"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations" Matt 28:18-19.
A new church plant seems the appropriate strategic base from which to grow St Alban's and God's kingdom, making disciples and disciple-makers.
St Alban's has been growing numerically over the last ten years. In the early 1990's the average attendance at 9.30 church was over 100, but from the mid 1990's it has been closer to 100. After 6.30 church was planted, the numbers fell a little more, however, the total number of people meeting around the word each Sunday increased. The number of people attending 9.30 church is reaching 100 again, and when the children are in the building, it's quite full. There is still room to grow, but not much!
With the establishing of a weekly Kid's Club in 2001, God willing, we'll see many new families contacted and new opportunities for the gospel opening up. Current wisdom suggests that the best way to incorporate new people into churches is to plant new churches, where all social networks are new, and the number of opportunities for ministry is great.
If we want to work for Kingdom growth, and want St Alban's to keep growing, we need to accommodate for that growth. A new church plant, focused, though not exclusively on families with children still at home, would seem to be an excellent opportunity to see the gospel grow among us.
The team that originally was set the task of exploring a church plant among families of young children, after considering the above factors, has decided to pursue the vision of a church plant, but reshape it more broadly.
To see the Kingdom of God grow; at St Alban's and beyond.
9.30 and 6.30 are well established churches. Both will hopefully continue to grow but the size of the building and the fact that they are well established will cause limitations to growth. A new church plant will go some way towards overcoming these limitations.
Anyone!
But with the broad target group being;
Families with children still at home who are currently not involved with a church.
The church would not be restricted to this, but it would serve as a broad target group, hopefully drawing on contacts made through the new weekly Kid's Club, but also from the local community and other networks. We propose the church be family friendly and non-churched friendly, ie as accessible as possible for people who are not used to church (eg explaining different things that are happening during the service).
The main meeting of the church will be on Sunday afternoons, either 4.00 or 4.30 pm. This gives time for people to finish sports etc for the day. As well it allows for a meal to be shared together each week (see below). There will be other structures that feed in an out of this meeting on different days and times (see below).
A core team of 20 people will be needed to commit to the church plant. This team will meet until June to pray for and to flesh out more specific elements of this church plant. Once the church plant is launched, this team and others would continue to meet before the meeting to pray.
Some leadership issues need to be anticipated. Broadly speaking, we propose that the new church plant will come under the leadership and oversight of the St Alban's Parish Oversight Team and the St Alban's Parish Council. We envisage that these existing teams will assume responsibility for the new church as they currently do for all St Alban's churches.
We propose that a smaller oversight team of 4 - 5 people from the core team of 20 will be appointed by Parish Oversight Team to oversee this church. The role of this team would be to meet to pray weekly for and to meet, say, monthly to plan and pray for the life of this church.
A policy would need to be formulated about the appointment of other leaders such as home group leaders, music leaders, service leaders, preachers, etc.
The Rector and Associate Minister would need to negotiate levels of involvement in and areas of responsibility for the church plant. This would practically manifest in issues of attendance at services, preaching, and role on oversight team.
As our broad target group is families we need a strategy for children. We propose beginning the meeting each week with all children present. At least one song that the children can learn and sing and some other input from the Word, eg short talk, enacted Bible reading, reading by one of the children etc.
Children then leave to creche or program for school children in hall, though any parents are welcome to keep their children in with them. We want it to be a meeting that can accommodate children being present.
After the meeting all join together again for a meal (see below).
We propose that a few people from 6.30 and/or 9.30 could be asked to help run creche and a few others to run a school-age program. We will need to trust God to raise up the people we will need. This will probably be low key at first and can then be developed as the church grows and as we see which children we have coming.
Other strategies for ministering to children will need to be developed. Kids Club is already a going concern. Other possibilities include camps, kid's music, playgoups, contact within schools (see below).
Ministry to children is an important part of this church plant and will need to be planned for in future (see proposal for new worker).
A separate bulletin would be required for the new church plant.
In addition, communication structures would need to be established from the launch to ensure clarity about who to see for what, the bigger picture of St Alban's and shared ministries and specific areas of ministry for this meeting, eg leadership, people care, welcoming, home groups, music, food, etc.
A weekly meal would be an integral part of the new church as it allows adults and children to interact, share fellowship over a meal, perhaps discuss the sermon etc.
Between a half and one hour would be needed for the meal. If it comes after the meeting, people will be less likely to 'skip' the meal, and it allows the later church to arrive and set up in the church building.
It would need to be a sustainable practice, so the new team would need to discuss how to make it work and be as problem free as possible.
One suggestion is for each member to bring something for their household and some left over each week. This would ensure new people can join in the meal. To make it simple a set menu would be decided. Four different (simple) meals for the four different Sundays of the month. On that Sunday, each member / household brings that meal (eg soup and bread; chicken, bread, salad; etc). as new people become members, they can contribute to the meal. Alternatively, soup and bread could be the meal for the first month or two, and this could be organised more centrally, and would more easily accommodate new people who come but have not brought any food. Whatever is decided, it will need to be regularly reviewed.
The team will need to assess what to do about potential "gate-crashers", people turning up for a free meal. This, however, shouldn't be too much of a problem as we can point out it's for members of the church, and that each person contributes, ie it's not a soup kitchen. The Team will need to fine-tune these practicalities.
The Prayer Book lists four chief aspects of the gatherings of Christians as giving God thanks, praise, hearing his word and intercession. We also see these as important aspects of the new church meeting. The details will need to be fleshed out by the new team, but we propose that the meeting will be about an hour long and the content will include;
It would also include semi-regular 'specials' such as testimonies and interviews (as today's culture highly values stories and personal experiences), reviews and 'What Abouts' (topical application of God's Word), and Baptisms as needed. Communion would be a regular part, occurring monthly.
The format to look something like this,
A new church is more than a new service or meeting. Within the new church we will want to promote an ethos of inviting friends and reassessing how 'new-comer friendly' our meetings are. Also there will be;
We propose that St Alban's consider employing a third staff worker to focus on youth and children's ministries. We propose that their job description would include;
We don't envisage this person would be solely attached to the church plant.
We'd need twenty people to begin. People who will commit to the church plant, to be there each week for at least the first twelve months, making this their primary church, inviting friends, looking for ways to contacts people (see outreach strategies above) etc. Having a new staff worker who could focus on youth and children's ministries would be excellent too.
We'd want to start asking for 'missionaries' to help plant the church through March 2001, and begin the public church meetings in June. A timetable for this is below.
Mar 11, 18, 25.
Promote new church plant at 9.30 and 6.30 churches.
April 1
Ask for volunteers to commit to the church. First planning meeting
for new team / core.
Then Ap 8,15, 22, 29
To be held at time the new church will be, ie Sunday afternoons
at 4.00 or 4.30 pm.
These meetings will continue weekly through April. This would only require one person from each household thus keeping the meetings to a manageable size while allowing people with children to avoid hassles of babysitting.
May 6
Begin weekly meetings for the whole team, this will in essence be the
new church.To continue through May and the first weekend of June
which is a long weekend.
June 10
Launch of new church. Begin public meetings.
Gordon Killow, Rob Lampard, Narelle Lampard, Andrew Mills, Natalie Mills