As H Miller steps into the role of Executive Director at CCX, he reflects on a decade of serving the Church in England and his excitement for the role CCX can play in equipping the Church in this season – to see parishes, dioceses and networks fully alive in Christ, reaching new people in new and renewed ways.
H Miller is as clear on his motivation for serving the Church in England now as when he first arrived in the UK over ten years ago.
‘I believe God is on the move. That’s what I’ve experienced in my time in the UK, seeing this wave of hope move through the Church as new people encounter Jesus. What really motivates me for our work at CCX, and as an ordained leader in the Church of England, is asking how can we as a Church become fully alive in Christ, to realise our full potential? What does that look like for every parish, for every leader, for every follower of Jesus?
‘We’re not coming to impose a vision on any network or diocese. We’re ready to encourage anyone in the vision that God’s already given them. I’m excited to see what that looks like.’
Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, to a Canadian mother and American father, H grew up in a family of committed Christians that represented a range of church traditions – a perspective that was formative to his view of the Church.
‘Everybody that I knew in my extended family knew and loved Jesus, but they came with this wonderful mix of theological differences. That really helped shape my own thinking, that across the Church we’ll encounter important distinctions that we can’t minimize, but at the same time, those points of difference may not be as essential to our love for Jesus as we may sometimes think they are.’
H trained as an architect at the University of Southern California. While he always envisioned an involvement in the Church after his studies, it was at a student retreat in the summer of his graduation that H felt God was inviting him to set out on a different journey – one that others had already noticed.
‘I felt the Lord spoke as clearly to me as he ever has, that I was to seek ministry as my vocation and prepare. I went to the pastor who was overseeing the retreat at the time, shared what I’d heard and asked what he thought. He just looked at me and said, “Yeah, that’s right”.
‘I went home and told my parents, and they immediately said, “Yeah, we’ve always known”. I’d just finished my degree, but my dad reassured me that Jesus had a craft, a trade, as a carpenter. I had a craft in architecture, but that wasn’t set to be my vocation.’
Throughout his theological education and early work with Youth With A Mission (YWAM), H recognised a common theme of reaching new people with new and renewed activity, from starting new services to planting worshipping communities. While he wasn’t directly drawing on his architectural training, he was employing skills developed by his ‘craft’.
‘Ultimately, architecture is about problem solving; you’re given a set of constraints that you have to work in, and there are multiple approaches to achieving a solution. A way in which I’ve developed as a leader is to bring a strategic, architectural eye to problems, to help individuals and organisations find the best solutions that enable them to live into God’s call on them.’
As H continued to work throughout North America in church growth and planting, he began interacting with a number of church planting leaders in the UK, drawing on their experience. He came to a strong conviction that God was not only on the move in the UK, particularly in London, but that he should seek to be a part of it. In order to explore what this could look like, he reached out to Ric Thorpe, who had overseen a number of plants from St Paul’s Shadwell, in East London.
‘Ric was the first person that I called when I really knew that it was time to knock on some doors,’ explains H. ‘I had a call with him and asked if it was even feasible – or if he thought it was just absolutely ridiculous. Ric said “Yes, of course, come on over, it’ll be hard, but yes, you could do this”.’
The resulting move saw H become the associate vicar at St. Barnabas Kensington, in addition to working alongside Ric Thorpe in his role as Bishop of Islington, encouraging church planting and multiplication across the UK. H helped establish the Centre for Church Planting and Growth, which would become the Gregory Centre for Church Multiplication (CCX) – a name change that held a deeper significance.
‘We have a conviction that multiplication is scriptural,’ says H. ‘Right now at CCX, we are applying our own teaching to ourselves, asking what it looks like for CCX to be in a place of true multiplication. Part of that is giving more and more away, giving out from ourselves, equipping others with our resources and courses so they can apply it to their contexts. We’re entrusting what we’ve been given to other people, and equipping them to run with it. I believe that we achieve far more when we’re not concerned with who gets the credit.’
After a period of financial challenge experienced by many UK charities, CCX is now entering an exciting new season. Partnerships are growing with a wide range of church networks and denominations, equipping others to multiply using CCX courses and resources in their own contexts. The ‘Quiet Revival’ experienced across the UK is resulting in many seeking strategic support to grow and plant to meet new opportunities. While the vision of CCX remains the same – to help the Church reach new people in new and renewed ways with the love of Jesus – H is hopeful about the new opportunities of this season.
‘The fundamental question we ask the Church is, “Who is it we’re not reaching with the love of Christ, and what would it take to reach them?” What’s standing in the way, or what might we do differently to reach them?
‘CCX exists for the whole Church, and I believe that church planting is for the whole Church. We have an unchanging gospel, but how it interacts with a changing world requires us to adapt, to try new things in order to connect with the people that God’s placed around us. We serve a God who is creator, and he’s given us the gift of being creative. I believe part of that creativity is expressed in engaging in new activity and renewing existing activity. And so this creative action of the Creator God is at work in His church, and is at work in the culture around us.’
To find out how CCX can support you, get in touch with us at hello@ccx.org.uk, or explore our resources for church growth, church planting, estates ministry and pioneering.
