Hope Church, Chesham, launched in April 2019, a new missional congregation in the Parish of Great Chesham, serving the communities of Hivings and Pond Park. The Pond Park area has some of the highest levels of social deprivation in the county, and the vision of Hope Church is to be a ‘light on the hill’ bringing God’s love to the community in word and deed. It was the culmination of two years of partnership between the two churches: Hivings Free Church and members of Emmanuel, Chesham.

God’s fingerprints have been seen in so many ways:

· the remarkable gift day at Emmanuel that raised more money than expected

· the grace of Hivings members to receive an influx of new people

· the sacrifice of Emmanuel members to leave their church family

· the generosity of the Baptist Union to sell their building at below market cost.

The first year, before the pandemic, saw new relationships being formed, new people arriving, and new Christians marking their faith in baptism. The Sunday congregation is up to 60, including 15 children. Vibrant Messy Church afternoons with a bouncy castle and BBQ in the car park also made clear to the community that there is now life in the place. Relationships with the local school have been developed and ministries to Seniors has been supported. A Christians Against Poverty life skills course has run twice.

The big dream is for Hope Church to become the very centre of the Pond Park and Hivings community, with a new purpose-built hub for serving the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of the residents. The vision is to be connected into the community with fresh expressions of church, a place of healing where those who are hurting find a place of comfort, and those who are without hope, to find that hope in Christ.

During the pandemic services have included pre-recorded Sunday services and a number of children’s and family activities, both at Hope and as part of parish-wide initiatives. Two lessons learned through this process have been the need for the church to work hard to maintain pastoral contact with all members of the congregation, and the critical need for a developed digital strategy enabling the widest effective engagement with the local community.

St Leonard’s, Woodcote set up a new service before the pandemic which was planned to run around five times a year. ‘St Leonard’s Outside the Walls’ (SLOW) was instead of normal Sunday service and took place in the village hall. People from across the community were invited to share croissants and coffee, before joining in for 30 minutes of ‘service time’, and there would be children’s activities and crafts. Before the pandemic, SLOW church was welcoming 60-65 people compared to a regular Sunday congregation of 40-45. St Leonard’s are looking forward to relaunching SLOW church this October.

St Ebbe’s Church in Oxford had long had a heart to reach the area of Cowley, on the outskirts of Oxford, with the good news of Jesus.  Then in 2018, an old URC church building on a busy main road in Cowley came up for sale and it seemed like God’s timing.  The Littlegate Trust wonderfully managed to bid for and purchase the building and offered it to St Ebbe’s for the use of a new church plant.  The Area Dean, who’s parish this building was in, was very supportive and a new church plant was pursued with the permission and approval of the Bishop and Archdeacon of Oxford.

In 2019 a minister was appointed and, over several months, a vision for reaching people in Cowley was communicated to the St Ebbe’s church family.  Gradually, a launch team was gathered from the various congregations at St Ebbe’s Downtown and St Ebbe’s Headington.  All in all around 60 adults and 20 children signed up to begin a new church family – Grace Church Cowley.  After meeting together for several months to pray, public services began in September 2019.  We are now playing an active part in the Cowley Deanery and are in process for a Bishop’s Mission Order in due course.

After lots of door knocking of the local neighbourhood to invite people, we were amazed how many local people took an interest in the launch.  There were hundreds at our community fun day and a full house at our launch service the next day.   Christmas was also huge after more door knocking with full carol services.  The church has grown in numbers already to be consistently around 100 people on a Sunday morning, before lockdown happened.  We are finding how important it is to be a local church for the area, reaching out, building relationships and serving the needs of the neighbourhood.

Long Crendon set up a monthly Messy Church before the pandemic, and it never stopped! They moved Messy Church outside onto household picnic blankets, or into giant cardboard boxes, when they looked at DiscipleSHIP, FellowSHIP, StewardSHIP and WorSHIP.

When they could not meet at all, the team delivered Messy Bags full of crafts and activities at Harvest, Christmas, Easter etc. This reached several people outside the normal Messy congregation.

