The rant goes on

Welcome back to the Bitter Scroll after 8 years of silence!  I have now deleted the earlier rants, not wanting to cause stumbling / give evidence to those who suspect me of being narrow minded and opiniated.    Far be it from me.

So, the new incarnation of the Bitter Scroll is a church planting 'notes to self' page.  It has a moderate safe search filter - meaning I might rant about my enemies, but won't name them.

So, let me kick off with the first church planting technicality.  Mid week groups and critical sizes.

Soul Food was/is the midweek meeting of TCC Rusholme.    I have spent quite a while thinking of the ways it succeeded and failed.   Its format was that of a constantly running alpha course, with a basic Bible study as its  teaching content.

Its key success was based on its format - simple, accessible and Biblical. Hundreds of people came through - in many ways it lifted the church into a crucial phase of growth but it did so very unevenly.

With the Kurds, the meeting was their main doorway into the church. This became a significant group in TCC and it started in Soul Food.

The Arabs.....mixed.    The reality is that while Arabs came, the change process was slower and their loyalty to the church was weaker.

Other groups didn't see new disciples made. Put crudely.

What made the difference? Commitment to discipling people outside Soul Food.  Soul Food was not capable of being the engine of change on its own.  It needed to be combined with other strategies and groups that drilled down into deeper issues. That took committed leadership - for the Kurdish group, and partly through the Arabic church for the Arabs.

It was easy to be intoxicated by numbers, to ignore a lack of depth in prayer, and to put off considerations of deep life change to another time. The Alpha course is temporary.   Holy Trinity Brompton's pastorates meet every other week to leave time for deeper meetings.   We need formats that mix breadth with depth.

Note to self: encourage leaders to offer that deeper level to key people in the church.   If you don't, you'll burn out for short term gain. Possibly run the main meeting every other week, not every week.