We began trying to meet people and start a small group. Nothing from our church planting training had prepared us. Then we did one of the smartest things a church planter can do, we asked God what to do. God’s answer was a question: “What did I ask you to do?” For Hendrik this was preaching, so he prepared a sermon and one Tuesday night, we started a small group, just the two of us, with Hendrik doing a teaching. After a difficult effort to gather people, they began to arrive at our doorstep.

 

First, in our new little home group, it was only Hendrik and me. We offered a young German lad called Frido our hospitality, to help him with his English. Then Lorna arrived, Dan Hawkins, and Dan invited Matt Stent and Tom Allsop. We were still waiting for God to send us a worship leader. Two weeks later, on my birthday, I felt the Lord was about to give me a birthday present. Matt got up and led worship for the first time. What a gift! More than that, he was so faithful and Sunday after Sunday he was there next to us, helping us move all the equipment we needed, and leading us into worship. With Matt on board, we had our worship leader and about 10 people in our group. We were now ready to start our evening service in a pub that was willing to host us.

 

As time progressed in the Pub, more and more people came, but we realised that we were gathering more single people and many from other churches who had no intention of becoming part of our church. They only came because their churches did not have an evening service. Regardless, this helped us build some momentum and about 40 of us gathered weekly. We decided that if we wanted a church with families and to accommodate children, we needed to have Sunday morning services.

 

The opportunity arose and we started Sunday morning services at the Octagon Theatre. Our first Sunday service had 33 people, 3 of whom only came to support us for the launch and wish us well.

Regardless, we never looked back and quickly outgrew the venue and within the first month of meeting there, Tim, Nicola and their little girl Esther arrived. Nicola was also pregnant, and her baby girl Abigail was the first baby born in our church. Tim, an accountant, worked in the same department as me at the hospital, but he had no idea that Hendrik and I were pastoring the church. So, when he and Nicola walked through our church doors, the first thing he asked me was: “What are you doing here?!” 

 

We invited Tim and Nicola for dinner, and the first thing that struck me about them was that they loved Jesus. When they left that night, I felt the Lord telling me, “They will take over from you.” The next thing Hendrik came to me and told me that the Lord told him that the Bakers would take over from us one day. That was in 2010.

 

We didn’t speak to them about it for another 6 years. As they recently moved from Nottingham where they were worship leaders in a Pentecostal church and full time involved, we wanted to give them time to settle in first and find their feet in the Vineyard.

 

The Bakers started a monthly Thursday Worship & Prayer evening. I remember in July 2016; I was looking at them as they led worship at their Worship & Prayer evening, and there was a moment I noticed how comfortable they looked. That night Hendrik came to me and said he felt it was time to tell them about what we felt about them, back in 2010. They were on their way on holiday and promised that they would be praying about it. They had two car accidents that month. What an attack! A month later we had another meeting with them, and they told us to go ahead with the training, although Tim was still not 100% sure. We knew that it would be a timing thing, and it is up to them and the Lord.