Work has begun in the city of Leeds to extend our programme of church grafting and revitalisation in the area, thanks to our recent award from the national church.
This work, part of our Barnabas: Encouraging Confidence programme, involves people being sent from their own church to become part of a grafting team which works in a new place, re-energising and supporting mission.
A team of people from St Peter’s Morley and St George’s Leed have begun a new ministry at St Andrew’s Morley, starting a new 11am service.
On Sunday, May 24, which was Pentecost Sunday, the church launched the new service with a team of some 20 people, including people from a variety of backgrounds and with a wide variety of skills.
The Revd Richard Barber, new Team Vicar, said: “The preparations for the launch went well and involved a lot of prayer and giving out flyers.
“There's also been really intentional relationship-building between the new team and the existing congregation.
“At our first 11am we were thrilled to have some 55 people, including ten children and 15 new people!”
Pauline, a member of the team going to St Andrew’s, joined the team after 46 years at St George’s.
Pauline said: “I’m 68 years old, and I thought I knew everything about being a Christian.
“I thought I’d heard God speaking to me so many times, but this time it was like a bolt out of the blue.
“God really spoke so clearly to me about moving to St Andrew’s.
“And immediately, as soon as I said, yes Lord, I’ll follow, I felt so certain that this was the right thing to do and felt such peace about it.”
Across the city in East Leeds, the Revd Hannah Jones has recently been licensed as the vicar of the newly formed parish of Swarcliffe and Whinmoor, leading a team of people from St George’s to help re-energise mission in the area.
The team are current doing important preparation work in the parish before starting new forms of mission in the summer.
There is also going to be a new church graft from St Paul’s Ireland Wood this year, with a team led by the Revd Bev Monck getting ready to plant shortly.
More on this will be shared in due course.
To prepare for this work, members of all the teams completed the Plant Course, a church planting programme run by the St Hild Centre for Church Planting.
Over seven sessions, the teams were equipped with information and support for practical aspects of church planting, such as strategy, finance, funding, communications and self-leadership, and were helped to develop a detailed plan for their first 100 days.
To find out more about church planting, grafting and revitalisation, please click here.
To find out more about Barnabas: Encouraging Confidence, please click here.
To find out more about our recent award from the national church, please click here.