Incubator is City to City’s key two-year program to serve, train, and develop church planters in urban ministry and has been used around the world over the past 10 years and more. Each learning module addresses the specific needs of urban planters, including skills in thinking theologically about ministry, and growth in the various areas of urban ministry.
Modules in year 1 include:
- Understanding the gospel and how it shapes everything in ministry.
- Personal life of the Leader: including Ministry & Character, models of leadership, unique temptations in ministry.
- Culture and Contextualisation: including writing a contextual profile for your community and recognising cultural bias.
- Evangelistic Networking: including how to grow in consistency, creativity and winsomeness in our own personal evangelism and how to ‘network’ evangelistically.
- Missional Ecclesiology: including how to develop ‘outward-facing’ and ‘balanced’ ministries along with how to read your city and how your theological vision relates to the city.
- Grace renewal: including how to grow in personal transparency and gospel renewal in our own lives, how to practice a lifestyle of repentance and faith.
- Discipleship and Leadership Development: Knowing how people change and how to deal with unique hindrances to spiritual growth and renewal.
- Kingdom-centered Prayer: meeting spiritual challenges with prayer, fighting Spiritual battles, designing dynamic church prayer meetings!
Who is Incubator for?
The Incubator is designed to help church planters during the critical phase of launching their congregations. They get practical help on writing their action plan, the philosophy of ministry, crucial ministry development, and preaching, among other topics. But our experience shows that it would benefit anyone in years 0-2 of church planting.
Where and When will Incubator run?
Oct to Dec 2020 – online. Tuesday mornings: 9:30-11.00
(Half term 26-30 Oct)
What does the Incubator cost?
£428 for the whole year or £145 per term.
How to register for Term 1?
If you are not already enrolled, click the blue button above to take this course and at the same time please do also indicate interest by contacting the course leader Neil Powell. For more details on the Incubator trainers and The London Project, which brings this training offering to the LCPA, please see the Materials tab above.
Who teaches on the Incubator?
Neil Powell has over 20 years of experience as a church-planting Pastor and trainer and has been involved with City to City for the past 15 years. Alongside pastoring he has pioneered the 2020birmingham church-planting initiative to see 20 new churches planted in 10 years and now serves as Executive Director of the London Project and as a City Network Catalyst for City to City Europe. He lectures in Church and Mission for Union School of Theology, is director of Plant a course hosted by London Seminary and serves on the Oak Hill College council. He is the author of Together for the City published in 2019.
Girma Bishaw presently serves as the director of Gratitude Initiative, a charity that encourages and promotes a ‘gratitude culture’ in Britain. Girma is an ordained minister and ministered as a pastor at the Ethiopian Christian Fellowship Church at Kings Cross for over 17 years. He is also the founder and national director of Life Festival Enterprise (LiFE), a charity that endeavours to galvanise local churches, diasporic or otherwise, to respond collectively and creatively to the missional opportunity created by migration in the UK. He sits on the Cinnamon and Global Connections advisory councils and LCM Ministry Reference Panel. He is also a member of Missio Africanus leadership team. He has a degree in Theology and Christian ministry from Regents Theological College, a master’s degree in theological education from King's College London and is currently undertaking doctoral studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, Kentucky, USA.
Pete Nicholas is co-minister in charge of Inspire Saint James Clerkenwell which started out as ‘Inspire’ a church plant in 2013 before merging with the parish church of Saint James in 2018. The church is part of the City to City network, and Pete is on the City to City UK executive. Pete has authored Virtually Human: Flourishing in a digital age and Five things to Pray for your City and he is particularly passionate about helping those who don’t know Christ see the enduring importance and relevance of the gospel for their lives. Previously Pete worked for Christians in Sport, and before that as a management consultant in the technology industry.
What is the London Project?
The London Project is a collaborative initiative for London based on the vision and values of City to City with the aim of starting, serving and strengthening healthy gospel churches that can have an impact on our city.
We’re very grateful that Neil Powell, senior pastor of City Church Birmingham, co-founder and convener of 2020 Birmingham and London director for City to City UK, will be coming to unpack Tim Keller’s Center Church for the London Church Planting Academy on 4 Wednesday afternoons:
