The journey to planting and establishing a church is never straightforward—but one that is full of God’s grace.
For the past two years Associate Pastor Shane Wildermoth from Te Awamutu Bible Chapel (TABC) has been part of a team planting Agape Bible Chapel in Morrinsville—a Waikato town with a population of about 10,000 people, with many employed in the local diary industry.
Shane says it all began with a Bible study he led out of Te Awamutu, “there was a group of Filipino Christians here in Te Awamutu, I led Bible studies with them for a number of years and they became active and involved in TABC.”
The idea to plant a church started form after many of the group moved to Morrinsville for work and began making the 45-50 minute drive in for church each week: “They were keen to start a church in the Morrinsville area so they wouldn’t have to travel so far with kids, when covid hit that slowed things down, but we continued our Bible studies.
“In 2023 we brought it to the elders at Te Awamutu Bible Chapel that we had the idea of planting a church under TABC in Morrinsville.” The elders were supportive and in February 2024 things got underway.
“We were initially planning to use the old Methodist Church building because they were closing up. However, During that time CCCNZ Waikato/Bay of Plenty Regional Enabler Grant Birks got in touch with the trustees of the old Morrinsville Bible Church (a church no longer actively meeting in their building). Some of our team met with Morrinsville trustees Darryl Houghton and Morris Broadbent and they offered us the building to use for free as long as we were faithful to preach the gospel! So God took care of our need for a building!"
From the Bible study group and wider TABC family, a Leadership Team of men and their wives emerged—Baddy and Joy Anora, Lovell and Cherie Calipusan, Glynn and Robyn Langford—along with Shane and his wife Rene.
“We kicked it off by advertising and put out invitations. We decided we’d have night services, because that fit with our schedules. About 20 people came along on our first night and since then it’s grown—we now regularly have 25-40 people joining us on a Sunday. We still meet in the evening, as many of our congregation find the time of the service fits in better with farming or factory work responsibilities, and they haven’t been able to be a regular part of any church due to the lack of evening services in many places.”
Shane says growth has come from within Morrinsville: “We’ve got people coming from the community now, in fact we had our first baptisms last November which is really exciting. A father and daughter got baptised, they’re now involved in the worship team leading us. And one of the older guys who’d started coming to the church early on decided to give his life to the Lord and be baptised.”
Although numbers have grown, true growth is taking place in a variety of ways, says Shane:
“One guy came to us from the Catholic Church and he started asking really great questions—he loves the Bible teaching, because what we’re doing is just teaching through the New Testament. Another guy was coming along, and it was clear he was just coming for the food—over the year that he has been here he has come to know the Lord and has started bringing food. He has also been baptised—that’s the sort of growth that is encouraging in amongst the tough stuff and hard work of church planting.”
Developing the team and building the church towards independence has been a key focus for Shane, who has been part of planting churches in the Philippines.
“Training has played a big role in the planting process. I regularly take the boys through Bible studies for teaching and thinking through ‘how do we present a message?’ As we’ve grown we’ve started to build a music team. Cherie is a musician and she has organised a good-sized worship team and they’ve been developing over the two years we’ve been meeting. Now we have a number of great teachers—Baddy, Lovell, and another Filipino man who was a pastor in the Philippines.”
Shane has been encouraged by the intentional ways the group has been reaching out to their local community, “Last year we decided to do meals after the service—that was the Filipinos’ idea—so every Sunday we have our service from 6-7pm and then dinner until 8pm. It has been a good thing for talking with people about the gospel.
“We’re also doing outreach into our local community—we partnered on a community outreach with OAC’s Lew Meyer last year and coming up in a couple of weeks we have Michael Cook from Creation Ministries doing a day seminar.”
The name ‘Agape Bible Chapel’ was a group decision, based on a desire to show the heart of the church to the community around them:
“When we came to choose a name for our church we sat around the table as a Leadership Team and went through a whole lot of potential names—but we chose Agape Bible Chapel as it speaks of God’s love being sacrificial and that’s what we want to be—to show sacrificial love to the people of Morrinsville and beyond.”
Establishing Agape Bible Chapel as an independent church is the long term aim they’re working towards, says Shane.
“This year I’ll be working with the guys doing some studies in eldership—looking at what it means to be an elder and what the responsibilities are. We’re looking from the Leadership Team to see who would become an elder at the end of this year or next year. We’re also going to be doing similar studies with the whole congregation, and by the end of this year asking people to consider who they would see as elders.
“The idea is that by next year we’ll have a local eldership. We’re still under Te Awamutu Bible Chapel at this stage, and that has been really helpful. Different people have come across and offer support, and the guys from the Leadership Group meet with the TABC elders once every three months. However, we’re moving towards independence. We’d like to see elders chosen by next year but recognise the need to be cautious as we want to put the right people in as elders."
The development of the original Leadership Team has been the most encouraging thing about the whole process for Shane on a personal level:
“Just seeing where they were two years ago and now seeing where they are today, it’s encouraging to see their maturity, their growth in ministry, and their desire to work together and chip in together. If someone visits us people go out of their way to welcome them and include them. Lovell is a real teacher of the Word of God, and one of Baddy’s gifts is clearly evangelism, he loves to preach the gospel.”
