While we often think of England as the land of the Puritans and Spurgeon, the current climate in England is one of abject spiritual darkness.
The statistics about the modern church in the UK demonstrate that, while England is post-church, it is better described as un-churched! Many of the “unreached people groups” which we currently send missionaries to have more Christian presence than England!
GraceLife London (GLL) was founded in 2011 by Tom Drion and Ross Orgill, two TMS graduates. Over that time, the church has grown to more than 200 regular attendees, with a strong membership contingent. There is a hunger for God’s Word, a vitality, and an eagerness for growth in the church membership. Recognizing the great needs both in London and in England in general, GLL has a three-fold vision for the long-term growth of the church: church planting, training, and discipleship:
The hope of GLL’s elders is to plant more churches in London. They plan to plant churches so that nearly everyone in the greater London Metro canbe within 45 minutes of a GLL plant—meaning that almost 1/4 of England can be reached with sound, expository preaching, faithful shepherding and discipleship, and clear biblical evangelism.
Additionally, GLL desires to train the leadership for these plants from within. Thus, they have announced the start of the Hermenaiea Bible Training Centre, which will begin training men and women interested in leadership. Eventually, this could become a fully functioning pastoral training center/seminary, which would help bring up the leadership needed to help these planting efforts, starting in London but eventually impacting the entire UK and beyond.
However, the leadership of GLL knows that there are great needs to help grow the maturity of the church as it currently stands, especially if the church is to transition from being a church plant to planting churches itself. The counseling and discipleship needs of the church have grown along with the attendance, and so the church needs to continue to equip its leadership so that it can be well-equipped for the long-term plans of growth and replication.
In short, the vision of GraceLife London is not the revival of England, but the re-evangelization of England. What the country needs is a resurgence of faithful ministers and families ready to plant churches and preach the gospel, which is what GLL longs to do. The encouraging thing about this vision is that it is strictly biblical. There are no gimmicks, fancy statistics, or metrics and flashy marketing campaigns. The leadership and the membership of GLL want to preach the Word, share the gospel, make and grow disciples, and see the Lord’s church flourish in London. To learn more about GraceLife London, visit this page which has a helpful video about their story.
The elders of GLL, as you can see, have a huge vision for their church. There are many needs for help in church administration, preaching, counseling and discipleship, and the training vision of the Hermenaiea Bible Centre.
In His grace, God has used our years in ministry and training at The Master’s Seminary to grow our experience, ability, and passion for these kinds of needs, and both we and the elders of Faith Bible Church in Spokane and GraceLife London believe that our family will be a good fit for the ministry in London.
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Learn more about how you can partner with the Dionnes on their website here.
Michael and Vanessa Dionne live in London with their three boys. They are Global Outreach Partners there, working with GraceLife London, a church plant in the heart of the UK city, to assist with pastoral and training needs.
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