Converse

It is a great pleasure to be able to republish my interview with Tim Chester.

Adam Bradley: Please can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Tim Chester: I’m married to Helen and we have two daughters. I’m a church planter, writer, Bible teacher and blogger (www.timchester.co.uk). I co-direct The Porterbrook Network (www.theporterbrooknetwork.org) with Steve Timmis which currently consists of two training programmes: Porterbrook Training which trains people for church planting and missional church through distance learning and residentials; and the Northern Training Institute (www.northerntraininginstitute.org) which trains people for church leadership through guided reading, residentials and monthly seminar days. I’ve written a dozen or so books (http://timchester.wordpress.com/books/). I also love books, food, conversation, playing tennis, watching any sport with a ball (especially cricket), tidying up and washing the family’s clothes.

Adam Bradley: Please can you tell me some of the highlights of your testimony?

Tim Chester: I was brought up in a Christian home. I believe I became a Christian one Sunday night when I was four – a view, I discovered some twenty years later, shared by my parents. I struggled in childhood with assurance until reading John 6:37 when I came to appreciate that the question was not whether I had repented ‘enough’, but would Christ accept me if I came to him – something about which I could have no doubt. I was baptised at the age of 14.

Adam Bradley: What church do you lead/involved in? (background, movement/denomination, philosophy of ministry, etc)

Tim Chester: I lead The Edge Network, a group of three household congregations which is part of The Crowded House (http://www.thecrowdedhouse.org/). The Crowded House is gospel-centred in all that it does (missional church) with a strong emphasis on community as the context for mission, pastoral care, discipleship and so on. We emphasis ‘ordinary people living ordinary life with gospel intentionality’. We also speak of home as the primary location for church and most of our congregations meet in homes. Our approach is summed up in our ten values (http://www.thecrowdedhouse.org/?q=ourvalues) and described in more detail on a book I co-wrote with Steve Timmis called Total Church (IVP/Crossway). http://astore.amazon.co.uk/timche-21/detail/1844741915/202-7594482-7212630

Adam Bradley: What books are your currently reading?

Tim Chester: I need to finish a book for IVP by the end of October on how the cross and resurrection should shape our lives as Christians. So much of my current reading is geared around that. It’s mostly re-reading books: Andrew Lincoln’s book, Paradise: Not and Not Yet, Michael Gorman’s book, Cruciformity, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic, The Cost of Discipleship. I’ve just finished Atonement by Ian McEwan (I haven’t seen the film version). I’m also reading a book by Roy Strong, The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts.

Adam Bradley: What’s sermons/preachers are you listening to at the moment (the i-pod question)?

Tim Chester:

None.

Adam Bradley: Why is church planting such a passion for you?

Tim Chester: Because it’s a lot of fun! Am I allowed to say that? I’d rather be church planting than coping with all the admin and change issues that my friends in established churches have to face. I guess my ‘proper’ answer is that church planting puts mission at the heart of church and church at the heart of mission.

Adam Bradley: What would you say are the three most important principles for any young want-to-be church planter?

Tim Chester:

1. Recruit a team

You can’t do it on your own! It doesn’t need to be a big team. Half a dozen people would be enough. What does matter is that you have people who are on board with your vision. We routinely ask people not to join us. (Our rule of thumb has been not to have Christians from other local churches join us just because they fancy a change of church.) We want people to feel a sense of coming to be part of missional team (even if they have a full-time secular job).

2. Develop a vision

Start to develop a sense of what kind of church you want to be. What principles or values will shape you? Try to express this is in a clear way so that everyone in the team can articulate it for themselves. We don’t have much in the way of programmes, plans, structures and buildings. But we do try to set a clear vision so everyone knows what they should be doing and has the freedom to innovate within the vision.

3. Hang out in your area Walk the streets, prayer walk, spend time in local cafes (do your reading and prep there), join community groups, talk to people about your area. This serves a double purpose: (1) it will help you contextualise and (2) it will begin to build bridges with people in your neighbourhood.

You can do all these three things in an iterative way – they all feed into one another.

One other word of warning. Don’t rush to start do something called ‘church’ until you are confident your team has a radically different vision of church. The business of ‘doing church’ (services, children’s work, etc.) can be a distraction. You might want to call yourself a ‘missional team’ for a long time and then let slip that you have been church all this time and this is how you’re always going to do church. Or consider waiting to plant a church until you have the home of new convert in which to meet. This may help you get your contextualisation right. Let church be done on the hoof.

Adam Bradley: Here’s your opportunity to say anything else you like…

Tim Chester: Treasure Christ. Don’t find your identify in being a cutting edge, on the ball, hip and cool, orthodox and conservative church planter. Don’t try to prove yourself. don;t be controlled by the opinions of other people. Enjoy each day the grace of God to your in Christ. Return again and again to the cross. Treasure Christ. Be disciplined about it. Meditate on all that he is and all that he has done so that he is enough. Then you can bear fruit in every season, as Psalm 1 puts it. You can face disappointment, failure, temptation and still be full of joy because your joy is in the Lord.