Yesterday we gathered at Highfields Church, Cardiff for the New Breed conference 2010. Last year, Andy went along, and there were a total of 15 blokes there. This year, there must have been 50 people -mostly in the 20s-30s age bracket- and there were a group of around 10-15 wives, fiancees and single women. New Breed is growing! But I guess you might be asking, 'What is it?'
'Working in partnership with Acts 29, New Breed seeks to strategically plant churches, to assist in the training of individuals who feel called to church planting, and to provide a supportive network for those who have already planted churches.'(http://newbreed.wordpress.com/introducing-new-breed/)
Set up in 2008 by Dai Hankey (pastor of Hill City Church, Trevethin) and Peyton Jones (Pillar Church, Swansea), New Breed's vision is for a new breed of churches to be planted in Wales, churches that are biblical, missional and radical. New Breed isn't a denomination, it's a network where people who are starting and leading churches in areas of social and economic deprivation can support each other and use each other's experience.
The guest speaker at the conference was Steve Timmis, co-author of 'Total Church' and leader of a network of churches called 'Crowded House', based in Sheffield. Steve gave two talks based on Romans 14-15, and he sought to define church planting and look at what these chapters teach us about being a gospel church.
What is church planting?
Well it's not service starting. You could go to a town, hire a venue, and put on a service, and that isn't necessarily a church plant. Steve defined church planting as 'starting a new community, living for Christ'. As church planters, you go to a needy area and you are there to build a community by the gospel, for the gospel. The gospel was designed to go out, to cross frontiers, to go where it hasn't been before. It has global ambitions, and it is not satisfied until everybody has heard about Christ. The words of Paul in Rom 15:20, 'It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known', is really at the heart of what church planting is all about.
Why do we need new churches to be planted in Wales?
Perhaps you're thinking, well that's great for obscure tribes of people in Africa or South America, but why do we need new churches to be planted in Wales? Surely our land is full of chapels and church buildings, after the great revival of 1904, and many of these buildings are nowhere near full on a Sunday. Even in our own locality, there are churches with no pastor, and congregations of about 6 people. So why plant a new church?
The answer really lies in two pictures: the lighthouse and the torch. Many of our churches are lighthouses- they shine the gospel out to the rooftops of our towns. But there are many dark nooks and crannies which are untouched by the broad beam. And we need people with torches to scatter out and head for these dark places.
In our society and culture today in Wales, many people do not feel comfortable going into a traditional chapel building for a traditional church service. It's not something they did as a child, it's not even something they did if they got married -they probably went to a hotel or a registry office. The appearance of these old buildings can be very intimidating, and if people have to come inside to hear the gospel, they will probably never hear it.
New Breed's vision is to plant churches very much at a 'grass roots' level- meeting in homes, then moving to a community centre or school when numbers grow.
The New Breed idea of a church plant is that a community is created where the broken outcasts of society can find the love of Christ. In today's society, the 'middle class' is perhaps a much broader group of people than in the early 20th Century. More and more people are going to university, and I think the middle class is in some senses defined by empowerment. A middle class person is empowered -by education, financial resources, confidence- to solve their own problems. If a middle class person wants to find out more about Jesus Christ, they have the means and the resources at their disposal to do so. They can use the internet, they can find someone who knows more, they can find a church. But today's 'underclass' of people who struggle with serious addictions, depression, can't hold down a job, are not empowered to do this. If someone needy lives in Trevethin, and the nearest gospel church is in Pontypool town centre, that's 2 miles too far! They need a gospel church in their own community. And here's the big twist: who is the most responsive to the gospel? Is it the secure, well educated middle class? Generally, they're not interested. They don't feel a need for Christ. It's the alcoholics, the drug addicts, the homeless, the messed up people who do. If you're unsure, read the gospels! The sorted people rejected Jesus. The broken people came to Him and found life and healing.
What are the characteristics of a gospel church?
Steve drew out from Rom 14-15 that a gospel church is a place where outsiders, those who are different, are welcomed in, because in the gospel, that's what God has done with us. We were all once outside God's kingdom, but He made it possible for us to become His children, through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. The situation of the church in Rome was that there was serious division between Jews and Gentiles- to do with eating customs. Paul teaches them that their priority needs to be to serve one another, and accept each other.
In a community, it's never about 'ME'. Christ didn't please Himself, or put His comfort and safety first. Passion for God's glory consumed Him. The gospel calls us to have a zeal for God and His church, because in His church, His glory resides.
The passage emphasises the quality of 'endurance'. Community takes endurance. Enthusiasm may take you to 'no man's land', but only the gospel will keep you there. Paul highlights the need for 'hope' (Rom 15:13). Biblical hope is firm confidence in God's ability to keep His promises. Paul could see in the gospel age that God's promise to Abraham, that all nations would be blessed through him, was being fulfilled, as Gentiles from every nation were hearing the gospel and becoming part of God's kingdom. This is a task that is still unfinished and still going on today. Paul prays for this hope, that the gospel will not just save us but grip us and give us missionary hearts. Only those who abound in hope will do the work for Christ.
Our Call to Garndiffaith
Since we moved to Wales for Andy to be trained and equipped, we have been praying for God to lead us to wherever He wants us to go. And it seems that now, the dots are being joined up, and it has become clear that God wants us to go to plant a church in Garndiffaith.
It's been a long journey and there isn't space here to give every single detail, but here are the main 'dots' which make up the picture.
God led us, through various ways and means, to see the need of churches to be planted in the deprived areas of the South Wales valleys.
God led us to Dai Hankey and his team in Trevethin, and we got to know them and built good relationships with them.
God led Dai to the conviction that Hill City needed to send a team to Garndiffaith, and plant a church there.
God led Dai to ask us to be part of that team.
And here's the really crazy part- we'd been praying over several months about the Garn church plant and whether it was right for us to be involved, and then I became really ill in the first trimester of my pregnancy. I was admitted to hospital and Psalm 63 was one which constantly comforted me. In fact, Andy had felt God give him this Psalm for me, and he was the one who had read it to me and marked it out.
At the New Breed Conference, we were prayed for, and a Welsh-speaking guy called Derek came up to us and said that Psalm 63:1 was going round in his head in Welsh and he felt he should share these verses with us. In English, it's 'You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.' I chuckle when I remember how I was admitted to hospital because I was dehydrated! But anyway, in Welsh, it's “O Dduw ti yw fy Nuw fe’th geisiaf di – Mae fy enaid yn sychedu amdanat a’m cnawd yn dihoeni o’th eisiau – fel tir sych a DIFFAITH heb ddwr.” Salm 63 Note the emphasised DIFFAITH which I think refers to the 'dry and parched land'. Dai translates 'Garndiffaith' as 'the rock of desolation', so it's a similar theme. We were just blown away because God had given us this Psalm so recently, and it just seemed a wonderful confirmation that this is the place where God wants us to go.
Obviously, there are a lot of things that need to come together in the next couple of months. We are just trusting that if God is in this project, it will work out. Please join with us in praying for this church plant!
