Church Growth Trust (CGT) lets its properties to evangelical churches and some of these are by design or by “accident” reaching particular cultural groups.
New Life Suwarta [good News] Sangat [community], who lease one of CGT’s buildings, is a gospel-centred church led by a core of Jesus followers with British Gujarati Hindu/Jain roots. It is open to all, but is most actively seeking to share the love of Jesus in Harrow and Brent’s British Asian community (population 200,000). A key challenge in this context is to demonstrate that Jesus did not form a “western Christian religion”, but rather offers forgiveness and new life to all who would follow him.
In Liverpool as English-speaking church that was concerned for its future has been given a new lease of life by an increasing number of Brazilians and other Portuguese-speaking people joining them. As Stephen Power, the Pastor of Spellow Lane Church, on Everton Football Club’s doorstep, says “we rejoice that the Lord has connected us together and how He has surprised us in this. It comes with its challenges, and this is not just language, but also the cultural expectation both groups have about church. However, we believe this is what the Lord is doing and He is providing unique and diverse ways of making it work.”
