Here’s the Deal…

For some of you, it’s been some time since we’ve updated you about our journey toward church planting in the United Kingdom. For others, I’ve just caught you off-guard. Yep, we’re packing up and moving to the United Kingdom in 2012. We recently sent this as an email primarily to our family and friends who have indicated interest in financially supporting our call because we are nearing the point where some degree of support is becoming necessary. However, now we’re blasting this out to readers of my blog. We’ll dispense with that part of the update first, and then get on to the good stuff that has developed since the last time we shared with you.

We have scheduled two important trips in the coming months that are crucial to our eventual move to the United Kingdom:

Acts 29 Church Planting Boot Camp: Phoenix, AZ – November 9 & 10, 2010

The Acts 29 Network is the church planting entity with whom we have chosen to partner for our work, and they have a superior process by which potential church planters are assessed and assisted in their call.  We have estimated the cost of the boot camp trip to be $1050, which includes travel, lodging, food and fees.

England Listening Tour – August 2010

As God has moved and the reality of his call for us to plant churches in the UK has become immensely clear, the need for an extensive survey trip has become very obvious.  Both Maranda and I have taken one trip to England and Wales in 2009; Maranda in May 2009, and myself in January 2009.  These two trips were incredibly beneficial for our initial exposure to the need and for our piqued interest in the people of the United Kingdom. Having since collected our thoughts and impressions from those two trips, Maranda and I sense a clarion call to take our family to the UK to build relationships with people, make disciple-making disciples, and plant church-planting churches.

While not every detail has been hammered out for a survey trip, it is our intent to go to England in August for two weeks to take, in essence, a listening tour of several strategic places in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have not begun to fully assess the costs for this trip, but from experience, we estimate this trip for to cost around $8000.

This trip will be essential for us to gather a clearer understanding of just where God would have us begin our ministry with the British people. It is our intent to capture footage and images for web, video and other media necessary to communicate our call to potential supporters of our ministry. In addition, we want to research living arrangements, transportation expenses, make some important contacts that have been developing via Twitter, continue some great existing relationships (including seeing students at a youth camp held this year in Wales), as well as simply get an even better sense of the real Spiritual needs that exist within the British people.

Recent Developments

Thankfully, there is much to tell about what God has put in our path lately as we work toward becoming British, so as to reach the British people. We’ll begin from Christmas Eve 2009:

We woke up Christmas Eve morning, late thankfully, with Maranda’s mind abuzz about the future. She shared with me her desire for us to set some goals for 2010 and our eventual plans for UK church planting, if God so chose. Within two hours of that discussion, we received a phone call from a 95-year old pioneer of ministry about the status of our call to the UK. We arranged for a visit to Northern Kentucky to see our dear friend, John Rawlings on January 2, 2010. Our visit with “Dr. John” was a great time, and we are grateful for his interest in us.

Just prior to our visit with John Rawlings, we had an evening with our kids to share with them the reality of our calling to the UK. While the girls were on-board from the get-go, Kendall, nearly a freshman in high school, had his questions and concerns. He clearly articulated his heart and mind, and at the conclusion of this time together as a family, we had a great time of prayer in submission to God’s plan for our family.

Following our visit to Northern Kentucky, the concept of relocating to the UK seemed “real.” Since that time, we have unpacked our vision in detail to our parents, along with our dear friends and my employers, Dennis and Rebecca Beach.

Last October, while at a trade show in Salt Lake City, our company was introduced to three business partners from the UK. They manufacture an innovative playground safety surfacing which they want marketed in the US, and they were also very interested in taking our products to the UK as a distributor. At that time, we were already dreaming of the possibility of a ministry in the UK, and I simply shook my head in disbelief that God  be bringing about a UK company with whom I could potentially work as a tent-maker.

Once in the know, the Beach’s began seeing the potential of marketing their products, aided by my presence in the UK. We have since had an amazing conference call with these UK business partners, and I have since found out that their business is located about thirty miles from Wolverhampton; one of the places I really envision a church plant! In addition to working in Staffordshire, we see a work occurring in the north of London, possibly Kent, Wales and beyond.  It is for this reason that we are saying that we feel a call to the United Kingdom, not just England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland. As we build relationships with people whom we meet with about playground equipment, we will be looking for places take our ministry.

While we feel that there is still much more to tell, we certainly don’t want to overwhelm you with too much information at one time.  All we ask for now is that you would please pray very specifically for the components we’ve outlined in this post.  We definitely feel the weight of the task ahead, but even more so, we sense God’s calling, His plan and His presence every step of the way. Please act on this information in whatever way you feel God’s leading for your family. We will be inviting churches along for the ride, too, but in some sense, ours is a call outside of convention. Simply said, we’re not going to run to a missions sending organization and become fully supported with mission dollars.

As a possible business in the UK marketing commercial playground structures unfolds, we intend to be bi-vocational, with a work visa in hand, which will potentially allow us to work unhindered by the UK’s strict religious visa regulations. Furthermore, we could be partly financially supported by this business, leaving less money to raise state-side after the first couple of years. It is in His hands, and we will rest in Him to care for us. We just want to be a part of the enormous plan God has for the UK!

Primarily, however, our vision is to live missionally among the people to whom God has called us. We want to live in the perfect place where we can live and work with those whom God has prepared for us. We intend to hang out in libraries, coffee houses, pubs, stores, schools and anywhere else people gather. As we do these things, we are convinced that God will give the increase – as we are going (Mt. 28:19-20). Once we begin to see a core develop, we will establish churches, raise up leadership, release leadership to lead, and then do it all over again.

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

One more thing – check back here in the next couple of weeks as we fully launch our ministry, announce our ministry name, website and other social networking tools, as well as our non-profit organization.
Lastly, may we encourage you to pass this along  to those who might also see the need and wish to work alongside us financially? Thanks again for your love, friendship and your indication of support for the St. John’s as we head full-speed this Spring toward what He has for us!

Much love,

The St. Johns
Chris, Maranda, Kendall, Madeleine, and JudiLin

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