Looking forward with an eye on our past!

How do you build a new vision for an historic church? Three years ago, Gary and Rachel Gibson sought God to do just that. Since then, they’ve been actively building missional and community links

“If we were planting a church in Kilsyth now, what would we do in terms of mission and evangelism?” That is the question Gary and Rachel Gibson have been mulling over since coming to pastor Church of God in Kilsyth, near Glasgow, three years ago.

Having grown up in the church until the age of ten, Gary was familiar with its strong missional past, not least because his grandad Jim Gibson pastored there from 1960-1986.

But what should things look like in the 2020s?

“Both Rachel and I feel strongly that the destiny of the church is rooted in its history, but we feel called to renew and re-envision it by discovering God’s plan for it today,” Gary explains.

So the couple sought God and, following his lead, have concentrated on two main areas: the church’s missional/community and its Pentecostal roots.

Pentecostal roots

Gary and Rachel say they have been keen to build on Church of God’s deep missional history.

“The church was formed in 1897 under the auspices of the Kilsyth United Evangelistic Association because the local churches felt they weren’t reaching the town with the gospel,” says Gary.

“Then in 1908 there was a Pentecostal revival here and as a result Kilsyth became a leading centre of the New Pentecostal Movement which was sweeping Great Britain and North America at this time.

“As a church we later became affiliated with Elim, while John Glass became pastor here, before his time as Elim’s General Superintendent.”

Their challenge has been to balance this strong past with a fresh vision.

“We have a clear sense of the importance of our Pentecostal missional roots, but equally the verse in Isaiah 43 which talks about God doing a new thing. So we’ve been seeking God about how we can allow our past to propel us into the future and everything God has for us.”

Several prophetic words have helped answer this question, including one from a guest worship leader, two from within the church and one from another pastor.

“Through these, we’ve really felt God repositioning us to become like the city on a hill that can’t be hidden talked about in Matthew 5:14.”

To communicate this vision to the church, Gary and Rachel have run a teaching series on what it means to meet and do ministry as Pentecostals. They have also focused on practical outreach, helping the church build connections with its tight-knit, family-focused community.

Community engagement

To build links locally, Church of God has been working on what Gary calls “an intense community engagement strategy” to connect at all levels, including councillors, schools and families.

“Because there are a lot of families in the area, we’ve focused on activities for them especially,” he says.

“We started with a service called Family Church Around the Table, which is based on the Messy Church format but adapted for us here.

“Once a month we open the doors to the community and do a full cooked meal for everyone, along with family games, activities, a worship song and a short talk.”

In a similar vein, the church also hosts a community fun day each Easter, with inflatables, facepainting, fire engines and other activities to engage the community.

This year, as Gary and his team have spotted gaps in support for some specific groups of people, they have come up with some new ideas too.

“We’ve just started a monthly support group for parents of children with additional needs and a weekly music group for adults with additional needs.”

This month, the church is excited about another community event – its “God Is” weekend. “We trialled it two years ago and are hoping it will become an annual evangelistic weekend,” says Gary.

“It’ll be three nights of gospel evangelism where we’ll invite the town to discover who God is.

“We’ve prayer-walked, fasted and prayed, and we are believing for it to become an annual weekend where many come to faith.”

All these activities, Gary and Rachel say, link into their focus on mission and evangelism.

“With everything we’re doing, we’re seeking to reach the community and become the Pentecostal church that God wants us to be today.”

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.