…to encourage and equip those in leadership in our churches (ministers, elders and church council members, and full-time workers) to think and pray about how we can maintain significant Gospel growth in the next generation by concentrating on the key strategies of Bible-teaching, evangelism and working with children and young people.

Growing Churches
Saturday 3rd February 2007

Of all the SEGP conferences I’ve attended, this year’s, on 3 February was probably the most helpful and inspiring. 

Andy Gemmill opened the day with a fine exposition of Mark 4.  He encouraged us, even if we’re not seeing tangible results, to keep sowing the Word, trusting God to bring a great harvest.

Phillip Jensen, the Dean of St Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney, then gave three talks, looking at the practicalities of growing churches.  His talks were based on extensive research in Sydney on what, humanly speaking, causes churches to grow.  The talks were packed with practical wisdom.  Here’s a taster:

• Churches are in constant danger of stagnation and decay.  Growing churches are always in pain: everything feels overstretched and out of control.  In contrast, dying churches, as long as they are financially viable, are comfortable places to be.  For example, growing churches are so committed to growing gospel ministry that they will always struggle to meet their budgets, whereas dying churches will always ensure that they meet their budget, even if it means reducing expenditure on ministry.
• The mission of the Church is always more important than people.  The bigger we grow, the more people with personal problems there will be to deal with.  If we focus our energies on meeting needs, and helping those with problems, we’ll neglect our primary task of getting the gospel out.
• The key to growing existing churches is for ministers to invest in training others to do ministry.  Everyone has limits on how many newcomers they can welcome, how much personal work they can do.  But stepping back and focussing on training others multiplies ministers, and so multiplies ministry.  The most effective training is hands-on, following the medical model whereby the trainee first watches how to do it, then does it, then teaches someone else how to do it.
• And the best way to feed gospel growth is creative, flexible, consistent church planting.

Several people I spoke to on the day said that these talks spoke precisely to the situation their church was facing.  The danger of stagnation is constant.  So let’s pray that the result of the day around the Partnership will be prayerful, concerted, gospel-focussed action.

REACH BUILD SEND
Saturday 21st January 2006

Just walking into St Helen’s and seeing 500 people gathered for ‘Reach, Build, Send’ (the annual South East Gospel Partnership conference on 21st January 2006) must have been an encouragement for all those who came. As those involved in leadership in our churches we had gathered from across the South East; from large churches and small churches; from many denominations and backgrounds. But all wanting to play our part in increasing the number of churches across the South East teaching God’s Word clearly, and encouraging people to live under it. We had a useful medley of teaching sessions, practical ideas and time for mixing informally.

Simon Smallwood from Dagenham kicked off our day. Often we hear from the larger churches at these events. I am sure those from smaller churches found it very valuable to hear from someone contending for the gospel in a small church situation. It was also a good reminder for those of us from larger churches abut some of the different struggles faced. Simon spoke about the need for focus in order to navigate many contrasting pressures and priorities. He gave us five key points to guide priorities:

1. the local church is there to save sinners
2. the lost matter more than the saved
3. there is only one way to be saved
4. it is a long term ministry, hang in there
5. expect to suffer inconvenience for the lost.

Mark Dever from Washington DC then spoke about the nature of the local church – holy (participating in the character of God) and apostolic (preaching the gospel). He challenged us to think through what building a church in faithfulness would look like and how to ensure we are distinctive from the world. He then gave us his 9 marks of a biblically-based church (see www.9Marks.org).

Lastly Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney, inspired us with a vision of the gospel church as a sending agency: sending out our best people as Christian workers; sending out new congregations. It was an inspiring talk centred on our churches being the result of the gospel having been preached and our duty to do the same – throughout the world. He spoke about how setting a goal in Sydney, 10% of people being in bible-based churches, helped take people away from narrow parochial views towards a big goal. He encouraged us to: train, train, train people; start in a small way – but start; partner with other churches. He left us with four policies:

• preach and pray
• plant
• train people
• change everything that gets in the way of the first three.

Overall it was a thoroughly challenging day which encouraged us to take the gospel forward and thereby give glory to God. It left all of us feeling there was much to pray about and much to do urgently.

In early 2004 we met for the first time as a partnership at “Foundations for the Future” at St. Helen Bishopsgate. The second South East Gospel Partnership annual conference was "Local & Vocal" and was held at The King’s Centre, Chessington. Our latest conference was entitled "Reach Build Send". Review follows...