Yesterday, we were joined on our church live stream by Stephen Watkinson. Stephen is going to be joining Oldham Bethel Church as a Church Planter with a view to establishing a new church in the town of Rochdale. We aim to plant into the Deeplish area of Rochdale, which is almost a replica of the Glodwick area of Oldham that Bethel Church serves. It is highly deprived and, alongside a number of white working class, there is a high population of South Asian Muslims.
I interviewed Stephen as part of our online service and you can hear some of what we are planning below.
If you are interested in being part of a core team planting into Rochdale, please do get in touch. If you are interested in either Muslim outreach or work in deprived communities, this is a great opportunity for you to be involved from the ground floor.
We would also ask, if you have a heart to see churches planted into deprived communities, whether you would be willing to support the work financially. We are, initially, looking for 2-years funding to cover the period in which the church is a daughter plant under the auspices of Oldham Bethel Church. The aim, at the end of the two year period, would be for the plant to be a fully functioning, independent church. If this sounds like something you might want to support, again, please do get in touch and we can provide further details.
The interview starts at 2:19 on the video below.