Archive for the ‘Church Planting’ Category

Posted on August 9, 2011 - by Stephen Murray

Planting, Training and Porterbrook

I drove through Ravensmead on the way to work a few mornings ago. It’s not my usual route but I had an early morning airport run and so the chance to drive through parts of the city that I normally don’t. You often hear people talk about places where there’s a church on every corner. Well that literally is the case here down the main road (Here are some street view shots if you don’t believe me: Church 1; Church 2; Church 3; and that’s just a sampling). And there are around another 75-115 neighborhoods like this in the city. Not all of them have a church on every corner, but many do.

You might question the need for church planting in a city like this – well I could spend all day giving you stats and other reasons (dying churches, no orthodoxy, etc.) why church planting in Cape Town is still crucial. And whilst I think new church planting strategies are completely necessary in our city  I also think (and was reminded by my drive through Ravensmead) that those strategies need a strong training component in them – especially one that extends over denominational and local church boundaries. Our church planting must bless the city (as the catch-phrase goes) but it must also bless existing churches – of which there are many.

One particular training approach that I’m very impressed with, and champing at the bit to use as soon as I can get a bunch of guys together, is Porterbrook Training. It’s developed by the same guys who brought us Total Church, Steve Timmis and Tim Chester, and it is a truly comprehensive, gospel-centered approach to local church training. If you are in Cape Town there are already a bunch of guys promoting Porterbrook and trying to arrange get togethers around the training material. If you want more information then check out the Porterbrook South Africa site. If we could see more and more existing churches getting a vision for this sort of training then I really think we could see significant things happen in our city as people come together around the gospel of Christ.

Posted on April 20, 2011 - by Stephen Murray

New Redeemer City to City Website

The really great people at Redeemer City to City have just launched their new website which gives interested people a comprehensive view of what City to City does around the world. There are loads of great resources from Tim Keller, City to City staff members and other church planters. The site also has great videos which capture the essence and ethos of City to City. If you look carefully in one of the videos (you figure which one) you might even catch a glimpse of yours truly waxing lyrical (for a second or two) about church planting and Cape Town.

City to City is an amazing ministry which is at the forefront of urban church planting and city renewal ministries. Anyone thinking about urban church planting should have this City to City’s site at the very top of their list of resource sites.

Posted on February 9, 2011 - by Stephen Murray

New Cape Town Church Plant: The Vine Church

Just a quick shout-out for my friend and colleague Lenny Long (follow him on twitter) who is taking a small bunch of people off and planting The Vine Church in the Burgundy Estate area of Cape Town. They have two main informal gatherings at the moment on Sunday morning 10am and then on Wednesday evenings 7:30pm. Both the meetings take place at the Bunker Bar next to the mini golf course in the centre of Burgundy. If you’re in the area make sure to check them out or if you have friends and contacts in the area feel free to pass on the information.

Connect with the Vine on twitter.

Check out the Vine’s tumblr site.

The Vine on Facebook.

Posted on July 14, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

On the Move for Support Raising

On Friday Robin and I head off to Johannesburg and Durban for two weeks. The first purpose of our trip is to get a bit of rest time in. Church planting is busy work and its been full steam ahead since the beginning of the year. The second purpose is to continue raising the profile of what we’re doing in Cape Town and trying to secure financial support for the next two years. If our work here in Cape Town is something you feel you could be investing in then please consider supporting us in this venture in seeing God’s kingdom being advanced in the important city of Cape Town.

Posted on June 9, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Cape Town the Global City

Here’s something you probably didn’t know: According to the Global World Cities Ranking, Cape Town is the 16th (level with 5 other cities) most prominent city in the world where English is the Lingua Franca (English is not necessarily the most widely spoken language in each of these cases but it is the language on which each of these cities run. So for example more people speak Afrikaans as a first language in Cape Town than English). Here’s the top 33:

1st New York, London
3rd Sydney,
4th Toronto, Chicago,
6th Dublin, Los Angeles, Auckland
9th Melbourne, Johannesburg, Atlanta,
12th Dallas, Boston
14th Miami, Houston,
16th Montreal, Brisbane, Denver, Vancouver, Cape Town, Minneapolis, Seattle,
23rd Perth, Philadelphia, Portland, Lagos
27th Detroit, Manchester, Wellington, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Calgary, Columbus

It’s nice knowing you live in a city that stands out on the global stage. It also convinces me more that Cape Town is a thoroughly important place for the task of church planting.

