Straight to the Heart

Last night and the night before, Queens Road Church exploded and then caught fire. Sound pretty dangerous? I think it really is.

If you are part of the church I lead in Wimbledon, south-west London, then you will already know some of the background behind this week’s controlled explosion. If you are not, then you will enjoy this blog anyway, because I’m setting out why we have scattered across south-west London. Although what I share is specific to Queens Road Church, its challenge should resonate far beyond the limits of our city.

We have scattered across south-west London because it is the vision which Jesus set for any local church. He commissioned the first church in Jerusalem by saying in Acts 1:8 that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Queens Road Church has long been famous in the UK as a place to come and encounter the Holy Spirit. It hasn’t always been as famous as a place from which to scatter as his witnesses.

We have scattered across south-west London because it is the vision upon which Queens Road Church was originally founded. Charles Spurgeon sent one of his students to Wimbledon in 1880 in the midst of a London revival with a challenge that “Near to you at Wimbledon you will find Mitcham and Merton and Morden all needing Gospel work. As soon as you have got your own little church in working order, start something at each of these places … Go and blaze away!” As we establish QRC Local meetings across the London borough of Merton - Wimbledon Village in the north, Morden in the south, Raynes Park in the west and Colliers Wood in the east - we are simply continuing a 131-year-old vision. These little bands of seventy missionaries are each carrying on the great commission which birthed Queens Road Church as part of one of England’s most significant revivals.

We have scattered across south-west London because it is the way that Christians become wholehearted lovers of Jesus. The Christian life was never meant to be a spectator sport, but it all too often is, as people desperately in need of spiritual exercise sit back and watch a handful of tired players. By setting up four QRC Local meetings, everybody gets to play. Last night I was at the Colour House Theatre in Colliers Wood to see this dynamic in play as believers were set on fire. As someone who doesn’t lead worship on a Sunday led worship brilliantly, as people who rarely share publicly prayed out and prophesied, as someone who doesn’t preach on Sundays shared his heart for unreached Londoners, and as people who love the Christian Church in general started loving one another in particular - I saw what the Church was always meant to be. A community of believers who love Jesus and live his mission.

We have scattered across south-west London because it is the best way to care for one another. George Whitefield was probably the most gifted evangelist of the eighteenth century, and saw hundreds of thousands of Englishmen and women converted. However, he didn’t know how to care for them and disciple them, and confessed towards the end of his life that “The seed has fallen by the highwayside. There is scarce any fruit remaining.” John Wesley was less gifted but was far more effective, because he organised his converts into classes (akin to our Life Groups), into societies (larger groups akin to our QRC Locals), and into bands (friendship groups to promote accountability, akin to our Connect Evenings). They were dubbed ‘Methodists’ because of their passion for these organised meetings, but William Beckham observes that these three meetings “turned out to be the primary means of bringing millions of England’s most desperate people into the liberating discipline of Christian faith … Wesley’s effectiveness in harvest was not just at the point of winning converts. After Wesley added his classes, his movement was able to assimilate the converts that were won. This assimilation accounts for the uniqueness of Wesley’s movement.” Queens Road Church has grown by almost 40% across the past year. We have gone local because we want to steward this growth like Wesleys, not like Whitefields.

We have scattered across south-west London because it gives God more glory. We produce some fairly good Sunday meetings, but few of us feel scared or on-the-edge as we do so. Like most Christians, we can find it easy to do church without relying on God. QRC Local meetings aren’t like that at all. Each one of us carries the deep consciousness that what we are doing is destined for failure unless God springs to our aid. As we go, we display the same attitude as Esther when she threw caution to wind for the sake of saving God’s chosen People. We glorify God when we say with her in Esther 4:16, that “If we perish, we perish.” We glorify him when we set out to do what only he can do, because we truly believe that the Holy Spirit gives us power to be God’s witnesses.

Finally, we have scattered across south-west London because it will lead to many more people being saved. Only 7% of Londoners go to church on any given Sunday, and this number drops to 4% for Londoners in their twenties. Simply put, the reason we must scatter across south-west London is that nine out of ten Londoners currently don’t choose to gather to any Christian meetings being held centrally. Last night I was thrilled at the Colliers Wood QRC Local to see a guest who had been dragged there by one of the believers. Whilst he cut her hair in his salon in Tooting, she had told him about Jesus and invited him to come and see Jesus in action on her doorstep. He was the first guest on the first night of QRC Local, but he offers us a taster of what is yet to come. Christianity was never meant to be lived in a quiet corner behind closed doors. We’re scattering across south-west London to make the name of Jesus known.

So if you are part of Queens Road Church, I encourage you to give yourself fully to your QRC Local and to the Life Groups we are establishing in homes across the city. Give yourself to the Connect Evenings in a few days’ time, and to the friendship and accountability which turns steady believers into red-hot disciples.

If you are not part of Queens Road Church, please pray for us on our mission. Don’t copy us in your own church, but seek God for yourself. How can your church explode and catch fire too?

John Wesley saw the equivalent of our QRC Locals and exclaimed: “This is the thing, the very thing we have wanted so long!”