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Base Camp Weekend 2009
This October saw the launch of the first Base Camp; a weekend designed to equip potential church planters both from Newfrontiers and beyond. Fifty couples gathered for two days of seminars, interviews and coaching with speakers such as David Stroud and Tony Thompson. Experienced church planter Matt Hatch hosted the weekend. Matt planted Mosaic Church, Leeds, five years ago and tells us more about this unique weekend.
Apparently if you want to climb Everest you’ve got a one in twenty chance of not making it back down the mountain. Just to get to the Everest Base Camp takes ten days walking from Kathmandu and by then you are already higher than any other peak in Europe.
So base camps themselves are difficult to reach, but the real challenge lies ahead. They are just a starting point in the ascent of a summit, a resource base for expeditions, a place to get acclimatised for higher altitudes, and a launch pad for the mission.
That was precisely the thinking behind our Base Camp weekend in October. Fifty intrepid couples with a passion for church planting gathered to ‘tool up’ for the extreme adventure of starting a church from scratch.
 People came from all over the UK eager to learn some church planting essentials such as how to gather people and develop a launch strategy. Such a unique crowd meant there was a great sense of camaraderie among the delegates and the enthusiasm for planting was infectious.
My wife Philippa and I, alongside Tony and Anne Thompson from Hope Church, Luton, organised specialist seminars for those thinking of planting and for those already started. David Stroud from ChristChurch London spoke enthusiastically about church planting vision, calling and skills, and also the sort of churches we need to plant.
During the course of the weekend, the planters were given an informal interview with a coach to help them decide on how to progress towards planting a church. The coaches represented regional teams from across the UK and all had experience in planting churches themselves. Many of these coaches will continue to work with these couples until a church is birthed.
We received many comments from the delegates on how helpful and enjoyable the weekend was, especially the interaction with other potential planters and some said it was the best conference they’d ever attended!
One delegate said ‘Possibly the biggest fear that we had going on the weekend was that we were one of the few couples on the weekend that were not already elders in a local church, that everyone would be streets ahead of us and that we would feel like fish out of water.
 When we got there however we discovered they were just normal people facing the same issues we were facing. They had a real humble spirit, were keen to learn, keen to listen and keen to share. They were warm, sincere and excited.’
Anther delegate commented ‘We had already read David Stroud’s book Planting Churches, Changing Communities which, as you know, is full of practical help, so we were surprised and encouraged to find ourselves scribbling away more practical pointers that came up during the course of what David shared and particularly during the Q & A session.
We were particularly struck by how you embraced and valued those delegates from other churches and a particular highlight was the social time; we gleaned much during these conversations.’
Base Camp’s aim was to train and equip potential planters to go on the adventure of their life and plant a church. Hopefully many of these couples will go on to start churches all across the length and breadth of the UK.
If you are interested in finding out more about Base Camp 2010 please go to: www.ukchurchplanting.org/basecamp |
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