The First Ten Years
Andy and Gina Elmes pioneered Family Church in October 1997, the first service taking place at Buckland Community Centre on Sunday 12th October. Over the first few weeks numbers averaged about twenty people, many of whom are still on the journey with us today – as we would have expected!
Small beginnings
Over the first six months thousands of flyers were distributed around the city of Portsmouth and the word began to spread that there was a ‘new church in town’! The unique thing about Family Church was that Andy Elmes, who was born and raised in Portsmouth, was leading the church. Many local people would never have believed that Andy would one day become a Pastor, but God works in mysterious ways!
The first Christmas carol service attracted a number of visitors and carols were led on the guitar (as the sole instrument at the time) by worship leader, Sharon Quinlan. As the months went on a couple of musicians joined Sharon, including Steuart Payne (in February 1998) who played keyboards. Steuart later became worship leader when Sharon moved overseas in May 1998 to marry Phil Smethurst.
Wayne & Nicky Keeping have served in the church since day one. Andy and Wayne have been best friends for many years and in the planning of Family Church they agreed that three main provisions should be made. First, the church should be a place of powerful praise and worship. Second, a solid and practical Word should be taught each Sunday. Third, provision of an excellent kids’ programme should be made for children of all ages. These have been core objectives throughout the first ten years of the church and will continue to be so.
Hearts on Fire for Jesus campmeetings
As an evangelist, Andy travelled throughout the UK for about three years before planting the church in Portsmouth. One of the main events that Andy ran under the banner of Hearts on Fire for Jesus was the annual conference in Gosport, Hampshire. For five years, from 1996 until 2000, this conference was a huge success, drawing together Christians from the region for a power-packed week. Vibrant praise and powerful preaching marked the Hearts on Fire Campmeeting and God really moved in the lives of so many people. It was never Andy’s intention to start a church in Portsmouth (or to extend Family Church to Gosport), but looking back on what God did through those meetings, it must have earned Andy a reputation in this region as a bold, passionate preacher!
Youth
Speaking of boldness and passion for God, we have a whole load of young people in our church who are on fire for Jesus! Back in August 1999 we welcomed Lee Beard into our team and he set about establishing a youth ministry, now known as Momentum. This quickly grew and attracted young people from the area and has now moved venues two or three times to accommodate the growth. Our teenagers now meet on Friday nights in local Anglican church, St. Lukes, and turn a very traditional-looking building into a house of vibrant, passionate, totally rocking praise! Led by Pastors Mark & Sarah Carter, our young people know how to bring mates to church and they are making a stand for God in a society that is full of compromise. Recently our youth group attended Audacious at the Guildhall in Portsmouth. Every day and night over 1,400 young people gathered to be part of the revolution! With speakers such as Glyn Barrett, Chris Hill and Mike Guglielmucci, the Guildhall shook at its foundations and powerful praise and inspirational preaching infected the lives of every young person in attendance. This is the second year that Audacious has come to Portsmouth and we’re looking forward to next year as God continues to move and the revolution continues!
Praise and worship
You will have gathered by now that praise and worship has always been a really important element of the way we do church and our connection with Hillsong Church and with Abundant Life Ministries in Bradford is no coincidence. We’ve been hugely inspired by the worship songs that come out of Hillsong and Abundant Life, as well as other movements such as Vineyard and more recently Planetshakers and Audacious. Back in 2001 we organised a worship seminar with David Reidy from Hillsong Church in Australia. David has visited Family Church on several occasions and we’ve been blessed by our association with him and by the experience and wisdom he shares with our worship teams. In 2001 David shared some practical insights and Bible teaching that helped shape the way we do things in our worship ministry.
Discipleship
Family Church holds the Bible, the Word of God in written form, as our standard for life; it’s the textbook that instructs every human being how to live life well, bringing inspiration and purpose to its reader. Therefore we not only teach the Word through our preaching on Sundays but also through a whole series of programmes designed to ‘make disciples’. We take the Great Commission seriously and see it as our mission to not only ‘go into all the world’ but to ‘make disciples’ – in other words, to give believers the opportunity to grow in their faith and flourish in life. One such discipleship programme we have adopted is Faith Works. We started Faith Works Bible College back in 2002, having enjoyed a year or so of a video-based Bible teaching programme called Living in the Word.
Faith Works is a programme developed by Hillsong International Leadership College in Sydney, Australia and has met our needs incredibly well. It comprises two years of ‘part-time’ Bible college and since starting the course in 2002 we’ve seen 150 students complete the first year and dozens complete the second. The theme of year one is ‘How to live life well’ and the theme of year two is ‘How to lead well in life’. As church leaders, we value such a course because it exposes people to the Word of God, teaching them fundamental aspects of the Christian faith as well as how make good spiritual decisions. The second year trains people how to be a leader and we’ve seen so many people take on responsibilities in church life as a result of Faith Works.
Empower Conference
We believe that good leadership is key to managing God’s House in an effective way so that church doesn’t stop moving forward, rather it evolves in order to reach people in an ever-changing society. The gospel message is eternally relevant and so we need to ensure the presentation of the message is also relevant. If people don’t like the packaging they won’t experience the contents of the package! Along with effective management of God’s House, we need to ensure that people encounter our supernatural God in all that we do. A balanced church is strong on management and strong spiritually. The two cannot and should not be separated. In order to train our church leaders we ran our first Leadership School in 2004 now called Empower Conference. Paul Scanlon came to Portsmouth and spoke to our church leaders as well as a large number of visitors (Pastors and church leadership teams) from the region.