As a side note…I wonder what the World Cup will do to these rankings – if anything.

Posted on October 13, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part VII

New York – Knoxville – New York. That’s been our movement over the weekend. On Friday morning at 3am we got up and flew out of Newark Airport to Knoxville, Tennessee. There we spent the weekend with folk from Cedar Springs Presbyterian. Most of the weekend was spent meeting people from the church and speaking at young adults meetings, Sunday morning and evening. On the Saturday we were treated to the experience that makes that city tick: A college football game at the 107 000 seater Neyland Stadium watching the Tennessee Volunteers (the ‘Vols’) take on the Georgia Bulldogs (the ‘Dawgs’). There were 103 000 people in attendance all dressed in orange going crazy over their team – it was something else.

We were hosted by the most wonderful South African family who are now based in Knoxville and we got a great chance to share the vision for a church planting movement in Cape Town with lots of the folk at the church, many of whom were encouraged by the potential opportunities there are in South Africa.

This morning we arrived back in New York – where someone has evidently turned the heat off (its seriously cold here now). We’ve got one more week of the intensive left and then we head out on Friday to visit the Journey Church in St Louis. Will keep you posted…

Posted on October 7, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part VI

Two Sundays have come and gone since I last updated you (ya – sorry about that – things have been crazy busy). A lot has happened and this post will turn into an essay if I give you all the details so I’ll pick out the highlights of the last 12 days or so.

From the course point of view we’ve had some important discussions on very practical issues pertaining to church planting. We’ve covered fund raising (the politically correct term is: development), the strains church planting places upon marriages, drawing up church documentation, having difficult conversations with colleagues and thinking through contextualization, both for our preaching and for our styles of ministry. We had another Q & A session with Tim Keller – this time dealing with preaching. This session was hugely beneficial in hearing Tim’s approach both theologically and practically to his preaching. So they’ve kept us really busy – given us a ton of reading – but its all been great and really worth it.

Thursday evening last week was a benefit evening for the church planting center (I got all dressed up)- it was a chance for the center to showcase their work to important supporters. It was truly an inspiring evening to get a sense of the movement of church planting that is literally spreading across the major cities of the world through the help and influence of Redeemer. It’s a great privilege to be part of that movement.

We’ve visited three churches (besides Redeemer) in the last two weekends, Emmanuel Presbyterian, Apostles Church and Forefront Church. All three were plants that have been assisted by Redeemer, Emmanuel was a direct plant from Redeemer. Apostle’s Church is an Acts29 affiliated church and it was great to see what they are doing in the city. I got the chance to have lunch with JR Vassar, their pastor, and some of their elders to hear more about their work and for them to hear about what we’re doing in Cape Town.

From a sightseeing point of view we’ve hung out in China Town, been to a gig in the Village, been up the Rockefeller Center, had cupcakes with a South African diplomat to the United Nations, seen Grand Central Station and the library, eaten lots of Reese’s, drunk lots of Starbucks and had the odd double-quarter-pounder from McD’s.

Today is Wednesday, rest and reading day – I’ve also got a sermon to prepare and a few presentations to tweak. We’re off to Knoxville this weekend so we’ll keep you posted.

Posted on September 25, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part V

So, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday update…

Tuesday we listened to some of the intensive guys give presentations about their future plants and then we watched Tim Keller’s address at last year’s Dwell Conference, entitled ‘Dwelling in the Gospel‘. After that we had a bit of fun planning a philosophy of ministry for a simulated occasion and place – interesting getting church planters to work together in a team.

