Ministry

While we often think of England as the land of the Puritans and Spurgeon, the current climate in England is one of abject spiritual darkness.

The statistics about the modern church in the UK demonstrate that, while England is post-church, it is better described as un-churched! Many of the “unreached people groups” which we currently send missionaries to have more Christian presence than England!

GraceLife London

GraceLife London (GLL) was founded in 2011 by Tom Drion and Ross Orgill, two TMS graduates. Over that time, the church has grown to nearly 300 regular attendees (including children), with a strong membership. There is a hunger for God’s Word, a vitality, and an eagerness for growth in the church membership. Recognizing the great needs both in London and in England in general, GLL has a three-fold vision for the long-term growth of the church: church planting, training, and discipleship:

1. Church Planting

The hope of GLL’s elders is to plant more churches in London. We hope to plant churches so that nearly everyone in the greater London Metro canbe within 45 minutes of a GLL plant—meaning that almost 1/4 of England can be reached with sound, expository preaching, faithful shepherding and discipleship, and clear biblical evangelism.

2. Training

Additionally, GLL desires to train the leadership for these plants from within through the Hermenaiea Bible Training Centre, which will begin training men and women interested in leadership. Eventually, this could become a fully functioning pastoral training center/seminary, which would help bring up the leadership needed to help these planting efforts, starting in London but eventually impacting the entire UK and beyond.

3. Discipleship

However, the leadership of GLL knows that there are great needs to help grow the maturity of the church as it currently stands, especially if the church is to transition from being a church plant to planting churches itself. The counseling and discipleship needs of the church have grown along with the attendance, and so the church continues to equip its leadership so that it can be well-equipped for the long-term plans of growth and replication.

The Big Picture

In short, the vision of GraceLife London is the re-evangelization of England. What the country needs is a resurgence of faithful ministers and families ready to plant churches and preach the gospel, which is what GLL longs to do. The encouraging thing about this vision is that it is strictly biblical. There are no gimmicks, fancy statistics, or metrics and flashy marketing campaigns. The leadership and the membership of GLL want to preach the Word, share the gospel, make and grow disciples, and see the Lord’s church flourish in London. To learn more about GraceLife London, visit this page which has a helpful video about their story.

If you want to see examples of Michael’s preaching at Gracelife London, you can follow this link.