Reaching a whole town or city with the gospel. Saturating a place with good news. Completing the great commission where I live. If any of these thoughts excite you then you’ll be pleased to know that a number of places are beginning to ask the questions ‘what might that look like round here?’

As I’ve had the opportunity to explore and experiment with some of these ideas in the Liverpool city region in recent years, I’ve been asked to input to a number of other places – specifically Chester, Ipswich, Newcastle and Basingstoke this term.

What would it look like if in 10 years in your place everyone knew someone whose life had been transformed by Jesus? What if every neighbourhood had a small group of Christians living out life together, praying for their streets, practically blessing their neighbours, finding the people of peace, creating pathways to faith, and producing disciple-makers?

What if we did this so that everyone knew where to get spiritual bread, to get practical help, and to find Jesus? What if we multiplied these groups so that there was one missional expression of church (an MC in our language) for every 1000 people (#1in1000)?

This is our dream for seeing people and places transformed by the gospel.

Here’s a bunch of 15+ of those kind of Christians in Liverpool who are praying and plotting to do just that for their neighbourhood. Current plans for the next couple of months include:

• helping a neighbour with an overgrown garden.
• continuing to befriend the night-time security guard who watches a particular footballer’s mum’s house in our street.
• serving and blessing the local catholic primary school in our street (flapjacks for the receptionist so far).
• taking round bunches of daffodils for the women in our street over the mother’s day weekend and inviting their families to the Easter service.

What could it look like round your way?