Reflections on Church Planting – Part 4
This series of seven reflections were shared by Josh Cockayne at the Plant Course 2022, hosted at St George’s Leeds.
“The Return to Antioch in Syria
They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.”
We’re going to be thinking today about how these new contexts are resourced and equipped for their new ministry.
1. they returned…encouraging them to remain true to the faith ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,’
The first thing to notice is that Paul and Barnabas return. I once met an evangelist in a city centre somewhere in the north of England who asked if he could pray with me, and I was very happy to let him. When we got talking about faith, he proceeded to show me the tally chart in the back of his bible of “the number of souls he had won for Jesus”.
Now I don’t know the first thing about this man or his long-term strategy for growth, but he is a good example in my mind of ministry that thinks the only important thing is the number of people coming through the doors to Church. We know from our own experience of ministry that having new people finish a seekers course, or even come to faith and being baptised doesn’t mean that as servants of God’s church our job is then finished. Many, many people walk away from faith and church even after the most dramatic conversions. The statistics we present might accurately capture who is coming in the front door, but they don’t always reflect those leaving the backdoor.
Paul and Barnabas are not “hit and run” evangelists who care only about “saving souls” before moving onto the next town. They return to invest in those who have come to faith and are committed to seeing them grow. It is also notable that they come back to encourage, but what they offer is not sales patter: “keep following Jesus and it’ll change your life…” They give the new disciples a realistic sense of what following Jesus is like: their faith will mean that they encounter many hardships! How honest are we with those we are calling to serve on our teams, whether they be people in our congregation, our intern schemes, or our staff?
2. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them
Second, Paul and Barnabas have a kingdom vision not an empire vision. They are not concerned with creating the Paul and Barnabas show. This is really difficult as a church leader; we think that many of people we ask to do things will do a worse job than we will. This might be true. But maybe the truth is that we are secretly worried they will do a better job than us and then we will be out of a job!
My journey through the discernment process wasn’t always easy. I was trying to navigate how to keep a calling to academic research alongside ordained ministry and I was very aware that I may have to leave the diocese at any moment if a university job came up. On paper, I was a bit of a nightmare. When I got a job in Scotland (in which the Church of England has no power!), I thought my journey with ordination was over. But Bishop Glyn, my sponsoring bishop went out of his way to make sure that I could remain an ordinand and begin my training. +Glyn had a vision for investing in people that was not shaped by his budget or long-term diocesan strategy; he saw the need to invest in me for the kingdom not for the diocese.
I wonder how often we are willing to invest in someone who we know may offer no benefit to our church but who has a huge amount to offer to the body of Christ? Do we have a kingdom vision for resourcing and investing the Church? Or do we have an empire vision?
3. with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they put their trust
Lastly, Paul and Barnabas put their money where their mouth is… they were prepared not only to appoint new leaders but to back them. Again, we see that Paul and Barnabas are fully invested not only in getting these new churches started, but they are also prepared to devote their time in prayer and fasting to ask God to bless their ministry. They also recognise that for the Church to grow they need to have faith not only in God whom they entrust these leaders too, but they need to have faith in the leaders themselves.
When I was a student, I attended G2, where Christian Selvaratnam was the vicar. It was fairly common for students to lead the service or to preach. One week my friend who was leading the service got up to pray, and said the words: “God, I know many of us have had really crap weeks, but we are here to worship you”. Christian received many strongly worded emails from the parents of young children that week, who were not best pleased at hearing such language in their prayers. But it was Christian who was prepared to apologise. He knew that investing in younger leaders was risky, but without taking risks, we will never provide opportunities to grow.
So, we can see in this passage that resourcing the Church for mission is costly. It will cost us our time, it may cost us our reputation, it might cost us some of our resources. But we must have a vision for God’s Church and not our own mini empires if we want to take seriously what it means to see the Church grow.
Joshua Cockayne
Joshua is the Team Leader at Holy Trinity Boar Lane: a Church with a midweek ministry to love and serve workers in the heart of the city. He is also an honorary lecturer in the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews and a tutor at Westminster Theological College. He previously led the G2 Central church plant in York from 2016–2017.
