How we planted in a pandemic
Part 2 of 4
As we shared in our last post, 2019 was about God catching our hearts to move again and beginning to dream about how it could happen. Our first focus was thinking about when we would make the jump, who would come with us, and how we’d start to gather and connect with the core that would form the start of the plant. We believed that the move was probably a year or two away and that we would only move once we had two or three other households committed to joining us. However, in early 2020 the Lord Jesus made it clear that he was picking up the pace!
As we packed our Christmas decorations in January 2020, we had a sense that we had just spent our last Christmas in Andover. We prayed, fasted, and heard Him say that we were putting conditions on the move that were ours and not His. He reminded us that He was Lord and had the right to take us, plant us in Swindon on our own, and grow a church around us. It’s difficult to argue when a sovereign God talks like that, so we said “Amen” even as we wondered what it would mean for us.
We started looking at homes more earnestly and started preparing to move. Our first couple of trips viewing homes weren’t too promising, but at the end of February, we walked through the door of our home for the first time. As we crossed the threshold of a house the estate agent had to convince us to see, we were both flooded with an overwhelming peace that told us we were home! After making a couple of offers, including a cheeky first offer that was turned down, the owner accepted and we started the moving process.
In March 2020, the country was locked down. We’d been able to start the process, but would we be able to finish? We spent a couple of weeks in limbo until Government advice clarified that live house purchases could run to completion. On 17th April 2020, we completed the purchase and I travelled up to Swindon to receive the house keys in a socially-distanced fashion, and we moved the following day. We were in our new home town! As my sister said once we were in the new house, if we ever questioned whether God wanted us in Swindon, we just needed to look back at the miraculous move He orchestrated in the middle of a global pandemic. In the words of a popular worship song, “Who can stop the Lord Almighty?” No-one!
Now we were in Swindon and settling into our new home, a new problem arose - how do we get to know a new town when we can't leave our home? How do we connect with people? How do we recruit to a church plant when we can’t meet up? A family we already knew in the town joined us early on, but who else would come? How will this church plant grow?
Along with other churches in 2020, we decided to go online! We chose a name, prepared an announcement video with Mosaic Church in Basingstoke, built a small website, and went public! Through the release of this video, God caught the attention of several people who got in touch, many of whom are now part of the plant.
One couple who got in touch early on was Phil & Becky Peacock who were in City Church Bristol at the time. Phil is a Paediatric Emergency Department consultant who recently accepted a job offer in Swindon. They were confidently telling people they weren’t planning to move, though privately they’d said to each other: “Maybe we’ll move to Swindon if Commission announced they’re planting a church there. But that’s not going to happen!” A couple of days later God surprised them when Commission shared our video. They bravely got in touch to find out more and started connecting with Trinity Life Church. After a delayed house move, they finally joined us in Swindon in January 2021.
The early days of TLC were largely online. We partnered with Basingstoke and Andover to run online services, helping out with hosting the meetings, leading worship, and preaching. We followed this with a Zoom gathering for Swindon people to connect, catch up, and provide a space for interested visitors to meet the church. Vision casting and foundation laying for TLC also happened on Zoom in midweek gatherings, studying Acts and Ephesians mixed with prayer, worship, and moving in the prophetic together. Another key part of our early life together was having fun with regular quizzes and games, usually involving a takeaway voucher to be won as well as bragging rights! As lockdown rules relaxed briefly over the summer of 2020, we gathered in parks and gardens for some precious face-to-face time. Slowly but surely, Trinity Life Church was beginning to take shape, even with the restrictions imposed by the lockdown.
Looking back we can see why God accelerated our move. He wanted us in Swindon and knew that COVID was already on the move. As He promised us at the start of the year, he moved us from Andover to Swindon and was already starting to grow a church around us. Being able to move and plant amid a global pandemic has shown us that even in the most difficult circumstances, the Kingdom advances and the church of Jesus Christ grows and multiplies. In our next post, we’ll share how the plant emerged from lockdown and bring you up to date on the Trinity Life story.
Jon and Laluna Sidnell lead the team planting Trinity Life Church in Swindon. If you’d like to get in touch, you can visit their website or email hello@trinitylifeswindon.com.
If this has provoked you to consider church planting, and you'd like to speak to someone about it, then please email Chris Kilby from the Commission UK Team on chrisk@commission.global