While on a short city break in Barcelona I was suddenly taken ill with excruciating pain in my stomach. I’d been pushing through since it started at 5am, telling myself it was indigestion, and I just had to ‘man up’ and it would go away.

At 7.30am I went for a run just so I could have pain in other parts of my body and take my mind off it. It didn’t go. By 10am it was so bad I said to Zoe please could she go to the chemist. Then I rang her on the way and said ‘I think we need a Doctor.’

An emergency doctor was called, who called an ambulance after giving me morphine. They put a blue light on and I ended up spending 3/4 of my city break in a hospital bed, with gallstones  – thankfully I’m now back in the UK.

But while I was there they fasted me, so I thought I might as well use the (enforced – does it count?) discipline to pray while in another part of Europe about the church r

eproduction catalyst gathering I’m planning for November.

LAUNCH, in partnership with Exponential will gather 800 leaders convinced that by the grace of God, the best years of the church in Europe are ahead of us, will you be one of them?

The projections of doom and continued decline for the church in Europe are intolerable to me, as I detailed in my blog recently. But like that pain I had, it won’t just go away! If we are to see different results, we have to do something differently, urgently. The best time to do that may have been twenty years ago, the second best time is now.

I was so inspired by my strong connection with the Exponential Conference in the USA which has pulled together leaders from across a multitude of streams and changed the game of discipleship and reproducing church planting there. I dreamed with its leaders Todd Wilson and Dave Ferguson (click here for a free book they wrote!) of the same calibre of leaders gathering so you experience something similar without having to fly to California or Florida.
Why would you even do that, when you can come to sunny Manchester?

We road tested the idea in 2016 and sold out the venue as 250 invited leaders from across the continent worshipped and were inspired to move from subtraction through addition to multiplication. Leaders are booking in from all across Europe (last week we were delighted to hear of a group of Bishops coming from Poland).

This year I’d love to be your host as you bring your team and share a table with other leaders as we catch the fire of an international cadre of –

Missional leaders like – Luis Palau, Andy Hawthorne and Danielle Strickland

Church planters such as Jossy Chacko, (India), Richmond Wandera (Uganda) and Joakim Lundqvist(just about everywhere!)

Evangelism, discipleship and church planting strategists like Dave Ferguson, Steve & Michelle Addison, Bishop Ric Thorpe and Paul Harcourt (New Wine).

We’re sponsored by my friends at Compassion UK and Stewardship, and if you look at the booking site you’ll see that like Exponential in the USA, we have partners from organisations across the board involved in discipleship, evangelism and church planting.

Please pray about joining us, bring a team and come prepared for what I’m praying will be a life changing experience for you, and a church changing catalyst for Europe.