Great connections
This was an exceptional occasion and has proved to be an invaluable weekend for our team. We’ve been blessed with other great speakers over the last four years including Ray Bevan, Gary Clarke, Mark Wilkinson, Dave Gilpin and Scott Wilson, all of whom have brought inspirational teaching rooted in their own exceptional leadership experience. Every year we see a number of pastors of churches in the South Coast region (and beyond!) attend this very motivating weekend.
In fact, we’ve been really blessed by our association with so many great church leaders and have found so much inspiration from their churches and their visits to Family Church. Through Andy and Gina’s many connections in the UK and throughout the world we’ve had numerous guests come through who have added so much to church life. From the UK we’ve enjoyed the ministry of Derek and Georgina Smith, Paul Scanlon, Dave and Jenny Gilpin, Dave Belfield, Gary Clarke, Mark Wilkinson, Ian Williams, Ray and Laila Bevan, Andy White, John Greenow, Glyn and Sophia Barrett, Stuart Kier and many others. From the States we’ve had a great time with Mike Petzer, Danny and Jean Thornton, Vaughn Jarrold and a number of other tremendous pastors. And from other parts of the world we’ve been inspired by Phil and Sharon Smethurst, Mark Hopkins, David Reidy, Ivan Herald, Mark Hodgets and Mick and Chris Dalton, among many others. Andy himself is a very popular speaker and is privileged to be invited to many great churches in the UK and abroad to share God’s Word. We have a wonderful network of friends in so many churches and thank God for His favour and blessing on Family Church.
Growth through friendships
We love the fact that church is made up of such a massive variety of people and endeavour to provide our church family with the opportunity to relate well together in various spheres of church life. We run Life Groups, for example, that give everyone the opportunity to meet together ‘mid-week’ in order to develop friendships and grow in their faith. Life Groups provide an environment of faith and encouragement where people are cared for and helped in times of need by a group of Christian friends who love them! We also run separate special events for men and women in order to give the guys and the gals unique opportunities to enjoy each other’s company and hear teaching that specifically relates to them. The women’s ministry is aptly named Heavenly and has been a huge benefit to so many women in the church. The team of ladies who run Heavenly do a tremendous job in organizing bi-monthly Breakfasts as well as brilliant social events. We greatly value our many international members of Family Church, many of whom attend Portsmouth University. It is our firm commitment to provide a stable spiritual home for people of all nationalities and cultures.
As for the men, besides also having a bi-monthly Men’s Breakfast, we have an annual Men’s Advance. It’s called this because we don’t retreat, we advance! Since 2005 we’ve taken the guys away for two days where a large amount of fun stuff is mixed with a good dose of God’s Word (which can also be fun!) and where men return after two days having made new friends and having seen God move in their lives big time. This year’s Advance has just taken place and for the third year we’ve been over to the Isle of Wight. We love the venue, not just because the food and accommodation are great, but because we have access to terrific facilities and a stunning landscape on the south of the Island. The Men’s Advance is here to stay!
Planting out
Due to growth in the Portsmouth congregation and a number of people travelling over from our neighbouring town, Gosport, we made a plan in autumn 2004 to plant a second congregation in Gosport. In January 2005 we started in Gosport with Sunday night meetings and established a solid and healthy congregation, with Geoff & Jane Wood working as our congregational (associate) pastors. After a year the Gosport congregation began meeting on Sunday mornings. In planting the Gosport congregation, our motto was one church, two congregations, both sides of the harbour. We’re so proud of our team in Gosport who work hard to maintain the values and culture of Family Church in all that they do, enabling us to expand our influence in the region. We’ve seen a good number of people saved in Gosport and both congregations are growing and representing God to our society with effectiveness. Gosport is the first of many congregations that will be planted by Family Church.
The second congregation we planted had a very specific purpose in mind. Cornerstone Fellowship is a traditional congregation, planted in September 2007, that caters for those who enjoy the life, vitality and depth of teaching at Family Church, but prefer it at a slower pace. Under the pastoral oversight of Steven & Kirsty Carey, Cornerstone Fellowship meets weekly at our Church Offices.
Reaching out
It’s really important to us that we’re effectively reaching our community and so we’ve always taught the church to personally share their faith with people in their lives. We also make efforts to reach our neighbourhood with a variety of community outreach programmes as well as big evangelistic events. Our community outreach currently consists of a very effective street ministry where we feed and clothe the homeless as well as the provision of food hampers to families throughout the year, as well as special efforts at Christmas and Easter. We also take on special projects such as the provision of emergency wash packs to people who are taken into local hospitals – a great way to let our community know that we’re here and we care. It’s about being a ‘church without walls’ where people in our community get to experience the goodness of God. Since summer 2001 we’ve put on an annual Fun Day where we’ve taken over a local park (the Bandstand arena in Southsea for the past three years) and provided bouncy castles, fun activities, family games, food and live music all for free! People who have come along to such events have been blown away by our generosity and we’ve been able to let our community know that we’re here for them.
During the first ten years we’ve been very careful to design our church culture and we’re really grateful that God has helped us to grow into a church where people can come, plant their lives and flourish. Family Church is a place of vibrancy and genuine love. It’s filled with people who are consumed with passion for God, grateful for His life-changing grace upon their lives. Our church meetings are an environment where people can come and experience the life and power of God. The majority of people who step into this environment will not be able to resist salvation. Anyone who decides to unpack their suitcase and make this house their ‘home’ will naturally grow.
Where next?
I’ve given you a brief review of some of the things that we’ve been up to in the last ten years. It feels like a lot when writing about it, but it’s really not. It’s just a case of let’s get on and make it happen and if it costs us a bit of time, money and effort then we’re totally happy to pay the price. We think that we have an awesome future ahead of us. We’re sure God is going to do more in the next ten years than we’ve seen in the first decade. So we’re going to lock into His plans and work hard to make it happen!
