1) Please tell us your name, where you’re from and which church you are a part of?
I’m Paul Cross, pastor of the River Church which is a church plant in Orpington, Kent who for the last ten years has been known as Tim’s dad.
2) What’s your day job and outside of that what are your hobbies and interests?
For the last 3 years I have looked after Knockholt Station between 6am and 10.30am each weekday which gives me the rest of the day to lead the River Church. Other than that I love the people of the church and like watching sport particularly cricket.
3)Tell us your claim to fame or something about you others wouldn’t know?
I have two claims to fame. At 14 I won a radio 1 competition and had my name read out by Noel Edmunds and at 17 I had two personal net sessions with regular Australian test cricketer Ian Redpath. Unfortunately I then never played cricket again seriously as I got saved and could not find the time.
4) How did you end up in a leadership role and what’s your greatest challenge at the moment?
In 1992 I was made redundant as a building site manager, re-trained as a Further Education teacher but still could not get a job. Then a United Reformed Church about 7 miles away, where I occasionally preached, asked me to be their pastor. After 6 months of uncertainty and getting nowhere we decided it was right so we moved to St Paul’s Cray with a house to live in but no regular income. However God met our every need as a family and I was able to be mostly full-time in the ministry for the next 11 years proving that if you have the call of God He will provide without a regular income.
We decided it was right to move on in 2005 and again had to trust God for a house, a new church, somewhere to meet, an income and a role. He provided all and 17 of us started meeting in a school portacabin and called ourselves the Ramsden Family Church. However in 2008, again sensing it was time to move on, the Lord graciously provided a council run youth centre with much better facilities to meet in and we changed our name to the River Church.
My greatest challenge at the moment is to see our core membership of young adults develop into church leaders in the coming years.
5) Tell us what you’re reading or listening to at the moment? (What is inspiring your or what is God speaking to you through at the moment?)
I often listen or read transcripts of sermons by Mark Driscoll as I appreciate his contemporary approach coupled with a strong scriptural base. I also appreciate books by Tim Chester, the latest being “Everyday Church” , for the same reasons above although I wish he had a greater charismatic emphasis and just recently I have been reading again some of Charles Finney’s lectures on revival.
6) Can you tell us what God is doing at the moment in your local church?
Our church is a good place to be at the moment as we are having some good worship and prayer meetings, challenging preaching and people seem happy being together. Yet we recognise that we need to become more consistent in evangelism so we are taking the following steps to readdress this balance.
- The Lord has been speaking about using spiritual gifts more
- We have seen that prayer and sharing the gospel must go hand in hand in the same way that artillery complements foot soldiers in battle so we are a praying church and want to be more of a witnessing church
- We are planning to do some street witnessing as a team of particularly men in the next couple of weeks
- We are going to be re-visiting some homes we did a door to door survey with in the near future
- We hoped to appoint a youth worker to head up the outreach to the youth of our estate but we are yet to find the right person. If anyone is interested then please contact me.
7) What is your vision/ hope for the future of the church you are part of?
The strapline of our church is developing people in Christ and our goal is to see people turn into authentic men and women of God. However our church is planted in the midst of a council estate and we see we must reach out to those around and we hope in time to see more and more local people coming to the Lord. To that end another goal is to have home groups spring up on the estate in local people’s homes.
These things are not mutually exclusive as it will only be as we develop people in ministry will we see people saved from the estate and we want to see them in turn develop into Christian leaders
8) Do you have any wisdom that you would share with young leaders?
Young people who aspire to leadership should
- Develop a routine of daily prayer and bible reading becoming dependant on the Lord
- Ask the Lord to deal with them over “questionable” things in their lives
- Become given to your local church leadership and do whatever is asked however trivial it seems
- Talk to older men in the Lord and form a close bond with at least one.
- Go through with God in your secular work learning His lessons and the balance between work, family and church
- Read around the things that interest you
- Take very opportunity to minister the word of God both inside and outside of the church.
1)Please tell us your name, where you’re from and which church you are a part of?
David Vine, The Longcroft Christian Fellowship, Wirral
2)What’s your day job and outside of that what are your hobbies and interests?
I was a full time GP and senior partner of West Wirral Group Practice until I took early retirement in 2009. I now do some part time GP locum work. I retired early to be able to devote more time to my work as a Trustee for IMP – International Mission Project – a missionary support agency working in more than twenty-five countries of the world. I travel to visit missionaries several times a year.
I have five children, four boys, one girl, the eldest being thirty-three and the youngest being fourteen
I love all forms of sport, especially football, cricket, golf etc! I support Liverpool FC (and have more than a soft spot for Tranmere Rovers!) I support Sussex and Lancashire in cricket!
3) Tell us your claim to fame or something about you others wouldn’t know?
I had trials for Sussex schoolboys as a wicketkeeper
4) How did you end up in a leadership role and what’s your greatest challenge at the moment?
