‘How do we plant healthy churches that grow young disciples of Jesus?’ This is one of our questions within 2020birmingham.
2020birmingham is a collaborative church-planting movement in Birmingham. We began in 2010 with a vision to see 20 churches planted by 2020 and have grown to prayerfully seek another 30 by 2030. We exist because we believe that the spiritual need and opportunities for mission in our city are too big for us to meet on our own. We are evangelical churches seeking to be together for the city.
Europe’s youngest city
In March we gathered for our annual conference to consider what it will take for us to attempt to reach the next generation with the good news of Jesus. Birmingham is Europe’s youngest city with under 25s accounting for nearly 40% of our population. We were delighted to welcome Rachel Gardner as our keynote speaker. Gardner is the relationship lead at Youthscape, an innovative research and development centre for youth work in Luton. She is also the President of the Girl’s Brigade and youth leader at her local church.
Youthscape recently did a piece of research and discovered that within a wide cross-section of 2,000 UK churches, 75% had no youth in them at all, and only 5% would say they sought to actively disciple their youth. Gardner, accompanied by a number of members of 2020birmingham, helped us to understand the cultural moment we are living in and what it might mean for us to plant healthy churches that grow young disciples.
Ethnic majority
As an added layer of complexity, the latest census data revealed that in Birmingham 57% of under-11s are from a variety of ethnic minorities. As a movement, we long to see God working amongst the hardest to reach communities around us. It was deeply moving to hear the story of one of our prospective planters. Nadeem is an extraordinary church-planter, having been instrumental in the establishing of disciple-making centres in a number of different Muslim majority countries. A couple of years ago, whilst ministering in one of these countries, the local Imam was converted and a fatwa was pronounced on Nadeem. Through tears, Nadeem described how his friend, the former Imam, was eventually killed for converting to Christianity and Nadeem was forced to come to England. Nadeem had no intention of staying in the UK, but God opened his eyes to the tremendous need and opportunity there is to share the gospel with Muslims in the UK. He is currently supported as an evangelist with Birmingham City Mission in a very needy part of the city, sharing his faith with Muslims. He belongs to one of the 2020birmingham churches and we are praying that God will use Nadeem powerfully for His glory.
It is thrilling to see the way God provides just the right workers for the mission field. Reaching next generations may feel like a daunting task, but the harvest remains plentiful.
