I met with Tom from Christ Church Manchester a couple of weeks ago and he shared their vision for planting churches all over Manchester and how students play an in integral role in that. If you are a church leader, how are you going to release students to step up and lead? If you are a student, how are you going to step up and have a go?
Have a read of Tom's story...
It was September 2016.
I was sitting in a Sainsbury’s café with Alastair and Heather planning our new startup church. Alastair and Heather were both students going into their final year, and in our minds that makes them the ideal people to get a new community started that could grow into a church in the heart of Manchester.
This might sound like an odd scene to describe. You are reading the Fusion blog, so you probably already get that students are absolutely pivotal to building God’s kingdom.
But still, getting a new church plant started. Really?
Really.
Over the last decade, we have been getting new churches started all over our city. In the process there’s a bunch of things that we have learned – both from the ones that worked and from the ones that didn’t – that fed into that conversation in Sainsbury’s. Today I will share two of the big principles that have come to drive us.
1. The ‘Have a Go’ Culture
Basically this means that we love to try stuff, and we know that some of it will work like a dream, and other things not so much.
One of our biggest inspirations in the Bible is Jonathan and his armour bearer. The people are in a bad spot, they stepped out and gave it a shot with an attitude of ‘maybe God will do something here’.
There are ways to pioneer that don’t mean risking everything you have built so far, and getting started with Alastair and Heather was a win-win for us. If this startup church took off then new ground would be taken for God’s kingdom. If it didn't gain traction then never mind; it would still have provided an opportunity to invest in two young leaders who would emerge from it stronger next time (the ‘have a go’ culture thrives because it is coupled with a ‘second chance culture’ – but that’s a story for another day).
As it happened, it worked out – and CCM:City Centre is now established and meets every Sunday evening in the heart of Manchester’s Northern Quarter.
2. ‘Be a Student, Plant a Church’
Alastair and Heather were not the first students who have been involved in planting with us, and it has become a bit of a motto to ‘be a student, plant a church’.
One time we were approached by one of our freshers who got so caught up in the vision that he wanted to plant into his halls. In the end he built a community that ran an Alpha Course, and he got to share Jesus with dozens of fellow students.
Another one of our students got a new community started in the halls of Salford uni and has since gone to use what he learned to start a new student congregation in Japan!
Be a Student. Plant a Church.
(Or at least have a go)
