In July and August we hit the road a few times from Beeston, and by the end of our time in England we were able to look back on a truly encouraging theme to our extended stay: church planting. 

In some ways this might seem a bit faddish in the sense that you hear lots and lots about it (and I don't think we did say ten years ago) but that doesn't detract from the fact that we were privileged to witness first hand, and hear lots more about, some great, faithful, God-glorifying church planting endeavours.

From Beeston we made a weekend trip to Bristol to visit my sister and her family and take part in a church gathering of a church that has asked to support us (Emmanuel Bristol). A week later we went to Liverpool to see my little brother and his wife, and be part of a couple of gatherings of Aigburth Community Church who also support us. We also went for an afternoon to Birmingham for a more random gathering of friends, many of whom are involved either at City Church Birmingham or Grace Church Cotteridge/Stirchley. 

Then on our holiday to Northumberland we drove from Beeston to Boroughbridge for lunch and toilets at the De La Hoyde's, who have moved there in the past year to help out with a new gospel planting initiative in that barren market town. During our stay in the wilds of the north east we popped into Newcastle to see the Andersons, old friends from Beeston, who have thrown their lot in with a church plant in the city centre there. On our way down south we popped into the Duncan's (friends from Sussex), who'd been in their new house for all of 48 hours. They've moved for work reasons ish but are specifically hoping to be strategically useful for church growth in that incredibly needy area. From Hexham we then had our final toilet break in Leeds with the Marlows, and caught up with the Astons who had just moved to that similarly needy city to see how they can contribute to church planting possibilities there. 

Whilst in Beeston I also hopped over to Derby to have lunch with Jonty who has just begun leading Christ Church Derby. And the Knights came up from High Wycombe to hang out in our sunny back garden and caught us up with their church planting ish endeavours.

Anyway, what's the point? Well, isn't it great that there are people who love God enough to make difficult choices to move to a new place, or leave (for good reasons) their existing church family to plant the beginnings of a new family in a new part of town? Isn't it great that, in the face of all sorts of negative news and trends regarding church in the UK, God is still building his church. We pray for more and more such initiatives across the country.
 
We found this really encouraging and found ourselves thinking how much we would love to be involved in something like this at some point - and perhaps even be part of stimulating similar initiatives here in Greece.