2025 Church Life, Leadership, and Planting (Foundational) Network
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Key values and practices stand out in the scriptures surrounding New Testament local church life, church leadership, and church planting. What was local church life like? How did local church leadership function? How was it that churches seemed able to fruitfully work together on mission in new areas beyond their initial localities? How can we apply these lessons in our churches today?
Jon Beardon and the team working with him at Relational Mission will lead this Network exploring how we can make a diligent attempt in our generation at the implementation of New Testament values in local church life, church leadership, and church planting. This Network will aim to explore values, principles, and practices found in various biblical passages for those involved in senior leadership within a local church and for those leading or seeking to build networks of churches. Following collective times looking at the Scriptures, the themes raised will be further discussed and explored through group work, Q&A, case studies, etc. Prior preparation will be set for all applicants.
What Network Participants Are Saying
- "Being a part of the ELF community is unlike anything else in my life. It is an opportunity to grow in my faith by being encouraged by speakers and participants of the Forum. It is a limitless well of knowledge, experience, and ideas that help me go back to ministry with a renewed heart and mind bursting with ideas. It also allows me to meet others who are in similar situations and hopefully be an encouragement to them as well." - Bartosz Przybyla, Missionary, Poland
- "Being at ELF is a really enriching experience. Not just because of all the great lectures, professional tips and information exchange, but mainly because it is a very special and rare chance to draw inspiration from each other and, most of all, to connect. I find it really precious and valuable. I am persuaded that my attendance at ELF helps me to serve the body of Christ in my country better, with renewed, broadened vision and with a new energy." - Tomas Coufal, KMS Editor-in-Chief, Czech Republic
- "Being at the European Leadership Forum is so helpful because it is a place for me to connect with resources, people, to continue my training, and to develop relationships with people and organisations that will help me to glorify God and extend His kingdom." - Mihai Dumitrascu, Pastor, Romania
Applicants should be involved in the senior leadership within a local church or those leading or seeking to build a network of churches. This Network explores values, principles, and practices found in the New Testament for local church life, leadership, and planting. This Track is designed for those who have NOT attended the European Leadership Forum Church Life, Leadership, and Planting Network in previous years.
Network Leadership
Network Speakers
Jon Beardon is a member of the Relational Mission core team, with responsibilities that include overseeing the team of directors responsible for governance, finance, and communications and directly supervising some of the Relational Mission churches in the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic (… Read more
Mike Betts is one of the leaders of Relational Mission, a family of churches itself part of the wider Newfrontiers group. Mike is the author of 'From the Inside Out, Relational Mission: A Way of Life', 'The Prayers of Many',… Read more
Gert Hijkoop is a member of the apostolic team and the board of Relational Mission Netherlands, with responsibilities in the area of governance, teaching, training and care for Relational Mission churches. He is also supporting the Light House Community of pioneering leaders… Read more
Maurice Nightingale is a member of the Relational Mission core team with responsibilities that include the supervision of early-stage church planting on the mainland of Europe, in particular training and coaching pioneer leaders and developing strategies for both initiating and supporting church… Read more
Tuuli Platner is the daughter of missionaries and a third culture kid - living in two different continents by age 7 before her family settled in the UK long-term. Now she is all grown up and has the privilege of serving the local church on the student team and God's wider church in her… Read more
Vlada Stojanovic was born and raised in Nis, Serbia, where he graduated in mechanical engineering. He spent 4 years in the UK training in missions and receiving his education in theology and leadership, at the same time working in local churches. Currently, he is finishing his master’s degree in… Read more
Network Programme
Sunday, 18 May
Psalm 45 is a song written in anticipation of a marriage. It is written from hearts stirred by love. Embarking on ministry that is focused primarily on tasks, goals, structures, techniques, or programs will lead us inevitably into fruitlessness. The image of marriage and love from the heart is a frequent one in scripture helping us grasp something of the relationship between Christ and His church. We begin this Network by exploring and assessing what the key heart motivations within the leadership of the local church are. The goal of this session is to help participants refresh their hearts, reminding themselves of why they do what they do.
Romans 15 gives an extraordinary overview and insight into the mission, practices, principles, and priorities of Paul, his team, and the local churches working with him. In this session, we will begin to draw up a list of what they did, how they did it, and what made them so fruitful. We will develop some of these themes more fully in later sessions. The goal in this session is to grasp in broad terms what we can learn from their example and apply it to 21st-century local church life.
Monday, 19 May
This passage of scripture in Acts 20:13-37, where Paul says goodbye to the elders of the Ephesian church, is breathtaking in its emotional intensity. These are not colleagues moving onto another assignment; these are dear friends on mission together. Parting touched their hearts. How can we build such a relational culture in local church leadership teams and across whole networks of churches? We also gain a stimulating insight in this passage concerning true spiritual authority and how it works within a relational framework rather than through title, office, or structure.
Do Word and Spirit go together in local church life? What does a church both mature in the Word of God and in stewarding the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit look like? Often churches emphasise one to the exclusion of the other. Is there a better way? Is it possible to combine robust exegesis of scripture with extraordinary manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s presence? Might the church in the coming days across Europe experience maturity and fruitfulness in both?
Tuesday, 20 May
Perhaps the greatest need facing the church in Europe today is the need for more leaders. Quality leaders emerge rather than arrive. Training in a classroom context can be a significant component in the development of a leader. However, it is not enough on its own; something more relational is required. Can we learn from New Testament models of ministry development? Can we shape a culture where the multiplication of ministry occurs naturally?
Jesus instructed His disciples to “Go and make disciples.” The scope He gave them in their remit was the whole world; every people group, every place, through all “the age,” until Christ should return. Their instinctive response to this command was not only to share the Gospel through words, works, and wonders but to plant local churches in every place as part of the response to the command of Christ. Planting churches was not a secondary objective or afterthought but an integral part of reaching the world with the Gospel. The fundamental role of church planting in fulfilling the great commission remains today. Many models and methods exist. Some are fruitful; some are not. In this session, we will explore what makes for a healthy church planting environment. What vision, values, vocabulary, and vehicles can help church planting succeed across modern secular Europe today?
Wednesday, 21 May
Church history shows the many strategies adopted by church movement pioneers as they look to transition from the first generation of leadership to the next. Some appoint a leadership successor or hand leadership over to a team convened for the purpose, some form a new denomination, while some simply keep going without any strategic consideration for the future. In 2011 Terry Virgo, who had pioneered and led the Newfrontiers movement to that point, commissioned those that he recognised as his spiritual sons to begin to form their own networks of churches. He effectively multiplied the one network led by him to multiple networks of churches led by men now recognised as network leaders in their own right. These networks were to be autonomous, yet somehow remain collaborative and interdependent. Such radical intentional decentralisation is very bold and some might consider perilous to the future of the movement. It is an uncommon strategy, and this session explores whether multiplying autonomous network leaders can be considered an effective church movement succession strategy.
In 2 Corinthians 1:11 we read, “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” Paul in his writings often urges the need for prayer in order that his mission will be be fruitful. He simply cannot conceive that doing what he is attempting will be fruitful at all without large-scale, ongoing “prayers of many.” The Church in the global South and East can teach the church in the Western world much about Gospel advance. One stand-out example is the priority placed on corporate prayer by churches in non-Western contexts. In this session, the team will explore why and how corporate prayer in the local church can once again become the driver for Gospel fruitfulness it should be. It is the contention of this session that Europe needs a movement of prayer in order to ignite a movement of Gospel advance. The one cannot happen without the other.