Dear diary, I’m in Crowded House for three weeks - week three
So here’s a diary of all that I’ve got up to this week. Again, if you need clarification as to what anything is then do ask in the comments, and if you don’t know what Crowded House is nor what I’m doing here for three weeks then have a look at my first post by clicking here and my second post by clicking here.
| Morning | Afternoon | Evening | |
| Sunday 20th January | Teaching meeting. | Broom Spring house church meeting and lunch. | Hanging out at the pub. |
| Monday 21st January | GTs meeting, Sharrow Vale leaders’ meeting, outreach project presentation. | Lunch with Del, sitting in on a ‘counselling’ session, sermon comparison. | TCH leaders’ meeting. |
| Tuesday 22nd January | Group hermeneutic exercise, travelling to Loughborough. | Lunch at a greasy cafe, hanging out with Jonny. | Hanging out with Jonny and others from the church. |
| Wednesday 23rd January | Hanging out with Matt. | Hanging out with Matt, travelling back to Sheffield. | Pasta plus with communion, followed by hanging out watching a French film. |
| Thursday 24th January | Porterbrook training. | Porterbrook training, coffee with Michael. | Sharrow Vale leaders’ meeting. |
| Friday 25th January | GT meeting, Northern Training Institute. | Self organised time, coffee with Michael and Martyn (preparing for feedback). | Hanging out with my host family. |
For my final week here I wanted to focus on church planting. It’s something that is very much on the cards here and is in fact a core value of the Crowded House as you’ll find on their website:
“6. Growing churches by planting churches: We are committed to starting new congregations - both in areas where no church exists and through subdividing growing congregations. We will not develop into a single, large congregation.”
As you’ll see from my diary I was in Loughborough this week with the Crowded House church there. They are planning on dividing into two teams and planting another church from the existing one. I was also sat in a planning meeting where Tim Chester was sharing his plans for the Edge network (in my previous post I mistakenly called it the Sharrow network!) which included discussion about the possibility of planting churches in the homes of recent converts or even in the homes of those who aren’t Christians but who are interested. The Sharrow Vale church are currently exploring and discussing the possibility of dividing into as many as five missional teams called Out There Teams which would be almost like separate churches with particular foci for mission.
In their book, Total Church, Tim and Steve argue that the best way for mission to be central to the church is by church planting (p.86). The benefits are fairly obvious when you think things through. If you were to take a typical UK church of say around 100 people and take 30 of them to plant a church, those 30 will be right at the front line of mission as they seek to actually do the planting, then the remaining sending church will see the gap and will see the need to fill that gap and so mission occurs. Rather than mission being a part of the agenda, when a church continually and actively pursues church planting, mission becomes the agenda
Tim and Steve identify essentially two models for church planting (p.88). One where a team of apostles (which can simply mean those who are sent) go off to somewhere where there isn’t a church and start sharing the gospel with people but by also meeting together as a church. The other is quitea natural thing where they would grow too large and divide, much like how anamoeba reproduces. Churches met in homes to start with and didn’t start adapting their homes until the mid 100s and didn’t start constructing church buildings until after Constantine ‘became a Christian’!
One thing that this has created in Crowded House is what I’d perhaps describe as a willingness to be experimental in how church is done.Because they are constantly looking to plant and doing so within smaller contexts in houses, there is always a possibility for trying a different means of reaching people with the gospel depending on the context. Sometimes things have gone wrong, but that’s been fine. They do say that Crowded House never stays the same, so the structure I laid out in my previous post, in two months time could be completely wrong!
If you’re interested in reading further about church planting, here’s some recommendations for further reading: Chapter 5 of Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, which is where they cover a lot of how they think about church planting, (though it’d do you well to read the whole thing!) Steve has also put together a book called Multiplying Churches, which I’ve had recommended to me at Bible College. Then there is also the book, Organic Church, by Neil Cole. I read the first two chapters and introduction with one of the Loughborough church leaders and it was seeming to go in a very helpful direction. I know Tim Chester has delved into it and been influenced by it too.
So there’s my final reflection from being here. There’s so much I could write on what I’ve seen on how they do things. Of course theirs is not a perfect church and theirs is not the only way of ‘doing’ church, they’d be the first to tell you that. But they’re gospel centred seeking to further God’s kingdom on earth. I think the two most helpful things for me in spending three weeks here have been to see the value of genuine community (aka the allelous element - being devoted to one another, teaching one another etc) and catching the bug for church planting.
(All page references are for Total Church, by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis; published by IVP, 2007)
