Small church, large church - working together

Watch a video telling the story of Re:Source

Re:Source started in 2002. The Baptist Union had just undergone a major restructuring exercise and was encouraging churches to gather in geographical clusters for the sake of mutual support and encouragement.

The North Bristol Cluster was made up of City Road Baptist Church; Westbury on Trym Baptist Church; Cairns Road Baptist Church; Lawrence Weston Baptist Church and St Mary’s Baptist Church. Cairns Road and Westbury were larger churches – Mike Pears and Steve Philimore the Pastors came from urban ministry backgrounds and had a heart to support the smaller churches.

The opportunity came when City Road needed a Moderator whilst it was in between ministers and Steve took on the role. This led to a stronger relationship between the two churches and the beginnings of a partnership. Steve was able to inform the big church of the needs of the smaller church in a way that had not been possible before.

It took some time to allay fears of a take over and for the smaller church to begin to accept the help of the larger. This, however, became a pattern that spread to the other churches. Westbury developed a heart for Lawrence Weston which at the time was a small congregation. Westbury was a growing church that had reached about ninety percent capacity of its building. Instead of deciding to church plant; start multiple services or extend its premises, it decided to try a different approach – the church offered their Associate Minister to Lawrence Weston.

The smaller church agreed to take on Sheila Cooper for a 6 month trial for one day a week and preaching. After that period they agreed to continue and Sheila became their part-time pastor whilst remaining an Associate Pastor at Westbury.

It was at this point that Re:Source started.

Urban needs

“Small urban churches lack resources and as a consequence can find themselves in real need,” says Michael Shaw who now works for Re:Source full time. “Re:Source seeks to take people from suburban churches and train them and use them in an urban setting.”

The cluster has reached a point where the boundaries are beginning to blur. Cairns Road often provides the people and Westbury provides the staff and some of the finances, the rest being provided by a grant from Home Mission. This arrangement allows the larger churches to offer the use of their Youth and Student pastor to the other churches one day a week.

The results have been fascinating. Six members of Cairns Road have transferred to Lawrence Weston and become members.

“At Christmas 2006 there were six elderly ladies at Lawrence Weston. Now there are thirty adults. Recently they celebrated their first baptism and held their first wedding.”

St Mark’s Baptist Church is now also part of Re:Source. Until quite recently it had twenty-five members with an average age of 60+ and only one or two in full time employment. Through Home Mission the church has been able to employ a new minister, who identified the first need as securing the church financially. By renting the yard next to the church he was able to create a funding stream that has meant the church can now pay for their minister.

Running a community audit

As the church began to think about community engagement they called on Re:Source and Michael to help them identify the needs around them. Michael conducted a community audit.

“We split this into three sections. First we went to existing community groups including the local mosque, the Sikh Centre and the local community centre and simply asked questions. ‘What do you like about this area? What’s good about the community? What needs to change? What can the church do? And how can we work together?’ The next step was to do exactly the same thing knocking on doors in the area.

“The third thing we did was go to a local architect with the view of redeveloping the church site according to the needs we had discovered. We had identified five defined needs: provision for excluded youth, holistic health, a community cyber café, access to more community facilities, and better information for local residents.

“With access to the shared resources across the cluster the church has been able to say, ‘come over and help us’, and see the other churches respond to the call.”

Find out more about Re:Source here.

Last Updated 03 December 2010