In Glasgow, Scotland, where post-Christian beliefs dominate and where people do not talk about faith in Jesus outside of church walls, there is something new emerging during this time of global pandemic—a church community committed to spending more time building relationships with people far from God than with each other, prepared and equipped to be bold about who Jesus is, and inviting others to talk about him. This group is made up of about 30 people who have full-time jobs, moms, dads, and students; they are lay people who identify themselves as called by God to represent him in the places where they live and work. And they are redefining what it means to be church.
The leaders of this group, Andy Ashworth and Adam Penketh, had been working on staff in a church in Glasgow for several years when they met Novo staff member Bill Randall. Bill globally leads a part of Novo called Pioneering Initiatives (PI). PI works to multiply new expressions of the church—local church expressions that grow out of the harvest, by reaching and discipling those who don’t already know Jesus. Andy and Adam felt drawn to the same vision and soon became co-leaders of a new team there in Glasgow as part of PI.
The basic PI model is to relationally connect with people far from God, move into a Discovery Bible Study process, and gather new followers of Jesus together to form a new church expression. But Adam and Andy had a bit of a different scenario on their hands. “Because of the context we were coming from (a church-plant), we had a bunch of believers who followed us and essentially formed a community around us—about 25 adults and 11 kids,” Adam explained. “These people had a desire and a heart to see something different happen—to see the church get out of the doors and be missional, to engage with people who don’t know Jesus.”
While there were many benefits to having an entire community committed to reaching new people with the good news of Jesus, there was also a significant challenge: deeply ingrained traditional beliefs about what it looks like to “be church” kept getting in the way.
“We had the desire to be missional,” said Adam, “but we had no idea how to do it. We were carrying a whole lot of cultural church baggage built up from decades (and probably even longer) of ‘this is the way we do church.’ It was Sunday-centric. It was a keep-what-you-know-to-yourself personal faith. Breaking that model has actually taken us a long time.”
“It’s been a journey of deconstructing our habits and religious baggage to the point where we’re actually able to engage people far from God effectively and healthily,” Andy added.
Adam was more specific about what needed to change. “Being missional meant shifting our priorities—where we invested our time and energy—to outside of the church. ‘Being the church’ means going to the pub and talking to people about Jesus; that’s actually really important.” Andy and Adam realized that 90% of their people have full time jobs and are parents or students. If they spent all their time in typical church activities, there wouldn’t be much left over for relating to those in the world around them. “This would require a big shift in how we think about church,” Adam concluded.
“It seems so logical,” Andy said. “Of course if you put all your time into church meetings and Bible studies and things, you have no time to go on mission. Nobody in their right mind who’s followed Jesus and wants to see people reached is going to disagree with that. However, the thing we’ve found is that when you actually try to take those things away and replace them with missional activity, it’s really hard and people don’t want to do it. We may agree with this in theory, but it makes us feel uncomfortable. It makes us feel like failures because we’re not very good at relating to those who don’t know Jesus, particularly in a highly secular society. When we took this “church stuff” away, we realized how addicted to it we actually were.”
The end result of this process of deconstructing church has been the formation of three separate microchurches collectively called The Gathering, each with a specific place they feel called to be missional. While each microchurch continues to gather together, they aim to spend a lot of their “church time” engaging with people outside the church in third spaces like pubs or pursuing common interests like sports, building relationships, being bold to pray for people, and offering invitations into discovery about who Jesus is.
“One of the biggest moves of God we’ve seen in the last three years is seeing these folks break out of the consumer, powerless Christian mentality that we often see in churches in the UK—that mentality of ‘I go to church on Sunday. I listen to a good sermon. Hopefully the worship will be good and will make me feel good.’ Instead, what has emerged is a band of 30 missional people who are empowered and on fire, something I’ve rarely seen in a traditional church.”
“They’re discovering their identity as the priesthood of believers, taking ownership over the church, and not just along for the ride. They’re actually figuring out with the Lord, through prayer and worship together, what their calling is—what the Lord is calling them to be and do. And they’re letting their hearts be stirred for people who don’t know Jesus. (As obvious as that sounds, for an average Christian in a Western context, to think first of people who don’t know Jesus is actually uncommon.) They’ve shifted their whole mindset in life to looking outward, to be looking intently for people who don’t know Jesus, and to focus these microchurches around that vision.”
“That journey of deconstruction/reconstruction has been slower than we ever imagined,” Andy confessed. “The bits of reading we did and the people we talked to said this was going to be slow. We thought we’d do it fast; we were not right!”
It took about three years for their community to develop this new set of values and expectations about church that were truly missional. “It feels like we’ve just gotten to the point where we can really get going,” Adam admitted. “I see us as a fledgling ministry. The dream we have is just beginning, three years in.”
“That’s the stage we’re in and it’s exciting. It’s exciting to see people taking ownership and be the church in that very simple, missionally focused way. We’re excited about what’s going to come.”
A SPECIAL WORD TO CHURCH PLANTERS AND LEADERS
If you are a church or community leader who’s been going through (or considering going through) a similar process of becoming more mission-focused, Adam has some encouragement and advice for you:
It takes time.
