BroadGrace Church | Hoveton, UK

• John Hindley
• Jun 1, 2011
• Series: Church Profiles
• Categories: Church Planting Articles, Latest News

Briefly describe your story of your call to plant a church

My wife, Flick's, parents moved to Norfolk shortly after we were married in 2002 and we have been visiting the area since. We noticed a real lack of gospel-centred churches in many of the villages in this rural area and began to pray that the Lord would establish new churches here. For much of this time I was minister of a church in Manchester, The Plant, that we had begun in 2004 as part of a team.

Over time, as we prayed, we felt the Lord give both Flick and I an increasing love for Norfolk and its people and desire to share Christ here. We talked with local ministers and with our church in Manchester, and both confirmed our call to come and plant here. The greatest encouragement was when a pastor in Norwich (the closest city) said that he had members coming into his church from the area we were seeking to plant into and would encourage them to form a core team with us if we came.

We felt called by God, we had the beginnings of a core team and we had the blessing of our church family in Manchester, so it seemed like it would be simple disobedience not to come and serve Jesus here in Norfolk.

How did you build up your core? What advice would you give to guys in the core-stage?

The core team, which was 12 adults and 6 children when we began, came mostly from Surrey Chapel in Norwich. We are grateful to the elders there for releasing godly, gifted people to join with us to plant BroadGrace.

The biggest two lessons I had learned from our expereince in Manchester was to be crystal clear with potential members of the core over the vision for BroadGrace and to be a community that prayed together as well as did stuff.

We met over the Aumtumn, and I was really trying to disuade people from joining if they had doubts. I wanted t make sure everyone was committed to each other, coming becasue of a love for the lost not a love for the new and shared a deep committment to being an open, honest family whose work was to speak the gospel of Jesus Christ to the 250,000 people who do not know him in this area.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in planting your church (and/or currently facing)?

The ground feels very hard. To characterise the region, people are good, honest and don't see the need for 'religion'. They are Self-dependent, wary of relationships that might cause them pain or stress and in many ways struggling to make ends meet and keep life together. We have struggled to make friendships and build community even though it is what many here long for. We are grateful that we simply get to keep on planting and watering and can trust the Lord to give the growth as he sees fit.

How did you become involved with Acts 29? What have been the biggest benefits of being in the network?

I first came across Acts 29 from listening to sermons and reading articles on church planting in preparation to start BroadGrace. We then had a month in the USA in April 2009 to think aobut church planting. As part of this we met up with a number of pastors of church plants, many of whom were Acts 29 pastors. I was drawn to the gospel generosity of these men and the network as a whole.

When asked to sum up Acts 29 by friends, these are the two words that still spring to mind - gospel and generous. This impression was confirmed at the London bootcamp in June 2009.

When we planted in Manchester, and as we began to think about Norfolk, we had had very helpful advice from Steve Timmis, and I loved his vision of what a church could be under Christ. When I found out that he was the Acts 29 Western Europe Director, it was even more obvious that Acts 29 would be a network that it would be hugely beneficial to be part of.

The other thing that I found very attractive about Acts 29 is the ethos that you will get loads of advice, support and help, but that you will also serve and be part of encouraging church planting. There is such need in Britain, but even more so in much of the res tof Europe that I am excited to be part of the Lord's way of meeting some of that need.

What advice do you have for men who are wrestling with the decision to plant? 

I would say explore it - ther eis a world that needs the gospel and we need many more churches to speak of Jesus clearly, simply and truthfully.

The Acts 29 assessment process is brilliant at helping you wrestle through whether you should be planting a church. It requires committment, but the advice you receive and the process itself is the best thing I know to help you wrestle with this question. Humbly submit yourself to it.

The other advice is to honestly make sure you share this calling with your wife. I have a godly wife who has shared this with me, and I think it could have been very hard if we weren't called to planting together. As it is, it has been great fun!

What’s the most important thing you’d want to share with a new church planter?   

Jesus is your God, not the plant. The world, and sadly much of the church, will judge you by the numbers in your plant. Jesus will not judge you, he has taken the judgment for your sinful failure already. He loves you, and in that calvary loves lies your security, identity, grace, faith, hope, joy, life and dreams. If you see yourself as someone loved by Christ you can be a warm husband, a gentle father and a strong, loving pastor even when half your core team turn out to be flaky and it feels like it is falling apart round your ears.

How do you pastor your family?

Never as I should. But best when I heed what I said above. I need to know that I am loved by Christ, and then I am freed to the joy of lovingly serving my wife and daughter. They are a delight to me, and Satan longs for me to love myself rather than Christ and them. I have a godly wife who makes this very easy. It is important that I take the lead in reading scripture with them and praying with and for them, but it all flows out of what Christ has done - he is our husband, he take sus to his perfect Father, he ask for the Spirit to be sent so that we men can stand as husbands and fathers.

Outside of the Bible, what is the most helpful book you have read for church planting?

Martin Luther's Preface to St Paul's Epistle to the Romans - short but brilliant for his insight from Paul that anyhting that does not proceed from love for Christ is sin - shows the importance of our heart.

Church Profile: BroadGrace Church
Launch Date: May 2010
Location: Hoveton, UK

Mission, Vision, Values of Church 

Love & Justice Church exists to bring glory to God and joy to all people.

What are some examples of God's grace that you have seen in your life and/or the life of your church?

I was a lazy, self-righteous pharisee and a hypocrite. My sin had and has no nobility or excuse. And he died for me, the blood of God was shed for me, and I have the righteousness of Christ freely mine, I have the adoption, the hope and promise. And I have Christ - the greatest treasure a man could glimpse.

I have a wife who shows me Christ and is more precious to me than rubies.

I have a daughter who is a delight and who we feared had died in the womb, but Christ is the resurrection and the life.

In the church, we have done nothing clever, and not seen anything outwardly dramatic, but through the Word of God and prayer we have seen sleepy Christian wake up and the spiritually dead rise!

Even in the small things, we see grace on grace. In what is now seven years of church planting in Manchester and Norfolk the books have never balanced, but the money has always come. I have had words to say when I had no idea what was right. We have seen the simple presence of the Spirit in our lives in so many ways that it is a joy to see that all life is grace received by faith.

How can we pray for you?

There are so many people here who do not know Christ and have no hope. Pray that we would faithfully sow and water and give thanks that our Father cares far more for his Son's honour and for the lost than we do, and that it is he who gives the growth.