The next ten years are going to look very different than the previous ten for the Uniting Church in Queensland. This is due to a strategy the Queensland Synod recently adopted, to invite every church in the state to either contribute to planting churches or commit to revitalisation.

Eight years ago, I had the honour of leading a team to plant Burleigh Village Church. We were sent out from Newlife Church, a much larger and established Uniting Church, to explore exciting new expressions of what the church could be. It was very exciting and as church planters will tell you, extremely demanding.

Back then we could only dream of a day when; there were financial resources freed up and directed at church planting which we could access, experienced coaches to accompany church planters and all the obstacles they face, a network of prayer we could readily tap into extending across the entire state, ministry specialists to walk beside the development of new thriving communities of faith, and every system and process aligned at every level of the church to see God do more of what we were experiencing.

That dream is now a reality, made so at the meeting of the 38^th Queensland Synod, endorsing the “Church Planting, Re-planting and Revitalisation Strategy 2025-2035”.

Six months prior I had joined a team (Mission Accompanying Team) in our state office to develop a ten-year church planting strategy. Our vision became to create an eco-system that encourages discipleship-focused church planting, re-planting and revitalisation across the Uniting Church in Queensland.

This has been in direct response to the call of the Holy Spirit to our church, for the Synod (state body) to accompany congregations (local church) and presbyteries (regional bodies) in developing a church planting, re-planting and revitalisation culture over the next 10-years.

When Synod in session met in May, we saw people catch this vision of a future populated with more churches, revitalised churches reaching their communities missionally and a beautiful, wild and varied expression of churches, giving everything to offer the beautiful and outrageous grace and love of God to the people they meet.

In an enthusiastic show of support this strategy is now a pathway we must, with fear and trembling, walk with the Holy Spirit. Not for the sake of our denomination’s future, not for the future of the church, but for the countless Aussies who have not yet said “yes” to the Spirit’s invitation to live with Christ in the Kingdom of God.

The strategy consists of five strategic priorities which were developed with much prayer, consultation, discussion, brainstorming, and rigour. These five priorities are to collaborate with presbyteries and congregations to:

1. Identify what healthy revitalised churches look like, implementing best-practice measures for congregational and discipleship health.

2. Identify and equip churches and people called to plant, replant or revitalise the church.

3. Grow capacity in local churches to plant churches and/or assist other churches to be planted.

4. Deliver coaching, training, and development pathways, for planters and their teams to embrace the call of God.

5. Streamline and implement approval and governance pathways to reduce any resistance or obstacles for would be church planters.

For the first time in Queensland Synod’s history we have a clear pathway to see every congregation in the UCA be revitalised and out of that revitalisation either plant a church, host a church plant or contribute to the planting of a church. The importance and centrality of this strategy draws the focus of the whole church to this impetus, and not only includes everyone, but requires every person to own their part to play in this adventure.

I no longer dream of supports, strategies and resources desperately needed by church planters. I now dream of a thriving church, multiplying exponentially in communities desperately in need of Christ, that everyone would be invited to know and live Jesus’ way, in community, for the restoration of all things.

Ralph Mayhew

Ralph led the team that developed the “Church Planting, Re-planting and Revitalisation Strategy 2025-2035”