Church Grafting
by Ben Tanner
Images courtesy of Christ Church Endcliffe and Totley All Saints
Was it the warm smile of the church warden as I climbed out of the car as a visiting speaker or the way the faces of the people there lit up as they spoke about Jesus? I don’t know exactly, but as I drove away after the service I couldn’t shake the feeling that God was going to do something in that church and, somehow, we might even get to be a part of it.
26 months later, as you read this article, we have just started gathering a group of people to go and join with that very church in a graft next year. This will be a church graft that will take people from Christ Church Endcliffe on Brocco Bank and join with All Saints Totley, seeking to join, resource, and build up the work there. Longing that we would see God inundate, saturate, and liberate the area by the gospel of his incomparable grace. That’s no small aim, is it?
“But we have a God who is, by his own very nature, a missionary God, and one who has promised to “build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
You might be thinking, “I’ve heard of church planting, is ‘grafting’ different?” Yes, and no. Church grafting takes a group from one church and merges them with an existing church.
Like church planting, it is still a group of Christians stepping out in faith as their experience of church changes. Yet, church grafting starts with an existing community of believers – it’s not seeking to start something completely new or separate but draw from the rich heritage of two churches.
It might be a new concept to some, but it’s hard to imagine a more visual demonstration of God’s church. On the one hand, Church grafting looks at a church that is faithful but struggling and declares “God is not done working here!” It recognises the work of the people of God, works of faithful service, relationships built up over generations, gospel encounters and says, “We want to see more of that!”
On the other hand, for the receiving church, grafting looks like seeing the church down the road that is thriving and celebrating that success, seeing it not as a threat but rejoicing in it. It looks like seeing new people preparing to come to your church, knowing that there will be change and that it won’t always be easy but still welcoming them with open arms.
What’s more, amazing things happen when churches resource churches. In the early church, the church in Antioch was hugely influential (in many ways it still is – you can spend a happy (or geeky) few hours researching Antiochene theology if you are in to that sort of stuff) but it wasn’t that way in Acts 11, back then it was a fledgling church. We’re told:
“News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch”
Acts 11:22
Now it may have been that they just wanted to know what God was doing and yet I think there is more; two verses later Barnabas went and fetched Paul (then known as Saul) and brought him to Antioch. The two of them ministered there for a year, and then we find more believers make the journey to Antioch.
Now, let’s be clear, this isn’t even the long-term ‘church family moving and committing’ we are talking about (the church in Acts is too young for that) but notice the difference this makes anyway – within a few verses they are not only growing but giving back, supporting Christians elsewhere too. Antioch isn’t the only place, of course, think of all the times in the New Testament where Paul sends people to churches to encourage them, the heart he cultivates for loving and resourcing other churches.
The Antioch story, of Christians sharing resources and people to reach out with the gospel, is one that wasn’t just blessed in Antioch, but one the Lord has used over and over again in the history of the church and one we hope the Lord will bless in Totley too.
Images courtesy of Christ Church Endcliffe and Totley All Saints
I think one of the reasons it’s often so effective is because it’s a giant picture of the gospel played out. Think for example of the love that we’ll need for all the saints (and for Totley too). It’ll be a time of personal growth in discipleship as we’ll need Jesus to unite us through his gospel, we’ll need him to mould and shape us to be more like him.
So he can tear down any divisions, rescue us from our prejudices and cultivate Jesus-shaped humility. Ultimately we want to demonstrate to one another and to a watching world the difference the gospel makes in our worship, in our service, and in our suffering.
So… Can I ask you, even now, will you partner with us in prayer? Could you pray for us as we prepare to come together? Can you lift those thinking of joining the graft team at Endcliffe, and those preparing to receive them at Totley?
Most of all pray God would bring people to know him through this, pray his name would be lifted high as All Saints shines as a city on a hill radiating out the good news of Jesus, pray lives would be transformed, injustice reversed and Jesus would be known.
As I write this, I can’t help but smile at what Jesus might have in store for us in Totley. It’s exciting and daunting in equal measure, it’ll be delightful and difficult – and I, for one, can’t wait!
