Movements that change the world

Whenever we run intensives for church planting teams I make sure the people teaching on evangelism are effective practitioners rather than ‘experts’ like me.

One of my favourite couples to bring in is Andy and Jo Bennet.

Back in 1999 Andy was in a CRM leadership network with me while he was wrestling through his call to plant a church. Andy was ministering one day a week in Millgrove, a town about 70kms east of Melbourne. He was seeing children and family members come to Christ through his ministry in a local primary school. He wasn’t sure what to do with them. Many of the people were coming from broken and disadvantaged backgrounds.

Andy and Jo wanted to see a new church emerge that would support them and help them grow as followers of Christ. Their church leaders at CareForce encouraged them to believe it was possible. So they took the plunge and became church planters.

It’s five years down the track and it’s been a roller-coaster ride for Andy and Jo. For the first twelve months they and their three children felt like they had made a mistake. They missed home back in the suburbs of Melbourne. Every night Jo cried herself to sleep.

People came to the church with their needs and problems and at times the Bennets were overwhelmed. But one by one Andy and Jo began to seek God breaking through into people’s lives.

Andy was out driving on the Warburton Hwy one day when he came on the scene of a road accident. A young man had been walking along the middle of the highway under the influence of drugs. A van came over the crest of a hill and had no time to stop before they ran into him. Max died in Andy’s arms.

Immediately after the accident Andy visited the grieving family every day. They asked him to take the funeral. At the end of the funeral, Max’s brother Peter came up to Andy said, “You’ve given me a faith I never dreamed existed.”

Over the next three years a relationship grew with Peter and with his partner Janice. Slowly they were drawn into relationships with others in the new church. But they struggled to overcome their $500 a week drug habit. They were needy people and at times the relationship was hard work.

Eventually Peter and Janice came to Andy desperate to over come their addiction. The church had helped them connect with various recover programs but they were still hooked and beaten.

At that point Andy challenged them to hand their lives and their addiction over to Christ. That’s what they did. Since then they have been following Christ and they have been drug free.

Andy and Jo told story after story of the lives they have seen transformed by Christ. It took a family willing to obey God and a plant a church in a tough area. It took a parent church willing to release them and resource them. It’s taken five years of serving the community, building relationships and sharing the gospel. But the outcome is a fresh, living expression of God’s grace in Millgrove.

So that’s why we get couples like Andy and Jo in to teach the next wave of church planters. Andy and Jo are the real experts because they are doing the ministry of Jesus.