Counties Church Planting

 For over 120 years Counties has helped church growth by planting and revitalising
local churches that glorify God
and impact communities

With the UK’s historic church in decline and 3% of the population followers of Jesus, we believe that every person, in every county should be within reach of a church that makes Jesus known to them.

A church bringing faith, hope and love to every community.

We equip you in four key areas:

  • Church planting

  • Developing leaders

  • Gospel impact

  • Supporting network churches

  • 1. Church planting

    One of the hardest parts about church planting is sending good people away to plant a new church. Over the two and half year process, Counties will provide you with a range of trusted tools to accompany the sending church and your planting team. This process is designed to be lightweight and can be done alongside church and a busy life.

    Explore our Church Plants

  • 2. Developing Leaders

    A challenging aspect for a sending church is not having the right person to lead a church plant. Whilst formal assessment is helpful, Counties goes further. We provide you a safe space where someone can grow and develop into a trusted leader before launch. Counties training is designed to inspire, equip, resource and prepare your potential leaders from all backgrounds and ages to lead churches that will impact your local community.

    Learn about our programmes

  • 3. Gospel impact

    Many churches say they can’t plant because they dont have a launch team of 20+ people. Counties’ process begins with your team of between three and five people. We train you to engage the community whilst keeping the gospel central. The aim of the two year process is that your team grows to become 20+ people ready to launch. Through our Neighbourhood Chaplains social action initiative, we are helping churches of all denominations provide practical help and support to those most in need in our communities.

    Discover our initiatives

  • 4. Supporting network churches

    The Counties Planting Network (CPN) is a growing community of church plants expressing common beliefs and values. Counties invests in you, your leadership team and your congregation. Counties provides you ongoing training, ministry resources, and access to grants for strategic growth and social action projects.

    Give to this

Church Planting

Counties works with you to help plant, revitalise and grow healthy reproducing churches that glorify God and impact communities in villages, towns, cities across every UK county.

  • Inspiring local churches

  • Equipping teams

Inspiring Local Churches

Counties uses a process of church planting that has grown out of M4 Europe’s experience of church planting activity over the last 30 years. Your Church plant will become a UK example of:

  • planting

  • revitalising

  • growing

M4 Team Process Feedback

  • A re-energizing

    M2 delegate

  • More clarity over our journey and what lies ahead. Awareness of our comfort zones and being intentional in breaking out of them.

    M2 delegate

  • Practical and inspirational

    M2 delegate

  • I found the session on the Pathway to New People especially helpful, not least categorising levels of contact and then looking to overlay a clear pathway on top.

    M2 delegate

  • Good teaching and encouragement from the M4 leaders

    M2 delegate

  • The encouragement and stimulation of meeting with other teams across the country who are facing the same challenges during lockdown

    M2 delegate

  • This really blessed us all and helped us have important conversations!

    M1 delegate

  • Clarified the purpose of where the team is going

    M1 delegate

  • It really directed our focus on what to discuss of how to move forward.

    M1 delegate

  • Brilliant practical teaching and advice...help with vision and outworking....nailing it down

    M1 delegate

  • Clear strategy for landing and communicating the vision, and maintaining momentum as we move forward

    M1 delegate

  • Real clarity: a real sense of putting random ideas into a proper plan.

    M1 delegate

  • Excellent team info we all got so much from it

    M1 delegate

  • The preparatory videos were especially amazing. We all loved them.

    M3 delegate

  • That we are a team and need to consolidate our team through deeper relationships.

    M3 delegate

  • Lots to ponder on and drive us forward as a team. lots to unpick and discuss

    M3 delegate

  • Greater connection with other church plants

    M3 delegate

  • A greater understanding of what to do next

    M3 delegate

  • Lots of inspiration from all the other teams seeing what God is doing in other locations

    M2 delegate

  • M4 offered a us time for clear and structured conversation, to really put to words our dreams and things we need to work on. It also connected us with other churches around the country, helping us see the process in other contexts and helping us expand our network of believers.

    M2 delegate

  • To hear what other fellowships are doing is helpful. M4 course also really helped us focus …… and then focus again, on what we are doing and wish to achieve.

    M4 delegate

  • Opportunity to speak in front of and feedback to other groups. Time as a team to reflect and plan

    M4 delegate

  • Team cohesion . Develop new teams for future

    M4 delegate

  • We all found it absolutely invaluable. Inspirational. Practical. It helped refine our vision and bonded us further as a team

    M4 delegate

  • A lot of encouragement. Having several of the M4 staff come up and talk to us, listen to us, and advise us was great.

