In Depth:  Co-Mission

Co-Mission says it is ‘thrilled’ about three new church plants that, ‘in God’s kindness’, have just launched in London.

Redeemer Queen’s Park in north-west London launched on Saturday 25 September at 4 p.m. in Salusbury (sic) Primary School. Over the last year, God has graciously assembled a core team of 25 adults with a few kids to boot. Amazingly, 65 adults and 13 kids turned up for their launch, and even more the second week! Most arrived through personal relationships with the core team. Others connected with Redeemer through flyering or social media. The church’s university outreach and its children’s work are big draws.

Co-Mission churches are finding new ways to get the gospel out into local neighbourhoods and beyond.

Christ Church Mayfair has redirected its London:Living? podcast to be an evangelism tool addressing current issues for their congregation members to share with the community. These include the topics of Death & Loss, Peace of Mind, and Racism & Injustice. Through these conversations the church can engage people in their Honest Questions and Christianity Explored courses.

London church planting network, Co-Mission, gives an update on some of its newest congregations:

‘Realistically, a few of the Co-Mission church plants in and around London might not come out of this alive. But so far – to the credit of our church planters, the resilience of their launch teams and the goodness of God – none of our recent church plants, nor any of our proposed church plants, have had to close or look like they’re facing imminent death. We pray that this will remain the case.

Normally at this time of year, Co-Mission churches would have been reflecting on another cracking REVIVE weekend – the annual Co-Mission festival.

We’d have been thanking God for over 2,000 people squeezed into a big top for excellent Bible teaching and singing; we’d have been reminiscing about late nights chatting around blazing fire pits, about packed kids’ programmes, about silent discos, about soul-nourishing seminars and about sipping something cold under the stretch tent as the sun sets.

Along with churches throughout the country, Co-Mission churches in London are adjusting to life in the face of a global pandemic. We are finding new ways to keep congregations connected, preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and care practically for one another and our neighbours.

On Sunday 15 March, Dundonald Church met together for the last time before social-distancing rules made church gatherings impossible. Richard Coekin (Senior Pastor of Dundonald Church) led the congregation in this expanded version of the Lord’s Prayer:

Co-Mission is committed to planting and strengthening churches throughout London to reach the lost for the glory of God. We want to reach people who wouldn’t normally come to church to hear about Jesus. Here are two examples of Co-Mission churches using the opportunity of Christmas to present guests with their need for a Saviour.

Christ Church Balham held its annual ‘carols in a pub’ service with a unique twist – mashing up traditional carols with pop music! This has become CCB’s biggest outreach event of the year. The theatre at the Bedford Pub in Balham was packed with friends and family of churchgoers, as well as those in the pub curious at the merriment. All enjoyed belting out carols with the ten-piece band, to a mix of merry renditions of Take On Me by Aha (or Angels from the Realms of Glory), Giant by Rag’n’Bone Man (or See Amid the Winter’s Snow) and All the Small Things by Blink 182 (or O Come All Ye Faithful).

Co-Mission churches have long used the metaphor of a lifeboat to remind ourselves that we need to be rescuing the perishing.

Richard Coekin (Co-Mission) has drawn on lessons from the Titanic disaster and Neil Powell (City to City) has written of the need for ‘a Dunkirk spirit, where a huge number of lifeboats were mobilised to realise a vision far too big for any group to achieve alone’.

‘The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the very power of God.’

The words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians opened REVIVE, Co-Mission’s Annual Bible Festival which took place at the University of Kent at Canterbury in June. In a Big Top filled with attendees from 28 Co-Mission churches across London, the weekend began with an evening of praise, prayer, interviews and a talk by Richard Coekin, CEO of Co-Mission, on ‘The Power of the Cross’. While the message of Christ crucified is despised as weak and foolish by the world, it is central to the Bible, history and Co-Mission. Indeed, it remains the only way that Co-Mission will grow as a network.

In January, Co-Mission, a network of local churches in London, launched a film We Plant Churches to Reach the Lost.

Through a series of testimonies the film explains why the network does what it does. Co-mission seeks to follow Christ’s command in Matthew 28:19: ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’