These 12 have said ‘yes’, we are with you in heart, vision & values.  Why is the concept of membership so important to us?

Love this recent post from the guys at @harborchurch in NH, USA  (part of our Newfrontiers family) that goes a long way to summing it up.  Here are some reasons NOT to join us – a bit of reverse psychology (with the truth in brackets!) :

1. If you want religion (This church will be built on the radical gospel of grace).

2. If you’re a consumer wanting to “go to church” 1x a week for a nice show (We are not a Sunday show, we are a community of disciples on a mission).

3. If you’re looking for the next cool thing in town (We want to grow by conversion growth, not church-goer transfer growth).

4. If you’re a Christian and you don’t like your current church (You will find reasons to not like this church).

5. If you have a bad track record at churches of being unteachable and causing problems (You won’t change here, you’ll repeat the pattern).

6. If you have an agenda (We have our vision, our mission, and our values—your private agenda does not supersede them).

7. If you’re a wolf (We will sniff you out).

8. If you think this will be a nice little church that stays the same size, where everybody knows your name and you have my mobile number on speed dial and we have a picnic lunch together every week (By God’s grace, we want to grow).

9. If you think this will be easy and smooth (This will be hard and difficult; this will be a fight, a battle, and a challenging mission).

10. If you want to hold onto your comfortable life (You must lose your life).

So what’s great?

~ 200+ gathered every week so far (yes, I am counting women & children!)

~ new faces EVERY week!  This is phenomenal, and many are connecting. So good to hear their stories

~ needing to multiply small groups very sharpish!

~ learning to harness newly passionate people

~ best of all, 7 weeks ago there was no church.  Now there is

We’ve also gone crazy and started an Alpha right from the kick-off.  There were 10 guests last night!

One week there was not a church like ours in the centre of Shoreham…………..the next week 200+ are meeting regularly to worship Jesus.  Quite phenomenal!

Shoreham

What things have stuck out for me so far?

• the multi-site model of doing church starts you from a position of tremendous strength (people, their gifts & resource)
• members who were only partly keen for Sundays are now passionately serving with unbridled enthusiasm, freed from complacency
• dormant leaders (been there done it, or lacking vision) have woken up, stood up, and wised up to the fact that they’re on mission
• video preaching works
• communities are watching us carefully, checking our motives, integrity and credibility
• unbelievers are always present, they really are!

There will be loads more……

At first light, teams of brilliant servers will be moving tech equipment off lorries into the Main Hall (which can squeeze close to 300 people into it), into other rooms to cater for COG’s (our children’s work), and into areas for serving us great coffee & croissants.

Then worship team will get set up, the Connect (Welcome, Host & Point) will hold their positions, looking to engage with all-comers. The magnificent COG’s teams will ready themselves for our little ones.  The whole building will be buzzing with expectation!

Expectation is very high, and although that can seem pretty nerve-racking, I for one have very high expectations of the coming months.

My expectations are NOT that we MUST get it all right, first time and with every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed – that simply won’t happen, but we will aim for it.  We will be ironing out some hefty creases in the early weeks, no doubt about that.  In that respect, let’s see if we can out-do one another in our ‘grace thresholds’.  We are going to need to!

But my expectations are on another plain.  Remembering that we are acting on the initiation of God, His plans and purposes for us as a church as we move to a multisite model.  Jesus building of the church not only fills me with great relief and peace, but reminds me that I can fully expect great things!  After all, he’s the Senior Pastor!

My prayer for all of us this week and many that follow, is that we remember that at it’s heart, multisite is simply FOR the gospel and making Jesus famous in more localities than we are currently reaching.  Where the gospel gets proclaimed (not just through preaching but through everyday life), people will come to know Jesus – simple.

William Carey once said “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.”  We’ve been promised ‘quick fruit’, and expectation is high in light of the gospel.  If you are a CCK’er involved in this adventure, let’s go for it this coming week.  Raise your expectations of a God who is committed to us.

If I listen real carefully, I can hear the sound of something approaching….. Yes!  The Shoreham Site of Church of Christ the King is coming fast!  As I write this short piece there are 46 days remaining before we publicly launch.  We are putting up a ‘front door’ to the Shoreham, Southwick, Mile Oak, Fishergate, Portslade areas and surrounds, inviting all to meet Jesus.