    M1 delegate

  • Refocus from our busy lives on the priorities of a church plant, the need for oversight support, and the sort of leaders (shepherd) on which we needed to model our approach. The need to develop our people more than is currently the case.

    M4 delegate

  • I was encouraged by the other teams, seeing church planting championed and people equipped. I also love seeing other teams being in the same process as us, equally as passionate about what comes next!

    M4 delegate

  • We received excellent coaching and support to work through some tough issues.

    M2 delegate

  • As it’s intended, it was a great tool to help me as a planter to get the team engaged on task and in line with the vision and values. It did what it said on the tin, so thank you

    M1 delegate

  • God spoke to us powerfully throughout the weekend

    M2 delegate

Equipping Teams

The M4 Process is unique because it is team focused.

In 2007 a group of church planters and leaders from Norway came together to pray, talk and explore how they could develop a church planting process that trained not only the church planter but also the whole team.

Since 2009, M4 Europe has helped initiate

  • over 300 church plants

  • planting movements in 17 nations

“We're delighted to bring this successful training process to the UK and Ireland.

We believe that church planting is God's initiative and that it's Christ himself who builds His church.

Therefore the authority of the Bible is essential for the content and message of the M4 Process.

We want to see a multiplying movement of missional churches, leaders with a Kingdom mentality that seek relationships first and are open to changes and improvement when they walk into the future together with God and His church."

Martin Erwin CEO

M4 Team Process in the UK

  • Open to all denominations / streams. Not ‘owned’ by anyone.

  • A collaboration of experienced church planters in the UK, investing into people who are pursuing the mission of God with a vision to begin new local churches

  • M4 UK and Ireland is led by Luiz Cardoso, Regional Director in collaboration with Martin Erwin (CEO, Counties UK evangelism network); Rev. John Townley (National Leader of Free Methodist Church UK and Ireland); Giles Arnold (CEO, Church Growth Trust, experts in church properties) with input, and expertise from M4 Europe Church Planting Movement

Developing Leaders

Counties trains future church leaders and team members, from diverse backgrounds and ages to plant healthy churches.

Counties’ training programmes are designed for you to be:

  • equipped to boldly share the gospel

  • encouraged to be authentic and genuine leaders

  • welcomed into a friendly and trusted community

Planter Orientation Programme

Counties helps develop future church leaders through recruiting and equipping a new generation of leaders to plant thriving churches.

The Planter Programme is a planting-specific course designed to prepare you for church leadership. The Planter Programme has a specific focus on personal leadership development.

The programme is delivered by practitioners and equips you with the ministry and operational tools needed for leading a church in the 21st century.

The Planter Programme is currently an exclusive programme for Counties Planters on M4 Team Process.

Leadership Development

Counties evangelists lead in a wide variety of roles:

  • Pastors and Bible Teachers

  • Chaplains

  • Children and Families Workers

  • Youth Workers

The Evangelist Training Programme is a year-long preparation programme designed to identify and encourage the gifts and calling of evangelists. The ETP offers you a distinctive experience: a diverse community of peers to journey with, and evangelism training within the context of Counties community of churches.

This includes training leaders who are:

  • from under-represented backgrounds (ethnic, social, educational)

  • mature and experienced (60+years)

  • young

Counties provides proven leadership development for youth at One2Lead (16-25) and the TEAM Gap Year programme for primarily 18+years.

After completion, those seeking to lead a plant are supported through the preparation stage of planting, aiming to join the M4 Team Process and commendation as a Counties Planter the following September.

“Though I have a vision and passion, I need the practical support for my ministry. The training and mentoring from Counties Church Planting means I am ready to stretch myself as God calls me to do His mission.”

Caleb Mathewos

Social Impact

Counties trains churches to engage their communities whilst keeping the Gospel central. So you can provide practical support and love to the most vulnerable in our communities.

Primarily through Neighbourhood Chaplains, and together with Schools initiatives, we help you engage local communities with a range of trusted

  • people

  • training

  • resources

Neighbourhood Chaplains

In 2017, in response to the loneliness epidemic, the team at Counties launched an initiative called Neighbourhood Chaplains. Starting with one Community Chaplain in a Bedfordshire market, Neighbourhood Chaplaincy has grown into a national network of churches and other charitable organisations working to see lives restored through the Gospel, communities rebuilt and to inspire a fresh movement of practical love for those in need.

Network Support

Counties supports Planting Network churches and Counties Planters. The CPN network aims to connect at three levels of relationship

  • planters with a regional cluster (including the annual residential retreat)

  • their leadership teams with a bi-annual Counties Conference

  • their congregation by running a Counties initiative regularly

Stories of COUNTIES

Read the latest news, stories and blogs from Counties and the churches we inspire and equip