Our Mission
Our vision is to see new churches multiply in post-Christian Scotland. Healthy gospel churches are needed in every kind of community.
We believe that new churches reach new people, new cultures & new generations.
The equivalent of 120 churches close in Scotland each year. Planting new churches is our best hope for the evangelisation of the nation.
We’re planting churches that will plant more churches.
Networks
Generation is the church planting network developed by the Free Church of Scotland to catalyse church planting for our nation.
We partner with 20Schemes, FIEC, Acts29, Redeemer City to City and Free Church of Scotland church plants.
We are also working to partner with church plants across Europe.
We exist to generate:
- Hope in Christ
- Positivity within and outside the church
- Great gospel partnerships with other networks, churches & funders to see the multiplication of new churches in Post-Christian Scotland
30 by 30 Project
In 2017, we set ourselves the ambition of planting at least 30 further churches within the next 13 years.
We have identified Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness as strategically important locations for new church plants.
How are we doing so far?
By July 2023 we had started planting 14 of the 30 x 30 churches in cities, suburbs, and towns in Scotland.
If you feel that God is calling you to lead a church plant, we can offer a range of support. Please get in touch.
Church Plants
Our Needs
To make a success of 30 x 30 we set a target of recruiting 35 church planters. Please pray for the pipeline of men training with us to plant.
Our fundraising target for 30 x 30 is £5,500,000, or $6,800,000.
How to partner with us:
Pray: Sign up for prayer updates
Give: Support 30 x 30 financially
Join: Come and plant a church
Supporting Church Planters
We want to provide help and support to those who are looking to plant a new church. This includes Assessment, Training and Coaching.
Assessment
Assessment provides an objective perspective on your readiness to plant. If you want to plant a church we can provide you with an in-depth assessment process that will help you uncover your strengths and weaknesses, which will better prepare you as you move forward.
If you are interested in being Assessed for Church Planting, please get in touch.
Training
We want to equip and train church planters to enjoy what they are doing and to build healthy churches that will be church planting churches.
Our training uses some of the best church planting resources in the world and is based on the City to City Urban Incubator adapted for a UK context.
Incubator
Incubator is City to City’s key two-year program to serve, train, and develop church planters in urban ministry and has been used around the world over the past 10 years and more.
Each learning module addresses the specific needs of urban planters, including skills in thinking theologically about ministry, and growth in the various areas of urban ministry.
Modules in Year 1 include:
- Understanding the gospel and how it shapes everything in ministry.
- Personal life of the Leader: including Ministry &
Character, models of leadership, unique temptations in ministry. - Culture and Contextualisation: including writing a
contextual profile for your community and recognising cultural bias. - Evangelistic Networking: including how to grow in
consistency, creativity and winsomeness in our own personal evangelism and how to ‘network’ evangelistically. - Missional Ecclesiology: including how to develop ‘outward-facing’ and ‘balanced’ ministries along with how to read your city and how your theological vision relates to the city.
- Grace renewal: including how to grow in personal transparency and gospel renewal in our own lives, how to practice a lifestyle of repentance and faith.
- Discipleship and Leadership Development: Knowing how people change and how to deal with unique hindrances to spiritual growth and renewal.
- Kingdom-centred Prayer: meeting spiritual challenges with prayer, fighting Spiritual battles, designing dynamic church prayer meetings!
Who is incubator for?
The Incubator is designed to help church planters during the critical phase of launching their congregations. They get practical help on writing their action plan, the philosophy of ministry, crucial ministry development, and preaching, among other topics. But our experience shows that it would benefit anyone in years 0-2 of church planting,
Where and When will Incubator run?
TBC
What does the Incubator cost?
£600 for the whole year.
How to book?
For further information or to apply, please get in touch.
Church Planting Director, Neil MacMillan
Neil leads Cornerstone, a congregation launched in 2014, in Morningside, Edinburgh. He is convinced that starting new churches is key to the future of Christianity in Scotland.
He is married to Louise, and they have four children. He spends much of his time recruiting and training church planters. He loves movies, books, eating out and live music.
Coaching
Gospel coaching is an intentional gospel conversation with focused discussions about a disciple’s personal, spiritual, relational, and missional goals.
Good coaching significantly enhances your ability to plant a healthy church.
We provide you with a coach who will work with you to set and meet personal, relational and missional goals that enable you to plant and grow a healthy church.
All of our coaches are trained through the Gospel Coach system.
Church Planting
Every church has started out as a church plant. Prior to the 30 by 30 Project, the Free Church of Scotland was involved in setting up a number of church plants which have now become established and fully sanctioned charges. This includes Cornerstone Free Church, Esk Valley and Grace Church Leith.