Wednesday was an off day to catch up on reading (and we had a lot) and to check out more of the city. So after some reading we headed out to the Central Park Zoo – saw a snow leopard for the first time.

Thursday we spent most of the morning having a Q&A session with Tim Keller on ‘Gospel Ministry’ – we decided beforehand, after our reading, which specific questions we wanted to ask. It was a fantastic experience to be able to just sit with him in a small intimate group and talk gospel ministry with him. As you’d expect his answers to our questions were soaked in biblical faithfulness, cultural sensitivity, pragmatic wisdom and serious humility. We were all very grateful for the privilege of that meeting – and we’re looking forward to having a few more before we leave.

More to follow…

Posted on September 22, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part IV

I guess you can only appreciate Times Square (above) when you’re actually there. I think I’ve seen a hundred pictures or clips of the area but it’s quite something to see all the lit up advertising. So, yes, we were in Times Square this weekend, but let me back track a bit first…

On Friday we spent time hearing about some of the ministries at Redeemer, particularly their mercy ministry initiatives through Hope for New York and then also about their faith and work department at the church.

Their approach to mercy ministry was really fascinating. Basically they don’t run any mercy ministries directly out of the church but rather work, in partnership with a handful of other churches, to resource and provide volunteer help to the various affiliated faith-based organisations around the city. Definitely a concept  worth exploring in Cape Town. The faith and work department was something that really resonated with both Robin and I as its probably the area in which we’re weakest in the evangelical church in South Africa – at least as far as we’ve experienced. Redeemer is committed to demonstrating that the gospel makes a difference to work in this life, this side of heaven. And so they invest a lot in helping professionals work out what it means to use their work in a gospel-centered way (and, shock and horror, that means a whole lot more than trying to track-bomb evangelise your colleagues). We desperately need to learn from them in this area.

On Friday evening we headed up to Times Square and had supper at a little Brazillian restaurant to celebrate the birthday of one of our fellow intensive church planters. Saturday morning I watched Arsenal beat the stuffing out of Wigan (streamed on my laptop) and then we headed on the ferry to Staten Island – got to see the Statue of Liberty but not a whole lot else (there isn’t a ton of stuff happening on Staten Island). On the walk back from the ferry launch we walked through the financial district and saw Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange. We also saw the giant hole in the ground where the World Trade Center stood – they’re busy preparing to build a new tower there.

Sunday we attended two Redeemer services in the morning hearing Tim Keller and John Lin preach respectively. We then attended Trinity Grace Church in the evening and heard Jon Tyson (an exiled Aussie) preach.

Today we debriefed those three services and got to talk with Jon Tyson and John Lin about their stories and approaches to ministry and preaching.

Things are seriously pacing along – can’t believe we’ve been here for over two weeks already. But we’re doing great and enjoying it more and more. We miss all you Saffa’s – New York is amazing, but it still hasn’t got a patch on Cape Town!

Posted on September 18, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part III

I think I’m going to lose some weight over the course of this trip with all the walking – none of the places we need to go to regularly are right next to a subway station, we always have to walk a few blocks so I’m getting plenty of exercise (although that huge calzone pizza I had at lunch today probably didn’t help).

So yesterday the wives slept in and us boys (me, Tobie and Endre) heading out to the intensive. We started the day by listening to Felipe Assis and the replanting work he has done in Miami, Florida – sounds like an interesting work being done by an interesting guy. Then we spent most of the day with Network Leadership Forum. So alongside the GCI conference some of the key leaders stayed over this week and attended a week long forum on developing and leading church planting networks and movements in major global cities. Some of you might know Shaun Storer – he was our rep for Johannesburg. So we sat in on their sessions for the rest of the day learning about network dynamics and the key types of people you need to have in place for sustainable networks.

This morning (Thursday) we had a slightly later start and spent a session on the factors involved in church planter’s call to church planting and then a session based on Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane’s book ‘How People Change‘. After that it was time to shop for food – which is a serious pain because you’ve got to walk a fair distance with heavy bags. Now I’m about to have supper with our apartment crew and Shaun so I’ll check in with you all later…