Christ Church Central • Sheffield

Tim: Nicky and I have spent the last couple of years praying about where the Lord would have us go when we finish our training at Central. We've talked with others and pushed on various ministry doors. Some of those doors haven't opened, and in other conversations the Lord has brought us wisdom through others that a place might not be the best fit. We have thought and prayed about AMiE's list of 50 places to plant. But over these two years the Lord has been drawing our hearts to the place he has put us now: Sheffield.

Kenny: AMiE's church plants fall into all sorts of categories, depending on the planter, their circumstances, their experience and where they sense the Lord leading. Some have close ties to a sending church and tend to be larger. Others are a planter going with just their family. Even then, there is usually some existing connection to the place. Very few have been a move to somewhere completely new. We do want to keep the places where there is nothing yet on our radar. But that document was never meant to be a list of the only places you can plant. Given Tim and Nicky's situation and where we are as a church, somewhere in Sheffield seems a better fit this time.

Tim: The short answer is that we're talking, thinking and praying about it, and we can't say much openly yet. We hope to share more at the annual church meeting in early November.

Our attitude, now and in the past, has been Isaiah's in Isaiah 6: "Here I am, Lord, send me." That took us to Greece and then back to Sheffield, and we trust the Lord to lead us now. We're in conversation with Kenny, Tim Davies, local church and network leaders, Bishop Lee and other wise friends. Since we asked everyone to start praying, it has been very encouraging to meet local church leaders and hear about new plants, hopes for other plants and church grafts. That is already shaping where we are and aren't thinking.

We're weighing several things:

• where the needs are
• where our own sense of calling lies
• where we can gather a team, including places people have already asked us to plant
• where our gifts match the needs
• where we can sustain family life, given our circumstances

Wherever the plant ends up, someone will say, "Why not over there, where the need is greater?" The challenge for all of us is God's question to Isaiah: "Who will go for me?" Are we willing, as families and individuals, to answer, "Here I am, send me"? We need to pray for more gospel workers for every part of Sheffield, and be willing to consider that we might be the answer to our own prayers.

Tim: Watch this space. Once we've landed on an area, we'll talk about what the plant should look like there. Both models have pros and cons.

Kenny: Church plants involve real people, families and circumstances. Decisions about where people live will need to take that into account. What is ideal might not be possible for some people straight away, or in a given season. That will take time, prayer and conversation.

Kenny: Much of that waits on the location. When Christ Church Walkley was planted, it began with Pete and Claire Jackson, and Jen and I joined before the location was known. It's hard to commit when you don't know where. Once the location was known, a core planning team formed: people who were keen, had particular gifts and skills, or were already living in the area. They did the early legwork of thinking, planning and community engagement. A wider team formed around them over a longer period. I wouldn't be surprised if it goes the same way now: Tim and Nicky, then the location, then a core team that grows over time.

Kenny: It's hard to know, and there's a real element of trusting the Lord, both for those who stay at Central and for the plant, which will feel very different depending on numbers. It involves real people and real conversations, and the location will shape it.

Tim: We don't know. We're praying for a team of around 25 adults plus children from Central, and that other local Christians will join us too.

Tim: Yes. Once we've landed on the location, we will reach out and invite people to consider joining. If you don't want to wait for an invitation and would like to talk before then, that's fine too. The main prayer point and focus right now is the location. We hope other things will fall into place after that.

Tim: Come and have a chat with me. It's encouraging when people ask.

Kenny: There's joining now, and there's what joining will mean further down the line. For now, talk to Tim, find out more and encourage him. Once the location is known and a team is forming, we'll ask more widely who might be interested. That will be a time for conversation and prayer with us, working out whether it's the Lord's will and whether it's wise in your circumstances. Expect a process, and we'll invite those conversations when we get there.

Tim: Whatever shape it takes, we want to partner with local churches. We don't want to turn up in an area as if we're the only ones there, and there are churches across the city to partner with.

A plant can be like a new baby, something that wasn't there before. Or it can be a graft, where a team joins an existing church to bring new life and people. We expect this to be a new church. That's where my gifts and my heart lie.

Tim: We need to land the location first. Then we'll see who is interested in joining, and from that what support we need from elsewhere.

Kenny: There's also the question of how the plant relates to Central afterwards. One model is the "strawberry plant": runners go out from the main plant, and people and resources keep flowing between them. That gives the plant a softer launch, because it doesn't have to do everything itself from the start. The difficulty, seen elsewhere in the country, is that separating later is hard. The plant will develop different mission priorities from a city-centre church, and the two can end up in tension.

So our hope at this point is that the right people go, and that we send them with our blessing and, ideally, some resources to get going. We'd see the plant as a mission partner, with targeted support, encouragement and prayer, but free to work out how best to proclaim and live the gospel where it is. That does mean learning to stand on its own two feet from the beginning.

Tim: A great deal. Kenny has been on a church plant. Tim Davies, who is still part of our church family, has led one. I'm in regular contact with Bishop Lee McMunn, who is a church planter himself, and I'm already gaining a lot of wisdom from all three. Lee is arranging a church planting coach from within AMiE to support, encourage, question and advise me regularly through the coming stages.

