Booklet.