The team held zoom Messy Churches where the children would run off and find items in a Scavenger Hunt, and then the team would use them to tell the story, for example, ‘hold the white plate above your head for Angel Gabriel’ and ‘stick the cushion up your jumper for Mary’.

Led by a lay team, they had around 70 people attending prior to the pandemic, and about 90% of non-helpers were families that would normally only come at Christmas.

Twenty-six years ago, Warfield Church conducted standard parish services, taking place in the one ancient parish church. With new housing springing up in the parish during the 1990s they planted their first new congregation in the new church primary school in the middle of the new housing. Five years later another congregation was planted, meeting in a new state primary school in the parish. In the years that followed, several more congregations were planted, the latest of which was just 2½ years ago, meeting in yet another new school building on another new housing estate. Today, Warfield Church has seven Sunday congregations meeting in two church buildings and four schools. This planting into local schools means they have a much more local impact in a geographically large and diverse parish, seen particularly in relationships with the schools, their staff and families – not just in the schools where they have congregations, but in others too. Another recent development in connection with their youngest church plant has been mission in a local ‘senior living’ complex, with regular activities run by the church.

The full-time team now comprises three clergy, a lay associate minister, a youth pastor and a children’s and families pastor, but one of the significant hallmarks throughout the history of planting in Warfield has been lay leadership. They still have vast numbers of lay leaders across all our congregations and other activities. They have just launched a Decade of Adventure at Warfield Church, hoping to see current congregations grow and, by the grace of God, be ready to plant again into another major new housing area which is likely to be built in the parish. They also know that the local council is planning to build a major new community hub by 2025 and so hope to work in partnership with them in building community there. They work in partnership with other community groups in the parish, and also across the deanery, with the hope that what they have learned over the past decades might be shared with other churches in the deanery, so that they can support others as they also plant new congregations.

St Mary’s Church in the deanery of Deddington used to run a monthly family service, but numbers had been dwindling. They decided to change their approach and used some funding from the Development Fund to purchase new tables that would enable them to try a café-style church. The Bible study would be more interactive, based around the tables, and welcome and hospitality were at the heart of the service.

Prior to the pandemic, they went from almost nobody attending the family service to 15 new families attending café church and are now looking to restart the service – beginning with an outdoor version until restrictions allow it to return as originally envisaged.

During 2015 a vacancy arose at St Mary’s Barton, a parish church (in the central tradition of the C of E) situated on the outskirts of Oxford in an area of high deprivation and social need. The church was struggling and lacking in confidence with only four lay leaders and a Sunday congregation of 20 with no children or young people. The church hall needed to be demolished and the church had no access for disabled people, poor heating, a single toilet and no kitchen facilities. The Archdeacon of Oxford helped in the search for a new incumbent. St Aldates, Oxford, a large city-centre parish with 1,000+ each Sunday, were longing to share their resources so a church partnership was agreed. They helped to appoint a new vicar and then offered ongoing support by him attending weekly staff meetings at St Aldates. This partnership has been running since April 2016 and has resulted in important networking, the building of relationships with deployment of resources to bring about significant growth.

St Mary’s has grown to a normal 60-70 on a Sunday morning with a wider range of ethnicity and age, a young people’s group of 12 and two children’s groups of around 18 in total. The dilapidated church hall has been replaced with a portacabin to accommodate children’s and young people’s work and there are weeks when the space is too small due to continued growth. In June 2019, Bishop Steven came and baptised and confirmed 12 candidates of a variety of ages. Annual direct giving has doubled, and this year there was an additional contribution to parish share of £1,000 in order to help a neighbouring church that found parish share difficult. There are plans for a redevelopment of the church costing £2.75 million – a clear indication of St Mary’s’ growing confidence. New projects in the local community, include an annual Holiday Club for primary school children, facilitating BeSpace (prayer space) three times in a local state school, three community fun days with BBQ, and a weekly afterschool club. They now have a curate in training, who lives on the new Barton Park Estate. A PCC meeting recently asked; ‘When should St Mary’s church plant a new congregation?’