Sixth Article - Plants
This article is part of a series looking at some of the areas which we feel God stirring us to grow in over the course of 2024.
The first five areas we looked at were Passion, Presence, Power, People and place, you can read all articles in the series here: https://jubd.uk/t7v2bG
Plants
There are 2 P’s left! The next P in this series of articles is Plants and by that I mean church plants!
I’m thrilled that we’re involved with supporting 3 church plants; 1 in the UK and 2 abroad:
Burton - Burton Family Church
Siem Reap - Grace Church Siem Reap
Chemnitz - Chemnitz Church Plant
Let’s be clear, there is so much to do here in Derby, it would be easy to just focus on that and ignore anywhere else, but I don’t believe that is what God has for us…
Have you noticed in the Gospels, that Jesus is always going on to the next town, the next village, He even says this in Mark 1:38.
Even when things seem to be going really well in one place, Jesus wants to move on to the next. I believe our focus should be similar - yes, we are called here, but we are also called to play our part in reaching other places - the nations - for Christ.
That is one of the reasons we are part of a worldwide family of churches - ChristCentral - so that we can play our part in reaching other places.
It’s one of the reasons we feel God is calling us to build a church that serves and blesses other churches and leaders - so that together, we can reach the next village, the next town, the next city, the next nation.
So at the moment we’ve got 3 places which God has led us to be involved with.
Burton on Trent - Burton Family Church
burtonfamilychurch.org.uk
Many of you will be aware that Burton Family Church is a plant which has come out of us directly. The team is led by Matt & Louise Waring, who are ably supported by John & Julie Batten and others.
They meet in the Winshill area of Burton. They’ve built some wonderful links into their local community including a community cafe (BeeBlessed) and the TLG project which works into their local school.
These are wonderful opportunities to serve and bless the local area. What they need most now is to grow their core - it’s a small team that does everything and it needs to grow and develop. So please do continue to pray for them for this.
Siem Reap, Cambodia - Grace Church Siem Reap
cc-siemreap.org
In Siem Reap, Sam & Abi and their family are doing a fabulous job. They are gathering around 100 people on a Sunday - it’s a wonderful mix of Westerners, Cambodians, some Christians and others who are not-yet Christians but are looking in!
It’s a really vibrant, multi-cultural, dual-language church that has grown significantly faster than they expected!
So their biggest need is a leadership team, nearly everything revolves around Sam & Abi and that needs to change. However, it takes time to get to know people and find out if they are not just ‘on-board’ but that they also fully understand the values of Grace Church, especially when people have joined from such diverse backgrounds and such a wide range of church experiences!
So please do pray for them as they seek to develop and grow this team of people around them. Pray for people who can carry weight and lead various aspects of church life and ministry.
Chemnitz - Eastern Germany
https://webers.website/
Markus & Leah who are now based in Chemnitz are right at the beginning of their church planting journey.
They have begun settling into their new location, having moved their family from the UK over summer 2023. They are now ready to start gathering a team in earnest.
At least they don’t have a language barrier to get on top of. Markus is German and Leah has also spent time in Germany having studied there.
They are also in need of developing a core team and they could do with some more people, particularly those with experience of church planting or leadership to join them over the next 6 months.
So let’s continue to pray for that!
It’s a wonderful privilege to play our part in supporting each of these church plants. This grows out of our vision to be a church that not only serves our own city and the communities around us but also a church which serves and blesses other churches.
God has given us a vision which is bigger than ourselves, it’s bigger than just the city of Derby. He is calling us to play our part in helping to reach the nations for Jesus! Not only that we want Jubilee to be a church which encourages and refreshes leaders from other places - both locally and internationally.
How can you play your part?
By praying for these situations and by being open to God’s leading, as we seek to encourage these and other churches as they seek to serve Jesus in their localities.
In our next article we’ll look at our final P ‘purpose’.
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