“A couple of years ago we came to the conclusion that churches plant churches—and we didn’t have a reason not to. So, we started exploring what that might look like here in Palmerston North.”
Isaac Pettersen serves as Discipleship and Multiplication Pastor at Crossroads Church and is the point person for a new church plant out of Crossroads called The Grove Church.
Isaac is part of a 20-person team that has been preparing for more than a year to plant The Grove Church, which held its first Sunday service three weeks ago on Easter Sunday. He says that from the very beginning, the aim has been to plant a church that serves the local community:
“We have the conviction that every community deserves a local church, so we looked at towns and neighbourhoods around us that didn’t have any local church accessible for people.
Isaac says about 8,000 people live in Kelvin Grove, and there are a couple of churches for specific groups—a Pasifika church and an Indian church community—but nothing seeking to reach the wider community.
“We started exploring and looking at what that would look like. As we started exploring, people started to put their hands up to indicate they’d like to be a part of it, and we started praying into specific needs—and it felt like God kept leading us in that direction.
Planting a church in Kelvin Grove wasn’t about planting Crossroads 2.0 or a satellite church replicating the exact service, preaching, and style of Crossroads. Isaac says the primary aim has been to go into the community and plant a church with an outward focus.
“We start with a meal at 5.30pm then keep our services short as we do have quite a lot of kids. Families have been really accommodating of this time slot so far. Right from the beginning we’ve been praying we’d be an outwardly focused church for the community that’s there. And that’s who has been showing up. This past Sunday four families who live right across the street showed up. There are a number of people with no church background or who haven’t been part of church for a long time. As I looked around on Sunday I saw a real diversity of church backgrounds, cultures, and people who don’t know Jesus yet—which is the kind of church we want to be, a place for the community it’s in.
“Our services, our ministries, everything we do is all thinking, ‘how we are going to reach people in this community who don’t know Jesus?’” An example of this is the service structure for The Grove Church meetings says Isaac, “We call this ‘Familiar to Unfamiliar’. From the way that we begin a service, we try to start with things that wouldn’t be too unusual for someone who’s never been to church.” They begin with a welcome, then a testimony—sharing how someone’s life has been changed by Jesus.
“Then we have a message, and we keep our sermons shorter, at about 20 minutes, and we keep them quite interactive, so we include and invite people into being a part of it. Then we respond by singing and prayer—so the move is from the familiar into the unfamiliar and we try to take people on that journey.”
Small groups are also intentionally set up with an evangelistic focus. “When someone indicates they want to join a small group we start by running an Alpha course, and whether that person is a Christian or not it gives people the opportunity to invite neighbours, friends, coworkers, and then that Alpha group becomes a Connect group that continues to meet together.”
“The intention with small groups is that after a couple of years each group would send out a couple or a few people to start another group—with an Alpha course. We’re also aware of the time burden on people—our desire is to go to where God is already at work with them… to someone’s workplace to run Alpha, or to go to someone’s home or community group rather than asking people always to come to us. Trying to be organic people-focused ministry rather than programme ministry.”
A shared leadership model supports this approach and they hope to continue this to prevent burnout, which is a common problem in church planting teams. “Most of the jobs needed on a Sunday are rotated through the team.”
“At the moment Crossroads is our resource church—supporting us with resources, doctrinal direction, and we’re under the Crossroads eldership.” Isaac says a small leadership team within the church planting team meets regularly with the Crossroads elders, “Almost like a practice eldership, so that when The Grove is able to be financially sustainable we’d have some structures in place so we could be commissioned to be an independent church.”
“We definitely don’t have this church planting thing all figured out, and realise it is early days. What’s important is that we’re putting things in God’s hands—we’re listening to the Holy Spirit and trusting God for his provision.”
More about The Grove Church: www.crossroads.co.nz/thegrovechurch