Outside AMiE, I've joined the Redeemer City to City network, a worldwide church planting network that grew out of Tim Keller's ministry in New York. Its hub of planters meets in Manchester one Thursday a month. We're at different stages, and it's great to learn from them and work through things together. Grab me after a service if you'd like to hear more.

Kenny: Learning from that together is an excellent idea. I hope we can arrange a chance to hear from those who were here when Walkley was planted and who walked through rebuilding Central afterwards, and from those with experience elsewhere. Watch this space. We'd love to learn from you.

Kenny: There is no perfect time to plant a church. Everything never lines up neatly. There will always be uncertainty, and sacrifice for those who go and those who stay. Gospel work has a cost, and through it we learn to depend on the Lord's provision rather than ourselves.

That said, it's still a question of wisdom: are things coming together, and is this wise now? Having someone willing, able and competent to plant a church is key, and not always easy to find. That we have that is a joy. The need is there now. We could wait and might be in a better place, or might not. Tim is in the right place, and Central, though never perfect, is in a place where doing this wouldn't be foolish.

On capacity: you're right that 25 people spread across both services won't solve how full some Sunday mornings are. But I'm not sure that issue is easily solved anyway. I spoke recently with Ed Pennington at Christ Church Endcliffe, which has been on a similar journey. Their evening service had dwindled close to single figures, so they moved to two morning services. That brought new issues: children's work is needed at both, families with younger children tend to prefer the early service and those with older children the later one, and over time that creates a drift. You can make a lot of change without solving the underlying issue. I don't know the answer to our mornings. It's a great problem to have: pray about it and rejoice over it. But if we waited until it was sorted, the plant could be years away, and by then there would be other things we felt needed sorting first.

Tim: We need a kingdom mindset. Sheffield has huge gospel needs. As a church we want to see 10% of Sheffielders in a Bible-teaching, Jesus-loving church on a Sunday. Research suggests church planting is one of the most effective ways of reaching people with the gospel. New churches reach people effectively, and sending churches often grow as well. Sending 25 adults and 20 children will create some space, but we expect to see gospel growth here at Central as a result. Planting won't fix capacity. We plant because it's urgent: people need to hear the good news about Jesus, and these are matters of eternity.

Kenny: This is part of a broader, longer-term issue of belonging, confidence, training and engagement. The plant will force the issue, because those who go are often serving or leading in some way. That's both a challenge and an opportunity. I hope the year ahead, towards autumn 2027, will be a chance to make headway, growing the kind of discipleship that gives people confidence to serve, get stuck in and grow in leadership. There will be some discomfort. We'll be asking people to serve in new ways, perhaps with more responsibility than before. But we want to trust the Lord's provision for Central too, including people, and see this as an opportunity to grow together as his family and his church.

Kenny: First, this is a good moment to review your giving. If Central is your church family and you're not yet giving, now would be a great time to sort that out.

The Church Oversight Team has this on its agenda for the new year. Once we have a clearer idea of who is going, we can see the actual impact on giving and finances and review what follows. It may mean thinking differently about some things for a season, and it will likely take time to recover. That's one of the sacrifices of sending people for gospel work. The loss isn't only personal, of friendships and serving together. It may also change what we're able to do here for a season.

Kenny: Two things to bear in mind. When Tim goes, we no longer pay his salary. But others will go too, and some of them will be funding the staff at the new church. So how it pans out is quite unknown. It's not straightforward.

More broadly, it's an opportunity to think through our staffing and priorities. There has long been a desire for a paid women's minister post or something similar, and how that might relate to student ministry or other areas is a question I'd be keen to explore. We'll be considering where Central is now, not where it was five years ago when Tim and Nicky arrived. We'll see how it comes out as we get towards the summer term next year.

Kenny: Honestly, we don't know, largely because we don't know who will go. For families with young people who are in the right place, it could be a great opportunity: stepping out, sacrificing some friendships here, and serving in something new. Don't rule it out because of your children. If it does happen, it will be a challenge for those young people, who may find themselves with very few others at their stage. That could be a joy and an encouragement, but it's also hard. For the young people who stay, as for the adults, there may be sadness that friends have moved on. But those friends will have gone to proclaim the gospel and serve in a church elsewhere. Our own costs and losses for the gospel aren't a bad thing in themselves. They can be a very good thing.

Kenny: It's important to recognise that possibility. We invest ourselves in these things and imagine what they'll be like, and that will be most acute for Tim, Nicky and those who gather around them early on. So there would rightly be a season of lament. Scripture gives us permission and encouragement to lament the things we hoped, dreamed and prayed for that don't come to pass, and it would be right for us to do that together as a church.

Then we'd be asking: we pushed this door and the Lord hasn't opened it, so in his wisdom it wasn't the right thing, whatever our instincts said. For Tim and Nicky, that means thinking again about the long-term ministry the Lord is calling them to. For Central, it means continuing to proclaim Christ, grow together as his family and disciple one another, as we pray again about what the Lord has for us next.

These aren't done deals. We can get into a mess spiritually and emotionally if we think the Lord has promised us this, and that he has failed us if it doesn't happen now, in this way. The Lord has given us many wonderful promises, but planting a church at this time and in this place isn't one of them. He has promised to be with us.