read / Multiply: North
Multiply: North was hosted in St George’s Church, Leeds, by a collaboration of Baptist, Anglican and ecumenical organisations, united by a vision to see healthy churches planted and multiplied across the north of England.
Around 200 leaders gathered from across the north of the UK to share wisdom across traditions, contexts and models. We explored how we can build teams, shape culture and develop networks that help the Church reach new people, in new and renewed ways, with the good news of Jesus.
These highlights offer a flavour of the day’s content. As you read the summaries and watch the main stage content, we invite you to consider how we can each collaborate more intentionally, planting new things and renewing growth in existing churches across the north.
A thread of prayer and reflection shaped the day’s programme. Roy Searle and friends from the Northumbria Community were commissioned to write a Liturgy for the North, giving us prayers and responses that we hope will continue to be a gift to everyone praying for God’s kingdom to come, his will to be done.
As we continue to pray together, we ask God to unite us, deepen our love for the north and raise up a new movement of mission across the region.
God of Love, we raise our prayer together for the North. Scattered and diverse, with all our differences, we are one in you. Draw us deeper into your presence, that we may hear your heartbeat for the North, for this land and its people. Anchor our hearts in your love and make us one in you. Amen.
The full liturgy resource can be found here.
Alex Harris, Director of the St Hild Centre for Church Planting and Yorkshire Baptist Association Regional Minister for Pioneering and Church Planting, called us to think beyond individual churches and towards the shared task of reaching whole cities and regions.
Jesus prays in John 17 that his people will be united so that the world will know he was sent by the Father; “I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Collaboration is therefore not an optional addition to mission. It is part of our witness.
Four great truths should shape our life together:
Acts shows us three ways in which new churches emerge.
Scattered: In the early chapters of Acts (Acts 1-10), people move through pain or plan, carrying the gospel into new places. We should welcome people well, but also equip and release them to plant wherever God takes them.
Sent: The church in Antioch deliberately sent Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:2-4). Some churches should be intentionally resourced to serve and plant beyond themselves, and our networks should give them the leaders, finance and support they need.
Staying: Paul remained in places such as Corinth and Ephesus for extended periods (Acts 18:11). We must honour leaders who stay, embed and serve one community over many years, particularly in estates and places with low mobility.
We need all three approaches. No single model can reach the whole region, and we should not defend our own calling by criticising someone else’s.
We should respond in the contexts God has called us to:
To local church planters: Love and embrace the particular work God has given you, while appreciating those who are called to work differently. Collaboration grows when churches resist the belief that their own model must be defended by criticising another.
To those responsible for training: Move beyond “just in case” and “just in time” training towards “just like me” training. Practitioners should be trained by people with direct experience of the context and model in which they will serve, such as estate planters training estate planters and microchurch leaders training microchurch leaders.
To network and denominational leaders: Validate the full range of church planting models. Rather than applying one scorecard to every church, develop measures of fruitfulness that reflect the aims, context and character of each model.
We do not want to be left wondering what God might have done if we had trusted one another more and worked together more intentionally for the growth of his kingdom in the north.
Eleanor Sanderson, Bishop of Hull, reflected on the spiritual and relational foundations of planting together.
We cannot build genuine collaboration through strategy alone. We need unity, shared life and relationships in which we are close enough to know and love one another. Our common life should not simply communicate the good news. It should become a visible expression of it.
Jesus asks the Father for the unity of the Church (John 17), and Jesus promises to build his Church. Our task is to be disciples who make disciples.
When our attention shifts away from preserving church structures and towards wholehearted missional discipleship, new life becomes possible.
We need a household-centred vision of the Church. The goal is not only to increase attendance, but to form extended spiritual families in which people belong, grow, serve and participate in mission.
Gathered worship and smaller household communities should strengthen one another. These communities can become places of discipleship, spiritual parenting, practical care and mission across denominational, cultural and social boundaries.
Bishop Eleanor described gatherings in New Zealand where people from very different backgrounds ate, worshipped and shared life together. Her young son described one of these occasions as “the big meal”, capturing something of the Eucharist and the whole family of God gathered around one table, a shared life that leads naturally to practical care. When a child arrived at church wearing shoes without soles, neighbouring Christians worked together to provide what was needed. This is what genuine collaboration looks like: not distant agreement, but relationships close enough to recognise need and respond in love.
We should:
Love must be genuine. We need the courage to lose our lives in order to find them, to love our neighbours as ourselves and to trust Jesus to build his Church.
Tom Finnemore shared what he and the team of St Thomas Crookes, an Anglican-Baptist church in Sheffield, have learnt about collaboration, humility and partnership.
The church inherited a strong reputation for innovation, discipleship, missional communities and church planting. But a fruitful history can become a burden when we feel responsible for preserving the models, reputation and success of an earlier season.
The challenge is to hold our history with gratitude without becoming trapped by it.
Success can tempt us to trust the memory of a movement rather than the God who moved. We should “marry the mission and date the model”. Our mission remains constant, but the structures and methods that serve it must be open to change. What helped us in one season should not automatically become sacred in the next.
At St Thomas Crookes, the questions began to change. Instead of asking, “How do we preserve what we have inherited?”, the church began asking, “How can we serve Sheffield and the north?”
This led to the release of a missional community in Fir Vale to become All Nations Fir Vale, an autonomous Baptist church. St Thomas Crookes had to give away people, ownership and control so that a genuinely local church could emerge.
This posture also transformed relationships with the Diocese of Sheffield and the Yorkshire Baptist Association. Partnership required the church to confess its pride, challenge inherited assumptions and become a learner again.
The progression was clear:
Humility led to partnership. Partnership led to trust. Trust led to planting.
We should:
The greatest test is not whether we can begin something fruitful, but whether we can remain teachable when it succeeds.
If you have been inspired by any of these reflections or invitations, the partners of Multiply: North would love to hear from you. Details of each of the partners are outlined below, along with how to best contact them.
Helping the Church reach new people, in new and renewed ways, with the good news of Jesus Christ
Email us at hello@ccx.org.uk
Faith in the North looks to encourage a movement of prayer, storytelling and church planting inspired by the Northern Saints.
Visit our website or email us at faithinthenorth@archbishopofyork.org
The vision of St Hild Theological College is to help you grow deeper roots in Christ and expand your capacity to join God’s work.
Visit our website or email us at enquiries@sthild.org
Everyone Everywhere wants to help Baptists share Jesus fully, finding opportunities to see a new expression of church in every corner of every community – perhaps right there on your doorstep.
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