Sheffield and Beyond

Up until this point we had always spoken of TCH as an initiative within Sheffield. We now decided to widen the Crowded House network to facilitate church planting and especially household church planting.

 

We had in mind small groups who might be thinking of church planting, but did not want to go it alone. We hope the opportunity to be part of TCH will be a factor that encourages them to go ahead.

We also expressed a commitment to partner with gospel churches outside the network as part of a wider church planting movement. We were developing relationships with the Acts 29 network and the Redeemer Church Planting Centre in the US, missionaries working in continental Europe and a number of churches in Australia. In 2007 Steve and Jill McAlpine came from Perth to spend a year with TCH with a view to returning to plant a household congregation.

In the summer of August 2007 Samuel and Fiona McWhirter visited Iraqi Kurdistan. Samuel’s contact with Kurds through his work teaching English to refugees had led to a vision to reach Kurds in Sheffield and beyond. TCH Abbey and TCH Sharrow set up a team to work with Kurds with a view to church planting.