What do you think of when you hear mention of Suffolk?
Maybe you think of a delightfully understated county with no motorway and, until recently, no university. Maybe you think of fish and chips by the sea in Southwold or Aldeburgh. Maybe you think of Ed Sheeran, Suffolk’s famous popstar son. Maybe you think of names from church history with links to Suffolk, like J.C. Ryle. Maybe you think of the 750,000 people who live here, the vast majority of whom don’t know Christ.
While there are many churches faithfully serving Christ and their communities, there are also places in Suffolk without Bible-preaching, Christ-exalting churches. In the last few years, a group of church leaders have been meeting to think how we can effectively reach these parts of our county for Christ. What has become clear is that we cannot do this alone. Churches need to work together.
To help foster a desire to work together to see churches planted and revitalised, an event called ‘Gospel Vision for Suffolk’ has been run in September for the last three years. The first of these events was organised by the FIEC under the encouragement of Richard Underwood, the former director for pastoral ministry and, importantly, born and bred in Suffolk.
The essential ingredients for this year’s event were simple: one pig – dead and roasted; 70 church leaders – hungry and eager to learn; One speaker – experienced in church planting and happy to talk. Mike Kendall was our speaker. He spoke about the experience of planting two churches from St Neots Evangelical Church (SNEC), where he serves as pastor. He was honest about the joys and struggles in planting Kingfisher Church in Little Paxton and Christ Church Cambourne. Mike spoke vividly about the sacrifices necessary to see churches planted – sacrifices that he and SNEC had known first-hand. He quoted Emil Zátopek, a Czech marathon runner, who famously said at the start of a race to his competitors: ‘Today we die a little!’ Mike explained that, in following Christ and to see the gospel go out and new churches begun, this needs to be our motto: ‘Today we die a little for Christ!’
At the event a video was launched, highlighting four places of particular gospel need: Haverhill; Newmarket; South East Ipswich; and Halesworth. We then prayed that God might be pleased to see churches planted and the gospel go out in these places and others besides. We look forward to what the years ahead might bring as churches in Suffolk work together to see the gospel go out.
What will spring to your mind the next time you hear mention of Suffolk? Maybe you’ll think of these places in need of churches and you’ll pray, with us, for them.
If you’d be interested in praying for Suffolk please visit our website gospelneedforsuffolk.co.uk where you’ll find a video you could show at your church, and you could request brochures to help you to pray.