I was part of a small church at the Longcroft when I was twenty three. It was led by a very elderly man in his eighties at that time and I set my heart to serve him and support his leadership. He began to train me up and was about when to bring me into eldership when I was twenty seven when he suddenly died. I then was thrust into leadership by default as there was no-one else! I have been in the church here now for more than thirty seven years and in leadership for thirty three years. We have a growing church with new young families and other ethnic groups now joining us. My great heart is for succession, to see the church continue to grow and develop with young leaders and a broader team. We are well along that path in seeing it happen but want to ore and more.
5) Tell us what you’re reading or listening to at the moment? (What is inspiring your or what is God speaking to you through at the moment?)
I have recently really enjoyed the books by Eugene Peterson, the man who wrote the message. I found his book Five Smooth Stones For pastoral Work, the best book I have read on the pastoral ministry. I have also read several others of his and am about to read The Unnecessary Pastor.
6)Can you tell us what God is doing at the moment in your local church?
We are seeing a lot of growth with new young families and couples joining us. Some of them are young men and women who once were part of our youth group, who grew away from the Lord, are now married and have come back seeking the Lord. We also have a lot of African families who come which is a completely new development for us as we do not live in a multiethnic area!
7(What is your vision/ hope for the future of the church you are part of?
To see the church continue to grow, to reach out, to send out, and be led by younger men and women
8)Do you have any wisdom that you would share with young leaders?
I think so but how to condense thirty three years of leadership into one sentence I am not sure! I try to meet regularly with some of the young men in the church on a one to one basis to encourage and direct them. Humility, love and service are the marks of true leadership
9)What do you know about Passion for God and would you think about coming to Passion for God 2012?
I think I am fully informed re PFG and I am looking forward to being with you all a lot!
1) Please tell us your name, where you’re from and which church you are a part of?
John Watson, Eltham Green Community Church
2) What’s your day job and outside of that what are your hobbies and interests?
Pastor, Graphic designer and web developer
3) Tell us your claim to fame or something about you others wouldn’t know?
I like to eat a lot of meat, I play in a 5-a-side football league, I have been on BBC1
4) How did you end up in a leadership role and what’s your greatest challenge at the moment?
God called me and I had to go along with it… An opening at church came up and the church agreed and have supported me ever since.
5) Tell us what you’re reading or listening to at the moment? (What is inspiring your or what is God speaking to you through at the moment?)
The Irresistible Revolution, The Letter to the Romans, The power of six
6) Can you tell us what God is doing at the moment in your local church?
Preparing us to bring in the fruit of his harvest
7) What is your vision/ hope for the future of the church you are part of?
To see a church strong in making disciples and engaging with the community for the salvation of souls
Do you have any wisdom that you would share with young leaders?
Trust that God is in control and that it is his work and we are his servants. Pray lots and develop an intimate relationship so you can be confident with your decisions. Be wary of worldliness and getting comfortable. Provoke your comfort zones by living on the edge of them. And did I mention praying lots?
9) What do you know about Passion for God and would you think about coming to Passion for God 2012?
Loads and yes its is fantastic!
Continuing from the last post here are some thoughts and quotes from the book The Present Future.
“Churches that understand the realities of the present future are shifting the target of ministry efforts from church activity to community transformation. This is turning the church inside out.”
“Postmoderns are wildly spiritual. It is a spiritualism that reflects a hunger for meaning and connectedness. It is a spiritualism that seeks to unite people of faith (a shift from the modern era’s fracturing and splintering into denominations).”
“There is little tolerance for institutional-brand religion that focuses more on its own support and survival than on helping people.”
“Just when the church adopted a business model, the culture went looking for God. Just when the church began building recreation centres, the culture began a search for sacred space.”
The book starts to lose its way halfway through and begins to talk about vision, learning and leadership which seem less relevant. But as a whole it does a good job of explaining some of what is happening to the church and the culture and the hard questions the church needs to face up to.
I’ve been reading an interesting book called “The Present Future – six tough questions for the church” by Reggie McNeal, a leadership network publication. Some of the best quotes are below but it shows some of the challenges the church faces because the world has changed so much. Infact it’s not even about the church, it’s about people who are increasingly hungry for spiritual reality but are not looking in the church because they can no longer relate to it. You can read more at www.leadnet.org. Here are some of the quotes:
“We are witnessing the emergence of a new world. The church is moving into the postmodern world. Its expression is going to be more different than most people realise or may want to imagine. The scale of the shift will rank along with the epochal transitions of ancient church to medieval, from medieval to modern”
“A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith!”
“The point is, all the effort to fix the church misses the point. You can build the perfect church – and they still won’t come. People are not looking for a great church. The age in which institutional religion holds appeal is passing away – and in a hurry.”
“Church leaders seem unable to grasp this simple implication of the new world – people outside the church think church is for church people, not for them.”
“The collapse of institutional religion in the first century was accompanied by an upsurge in personal spiritual search for God and salvation…Jesus tapped into this widespread sentiment of disillisionment with religion but hunger for God with his teaching about the kingdom of God and how people could become a part of it”
More to follow tomorrow, if you have any thoughts please post them as comments.
