A Heart For A City

There's no questioning the commitment of groupings like Newfrontiers to church planting. At the recent Prayer & Fasting gathering of pastors and staff from the UK churches, the vision to see hundreds more churches planted was blatant. Here is a vision not only to see people saved, but to see something significant built. Churches which will plant more churches, release more leaders and ultimately build communities which point to eternity.

The flip side of that is that we parachute what are sometimes quite large groups into towns and cities and expect a church to grow. The prompting to take this action might be strategic (e.g. "that is a significant city - we need a large church there") or circumstantial ("I have a job opportunity in this town which could release me to start a church"). It is not always the case that we plant churches out of compassion for the city. We should probably discover more of that aspect.

On Sunday Chris Kilby spoke at Life Church Southampton from Nehemiah - we looked at how God moved Nehemiah from compassion for his father's people to prayer for the situation. It was a sense of devastating loss for his people that motivated Nehemiah to prayer, and ultimately, action.

It is one thing to start a church with a vague awareness of the issues in a city; or with an eye on a wider apostolic strategy; or with a heart to see a significant church built; or even with a heart to see lost people saved. But there is a unique dynamic about having a heart for the city you're called to, and this (for those who have been parachuted in to start a church) comes only with time. Even for myself, having practically grown up in Southampton, and having had my heart stirred for it even as an 18-year-old, there has been a process of heart-warming I have had to go through in relation to building Life Church. This sense of compassion for a broken city coupled with a deep-seated conviction that a church can restore it will be a powerful combination as it grows.