I never saw myself as a church planter!

In 2022, first-time planter Pete Benest felt God call him and his wife Sarah to start a church. With the congregation now well established, we asked him about its early days and the lessons he’s learned from them

Today, Ignite Church in Shepshed has a thriving Sunday service, youth and children’s clubs and various midweek and community gatherings.

But it was an entirely different picture four years ago when the fledgling Leicestershire congregation started life in Pete and Sarah Benest’s living room.

The call to plant

“I never saw myself as a church planter,” says Pete. “I’d always looked at planting and thought that’s far beyond me. I’d also been part of another church for 25 years.

“But then a number of things happened in quick succession.

“Covid hit and I got made redundant so I decided to do a theology degree at Regents. At the same time, the church I was in started taking quite a liberal direction. That became difficult and eventually it disbanded.”

Finding himself spiritually homeless, Pete asked God what he would like him to do.

He sensed his reply: “Why don’t you start something Pentecostal here in Shepshed?”

“That was radical because it wasn’t something I’d considered. I didn’t know what I was doing at all! I just felt God prompting in a certain direction and thought, Okay, let’s put one foot in front of another and see what he does.”

The first month

“As soon as we made that decision the vision for what we would do started pouring out of us,” says Pete.

Sarah taught herself how to build a website for the church and made a video for social media announcing Ignite would launch in September.

Then came the first meeting.

“We kept it very simple,” says Pete. “We met in our house with coffee, donuts, worship time via Amazon Music on our TV and a 10-minute talk which we discussed together.

“The great thing about planting is you can create your own environment because you’re not trying to build on anything that’s been there before.”

The first week saw 13 people come along, but week two dropped to two! Next came five, then numbers began to grow as different people visited to try the church out.

The first year

“We had a vision right from the start,” Pete says.

“We called ourselves Ignite Church and within that Sarah had a prophetic word – ‘little fires everywhere’.

“We felt God would ignite us on Sundays then send us out into our communities and workplaces to be his fire.”

Within three months a regular 15 people were attending and the Benest’s living room was packed. This prompted them to find a venue. A year later they’d outgrown it and moved to their current home, in Bethesda Baptist Chapel, with a stable group of 35-40.

What about the youth?

A youth group was not on Pete’s radar, but again he felt a nudge from God. “We had a few older girls who we’d organised things for, then one girl who was going up to secondary school. I wanted to provide something but wasn’t sure what.

“We held a bonfire party and she invited some friends. When we took the older ones bowling she invited people to that too.

“There was an appetite among them for a youth group so we started one with five or six kids and it’s grown from there.

“We’ve now got 15 – a mixture of church and non-church kids.

“Seeing some of them come from a place of knowing nothing about God to praying for the first time is lovely.

“One boy is asking loads of questions. We’ve given him and some others Bibles and they’re treasuring them.

“We found out a number of them play musical instruments so at Christmas we created a youth band and they played some songs at our carol service.

“It’s step by step, but it’s very exciting to see what God’s doing.”

Community outreach

One of the church’s priorities was building its presence in Shepshed, and it ran evangelistic community events from the start.

They organised a gospel-themed Easter egg hunt in a local park which attracted 160 people.

“They had to complete little challenges and collect letters which spelled out ‘He is risen’.

“We had all these kids coming to collect chocolate egg prizes shouting ‘He is risen!’ and we were like, ‘Yes he is!’”

The church has put on free crafts, games and face-painting at a local carnival too, which again attracts the crowds.

“We’re asking ourselves two questions: are we known and what are we known for?,” says Pete.

“We want to be a blessing to our town above all else and we’re looking for ways to do that.”

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