That’s what we’ve done in the City centre at New England (and will do at the Racecourse in early 2012), and literally hundreds have connected to us this year alone!  This is what we are longing for in the West…….many new people connecting to us and having their lives changed.

As you can imagine, the planning processes for launch are red hot, and may I take this opportunity to say a HUGE thank you to the dozens of folk who have volunteered for teams and even leadership roles in all areas of church life.

If you’re part of this new Site and thinking, ‘Hang on, I need to get in on the act!’, then great. Look to connect with a Shoreham Sunday team of one sort or another.  We do need you and would love you to serve.  Areas include COG’s, Welcome, Connect, Tech, Set-Up etc.  Or perhaps it’s time for you to step up and lead a Small Group (gulp!).

Finally, a reminder that we have two ‘Pre-Launch’ Sundays (Sept 11th & 18th) where we will effectively ‘do’ church together, with all the teams running, including worship and preaching, just so we get it right on the 25th Sept when we go public.

Bring it on…

Just looking around was a real thrill.  It occurred to me that our own Shoreham rabble, much like the early church, must have been a sight of curiousity to onlookers.  The strong community feel is magnetic, and whilst none of us is perfect (or have life sorted) there is a slot for us to fill.

With hospitality being the upcoming theme for the next few weeks at CCK (check the trailer here), let’s continue to work extra hard at being that welcoming, loving community that excludes nobody.

When did you last host a meal, or suggest a pub crawl, or whatever?  In my book, community doesn’t always come naturally to us.  It can be terrifying, or we can feel inadequate or out of place.  That’s why we dont rely on our own strength to pull it off, but trust God for the building of community and all of its challenges.  Go for it!  Kicking off multisite with this in our hearts will bring added steel to the launch of CCK Shoreham, which is now only a matter of weeks away on Sept 25th!

Just had a week of TOAM (the Newfrontiers conference), and being the final one it was high on looking back and looking forward. For me personally it’s always a tremendous combination of privilege (that I would ever be connected to such a world-wide family), and comfort (in the real sense of the word – boot up backside), knowing that God doesnt need me but wants me to get my hands dirty for the Kingdom. Love it.

On Friday night we honoured Terry & Wendy Virgo who have shaped the lives of thousands (probably hundreds of thousands indirectly) around the globe in the gospel of grace (which is the gospel anyway!). A couple of hundred of us heard just a few but significant tributes, and it was a humbling night.

With September launch rushing toward us, these last few days have reminded me that :

• I am a very weak man in need of Him and His strength
• I have an ambassadorial mandate on my life (we all do!)
• what might seem small in global terms (reaching Shoreham & surrounds) still has eternal consequences
• I woudn’t want to give my life and energy to anything else and I’m grateful for the air I breathe

Right, that’s enough reflecting………..I’m off to the City centre!

It was so encouraging this week to gather with a large number (100+) who will be launching with us, and for over 75% to sign up to serve in some way was just humbling and awesome.

There is a ton of prep going on (as you can imagine), and the team is motoring toward a high quality, Jesus-honouring start to this new God-appointed venture.

I love this church……….Jesus’ church.  This next phase for us is HUGE, but we have a God who is way bigger than we can imagine, way more committed than we could ever be, way more jealous for His glory than we muster.  That brings a peaceful confidence to my heart.  Hope it does to yours too…..

I had a wander around my local M&S today and, boy, there is a lot of choice food-consumption happening!

By FAT I mean Faithful, Available, Teachable.

The world needs more guys that are FAT…….and leading churches for that matter.

Next week we (CCK) have the privilege of appointing three new elders (well, its God who appoints) to the high servanthood role of guiding, guarding and governing.

These men are FAT! 

Here is a link to PJ Smyth’s  excellent paper on eldership…   http://godfirst.co.za/files/The_World_Needs_More_Elders_0.pdf

Don’t eat too many chocolate eggs!

The nuts and bolts of delivery are numerous, let alone the vision-casting, communication of plans, taking good & faithful friends on a journey etc.

All of this requires us to be ‘multi-sighted’…….. Yes.  Taking a view that doesn’t mean all our personal preferences get met.  That’s what I call being ‘short-sighted’.

We must see this change as maximising gospel-impact.  That’s the goal, let’s not neglect it.

Our own journey has so far been exhilarating!  Here’s some of what we’ve learnt……

http://ccklife.cck.org.uk/towards-multisite-10-things-weve-learnt-so-far/