Church planting in Chester, North West England

 Assessing whether a town or city needs a new church is a complex task. In large part, this is due to the difficulty of measuring the faithfulness and fruitfulness of existing local churches. If the person conducting the research believes that a faithful church is an evangelical church, then several questions arise: How do we define ‘evangelical’? If there are existing ‘evangelical’ churches, do they share the same definition?

The researcher may also believe that it is not enough for a church to be doctrinally faithful alone, but that Christ also calls his church to be fruitful. Well, what does it mean to be fruitful? Is it simply about numbers in the pews, sign-ups to Christianity Explored, baptisms? Are numbers entirely irrelevant, should we instead look to Christian maturity as a measure of fruitfulness? 

These questions are important, but it was refreshing to sit down last year with the minister of an established church in Chester and to hear a simple answer: “You should do it!” We had told him that we were weighing up planting a church in the area and asked him what he thought. Why should we do it? Because, he explained, the percentage of the population attending a church in Chester – any church – is so small. Can the Church in Chester be expected to reach the ≈130,000 people living in the city when it would be extremely optimistic to estimate that the Church consists of 5% of those 130,000? Of course, such an estimate depends on answers to the above questions, but a more realistic figure might well be around 1%.

We found ourselves agreeing with the minister we met with that day and so we continued our research. Throughout, we have been encouraged by the knowledge that the Lord guides our steps as he providentially governs all things. This helped us in answering another question posed by other church leaders in the area: why not plant somewhere else? Interpreting God’s providence is not a full-proof task when the interpreters are fallen human beings, but certain factors seemed to us significant. In the Lord’s wisdom we find ourselves living just fifteen miles from Chester, familiar with the culture, with a network of friends and family nearby, and with a keen interest in church planting. No doubt others have found themselves in similar situations and the Lord has called them to a more radical move, but that is not our reading of this scenario.

As we have prayed for guidance, a phrase we began to use regularly in our research was, “We’ll keep exploring this until the Lord closes the door.” Now, with support from local ministers, from the North West Partnership, from our denomination – International Presbyterian Church – and from other denominations too, we are hoping to begin Sunday services in the new year. Then, the real challenge won’t be determining whether Chester needs a new church, but being the church that Chester needs.

Deiniol Williams is a MTh student at Union.