In a speech delivered at Rice University on 12 September 1962, John F Kennedy famously said: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Manchester is a city of 2.8 million people where less than 1% of the population currently attends a gospel church. We would need to plant 60 new churches of 100 people just to keep up with population growth at the current rate over the next ten years. The "moon shot" of the Northern Gospel Project is to plant 30 healthy gospel churches by 2030.
As part of that mission, the Northern Gospel Project hosted our first ever Church Planter Launchpad from 27 February to 2 March 2025. Four prospective church planting couples gathered for a long weekend of training, encouragement and assessment. We learned about the history of Manchester, the strategic importance of church planting, the need for contextualisation and the importance of developing healthy gospel renewal dynamics in our own walks with the Lord. The training was delivered by eight experienced planters from three different denominations (the FIEC, New Frontiers and AMiE). Each had been involved in planting a church in the city within the last ten years.
How to say a good goodbye to your sending church
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old …