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Bulletin 91 Date : 12th Mar 2007
CLC : Seedlings

Congregational Life Cycles Part 2 – Birth / Seedlings

The idea of planting a brand new congregation may seem alien to many of you if you have been going to the same church for many years. But for some churches, questions are being asked about the right way forward for church in the 21st century.

For instance, some of our church buildings were nicely situated when they were built 70 or 80 years ago but since then, the council has decided to build a four-lane dual carriageway between the church building and the community you used to serve resulting in declining attendance. Does this suggest that you need to think about planting a new congregation on the other side of the dual carriageway?

Other churches may have the opposite problem of unprecedented growth which has made it difficult to house everyone in the building on Sunday. Maybe a new housing estate has sprung up and you’ve done a brilliant job of evangelising the estate. A nice problem to have but something needs to happen.

Another church may find that the present worshipping congregation has become rather set in its ways and is unable to attract people of a different age group or those wanting a different style of worship. Christians today are far more discerning about the style of worship on offer. Also, the British Sunday is not what it used to be and the service time on offer may not suit everyone.

The solutions to all of these examples could be to plant a new congregation. In botanical terms this could mean to re-pot into a larger plant pot for those constrained by space or to take cuttings for those wishing to start a new congregation at a different time, or perhaps, in a different place.

So how do you go about it? Well, you can’t do much better than getting on board with the Fresh Expressions movement (www.freshexpressions.org.uk). They have a year-long Mission Shaped Ministry course aimed specifically at this kind of work. They can also put you in touch with hundreds of other Fresh Expressions around the country and skilled practitioners who can get alongside you in the early days. We also have a Regional Forum for Fresh Expressions which I coordinate in the Nottingham and Derby region with Anglican colleagues.

Some years ago a friend brought us a small cutting of a bougainvillea from Southern Spain. Now we do not have a conservatory to house it in but, in spite of this, it has just about managed to survive, albeit with a few problems on the way. I have to say that only once in its brief 6 year life in England has it flowered. This tells me that bougainvillea plants do not like being in England unless the conditions in which they are placed resemble those of Southern Spain.

So, one lesson we learn from nature is that we need to plant the new seedling in the right environment – that means having the right kind of soil, the right amount of heat and light and plenty of tender loving care. Our bougainvillea struggled in all respects, poor thing! I terms of planting a new congregation, this means creating a style of church which is right for the context into which you intend to plant it and having the right people and leadership to make it successful.

One point to remember with a new Fresh Expression or church plant is that they always demand more attention than the existing ones in the circuit. Someone once said that ‘A Fresh Expression of Church is like a new born baby – noisy at one end and unpredictable at the other’. So when a new-born baby comes into the family, all attention is focused upon the new arrival – far more than it deserves, so may say.

John 15 is really valuable as a guide here because it reminds us that God is the vinedresser, not ourselves. We need to abide in Him and give prayerful consideration to the personality of the new congregation and the environment into which we are seeking to plant it. God can work amazing things in new church plant situations but He expects us to apply biblical principle to this work first.