Christ Church Manchester goes Multi-Site

"We were launching this second site because we want to grow, to reach new people, and to see the lost rescued."

And so it begins.

We have been praying at Christ Church Manchester about reaching into the city of Manchester from where we are based on the East side for a number of years. These prayers have brought us people, and some inspiration.

In September 2009 we started an evening meeting in a vodka bar in Fallowfield (where all the students live). This took a while to get moving but after Christmas it kicked up a level and we saw 60+ visitors come through our doors that wouldn’t otherwise have been to a CCM meeting or maybe even known that we exist.  It was an exciting year but really we were dipping our toes in to see whether we should be trying something on a bigger scale.

As that academic year drew to a close we believed that God was with us and that we should launch a second site on Sunday evenings in Fallowfield. We were launching this second site because we want to grow, to reach new people, and to see the lost rescued.

CCM:City launched officially on Sunday evening at Luther King House in Fallowfield. There is a core of committed guys and girls who are passionate about loving Manchester and seeing their City reached with the Gospel. They have all joined us since we started meeting in the Vodka Bar last year and we hope for more to join over the next year.

We have given out over 2000 flyers (with the help of Vinelife Church), pulled together a band, planned a sermon series and prayed hard. All we need now is for God to move!!

Our short term goals are very simple – get 50 people every Sunday evening, build a community and start reaching out.

This is our first site launch and so we are learning valuable lessons on a daily basis but it will not be our last. We want to see Manchester changed by the Gospel.

Worship and Leadership Conference Review

"We look forward to revealing our plans for the next few Worship and Leadership Conferences."

Last was a busy weekend for Christ Church Manchester.

We ran our 4th Worship and Leadership conference at Hyde Town Hall. We had a great range of speakers from across Newfrontiers including David Stroud who leads Christ Church London Newfrontiers UK and Jeremy Simpkins who leads Christ Central in Manchester as well as looking after a number of churches across Northern England, Scotland, Ireland and Canada!

We had a wonderful time of worship that was led by Alistair Metcalfe and Kelani Koyejo who we are blessed to have with us at CCM. It was great to give them a chance in front of a different crowd and they showed themselves to be gifted worship leaders indeed.

David Stroud taught us well on the day and gave some fantastic pointers on being intentional with our worship times. The MP3s from the day will be posted online soon.

Thanks to all those who helped out on Saturday. We look forward to revealing our plans for the next few Worship and Leadership Conferences.

Sunday was also a very busy day and I will write about that tomorrow.

Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!

"To much strategy early on could have been very disruptive and overwhelming, potentially robbing some people of faith."

Jesus began the process of communicating about the future in a very low key and indirect way. He used a question about why the disciples did not fast to open up the idea that he would be taken from them “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them and they will fast." (Matt 9:15). On another occasion he answered a request to perform a miraculous sign by talking about Jonah who spent three days in the belly of a huge fish. He went on to open up the intriguing concept that “…the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matt 12:40).

Getting people used to change without an all inclusive and directive statement can be a very good way to begin. I am sure the disciples had no clue as to what Jesus was on about. If they did, they would have commented and reacted strongly to his statements, as proved to be the case later on.

Three years ago when we were only a handful of people with a very local identity on the east side of Manchester, we began to mention in prayer meetings and passing conversation the idea of linking the east with the city. With very little information I found people were able to talk and even pray about the city without getting bogged down in the detail. To much strategy early on could have been very disruptive and overwhelming, potentially robbing some people of faith. Today we are developing a multi-location church and are planting a congregation into the city.

Preparing People for Change

"Jesus presented a very appealing picture of the future, which looked at first glance to be massively unappealing"

Preparing people for major transition and change is probably the most important thing we do after we have arrived at "a sensible and appealing picture of the future" (Vision). Change for a lot of people can carry with it uncertainty, possible loss of position, new ways of working and relating, as well as a whole host other problems we often wrongly imagine. Projecting these negative thoughts, mixed with fear, into the process of change can hinder us from embracing the future with faith.

Jesus presented a very appealing picture of the future, which looked at first glance to be massively unappealing. The future was going to involve incredible emotional heartache as the disciples tried to get their heads around Jesus’ arrest and cruel death. His subsequent resurrection and ascension was going to open up the opportunity for a new way of living and working without his physical presence.

In the next blog I want to look at Jesus strategy for communicating his vision for the future, which builds on a number of levels. John P. Kotter writes, “Without credible communication, and a lot of it, employees’ hearts and minds are never captured.”

Jesus the Change Manager 2

"His confidence in how they were going to turn out was breath taking"

I find that previous pronouncements, decisions and appointments regarding people’s leadership role can have a major impact on how they cope with change. It is fascinating to see that those who Jesus chose to be very close to himself early on in his ministry assumed that this would entitle them to have certain privileges and positions of influence as their future unfolded.

As Jesus commenced his ministry he chose some fishermen to be his disciples, boldly declaring to them that he would make them fishers of men. His confidence in how they were going to turn out was breath taking especially as it was right at the beginning of their leadership journey. Later on he further developed the leadership calling on their lives by appointing twelve of them to be apostles with the mandate to preach and drive out demons.

He then selected three of them to accompany him on some amazing and moving occasions. On one of these he took Peter, James and John up a mountain where Elijah and Moses appeared and Jesus was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. As far as Peter was concerned this was heaven and, forgetting his nine friends who were miserably toughing it out in another place, he wanted stay and make camp.

In the next blog we shall see how these senior leaders responded to the talk of change.

Jesus the Change Manager

"Too many good people become disengaged with church life"

A major challenge of change management is how we enable and help people to process radical change. This can especially be the case in churches that believe and practice leadership authority. What can happen is that eldership / leadership teams spend a lot of time processing the changes and most importantly where each one of them fit in to the new structures.

Unfortunately, in a lot of cases the same amount of process time is not given to the other people who are affected in the church. The result of this is that there are too many good people become disengaged with church life because, in their leader’s opinion, they handled change badly, and subsequently have been written off by the leaders.

I want to show how Jesus initiated the idea to his apostles that a major change was going take place with his death, resurrection & ascension. Looking at the narrative from the gospels we are going to see:-

1.  How Jesus’ leadership decisions affected the apostles
2.  How Jesus prepared them for a major transition
3.  How the apostles responded to the concepts
4.  How Jesus handled there response
5.  Jesus explains what is most important