You can’t rush through the deconstruction/reconstruction phase, so don’t try to force it, especially with the people you’re leading. If the words, “Why don’t you get it?!” enter your head, you need to take a step back and instead, ask, “What can I do to help them to get it?” There are moments when this still happens for us, even three years down the line. The more we engage in mission, take risks, and step into the unknown, the more some of the old church baggage comes up. (Think of the Israelites in the wilderness looking back to Egypt with all its comfort, regularity, and perceived safety—it’s a constant battle to break away from those things).
The old consumeristic model of church has one leader who calls the shots, tells everyone what to think and what the vision is for the tens, hundreds, or thousands of people who listen to them speak. The last thing we want to do is act in the same way, thereby suffocating the freedom others need to question, think, innovate, take ownership and act.
This process is slow and messy, and that’s how it has to be. So, be encouraged by the mess and the many existential crises of the people with you—it’s an indicator that God is on the move in their hearts!
Don’t do it alone.
Andy and I had the absolute benefit of stepping out on this journey together, as co-leaders… I don’t know what I would have done, or how I would have survived without our into-the-night conversations together, where we were free to pull apart our out-dated ecclesiology (theology of what the Church is, has been, should be, could be...), while also thinking through the many implications for the people who’ve chosen to call us their leaders. Having a co-leader also gave me someone I could be honest with, someone who was after the same thing I was, and someone who would keep challenging me not to give up.We were also in close and regular contact with our mentors, Bill and Jill Randall and they were there to guide us, resource us, pray for us, and be a consistent and trusted sounding-board.
We also read some books to help us get our heads around everything: The Church as Movement, The Forgotten Ways, The Underground, Microchurches: A Smaller Way.
Start simple.
Pray. Spend time in unstructured moments of prayer together. Worship, a lot. Embrace the awkward lengths of silence when you have nothing else to lean on but your own ability to connect with God, to dream on behalf of the Kingdom and connect with the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Allow God to speak to you and your community. All of our biggest breakthrough moments came when we were worshipping together after a day of fasting—it’s amazing how far God can take you when you give him an inch!
Remember, this is deep, important work!
When we talk about deconstruction and reconstruction, we’re talking about a personal transformation of identity, on a corporate, community-wide scale—a change from church attender to empowered, called, anointed and ‘sent’ representative of Jesus who’s part of the royal priesthood of heaven, living into the heavenly authority extended to them. It’s seeing people who have never had an opportunity to take on responsibility transformed into those who take full ownership over their own walk with Jesus, as well as ownership over the mission of their church/community.
You can talk mission, strategy, need, and urgency all day long but what you really need to do is pour into and empower the people with you—otherwise you’ll just end up out there on your own. Uncovering the hidden gold in the identities of the people you lead is part of the job of the deconstruction season. Give time, thought, care and attention to who they are. Pull out the lies and replace them with truths. Pray over them regularly, both in-person and in your quiet place.
Finally, get in touch with us!
We are by no means experts, but we have recently been through this whole process. If you want some encouragement, or would just like someone else who’s been on this journey to pray over you and talk to you, we’d love to! (To contact Adam and Andy, send a note to Novo and we’ll forward it on.)
ABOUT
Adam Penketh is 34 and he and his wife Charlotte have been married for 10 years. They have two firecrackers of children: Ari who’s 5 and Asher who’s 3! Adam grew up on the outskirts of Liverpool, England, experiencing some life-shaping encounters with God as he navigated the pain and trauma of his dad leaving his mum and younger brother at an early age. Adam took an unconventional route into vocational ministry; playing both the trombone and piano, Adam moved to London and studied at the Royal College of Music. After nearly five years in London, Adam accepted the position of Principal Trombone in the Orquesta Filarmonica de Santiago, Chile, where he and Charlotte lived for two years before moving back to the UK and living in several cities before feeling a very clear and confirmed called to put down roots in Glasgow, Scotland.
Throughout this journey his closeness to the Father deepened, as the Lord took Adam through many moments of growth and hidden training. Having been a catalyst in forming a vibrant Jesus-centered youth community in Santiago, by the time Adam returned to the UK again he was sold on the fact that God was calling him into ministry—to utilize his creativity and natural connection to the voice and heart of the Father to do something new and different for the church—and seven years later that’s exactly what’s happening!
Andy Ashworth is 39 and is married to Julie. They have three children: Mollie, 11; Sophie, 8; and Zach, 5. Before ever thinking about church planting or ministry of any kind, Andy dreamed of being a doctor. He went to medical school where he met his wife and best friend Julie, and after graduating and working full time in medicine for a couple of years, he felt he heard Jesus call him into worship ministry. He joined a small church plant called Re:Hope where he became the worship pastor (amongst other things!) and was there for 11 years before setting out into the unknown again, following the Lord’s call into church planting.
Andy and Adam, along with their wives Julie and Charlotte, co-lead The Gathering, an aspiring network of microchurches loving God, living lives on mission, and normalizing the supernatural. Andy recently returned to medicine as a doctor during the global Covid-19 pandemic—a wonderful reminder of what it feels like to work outside of the church “bubble.” Andy’s greatest dream is to see a movement of the gospel, fueled by the supernatural move of the Holy Spirit, spread like wild-fire through post-Christian Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.