DNA Networks, Colchester

Led by Janie and David Beales with a vision to initiate a missional church planting movement beginning in Colchester then extending through East Anglia and onwards.

In David's own words:

"We spent the year 2000 "on Sabbath" walking around, praying and bumping into people. We formed a Charitable Trust and asked some friends to be Trustees. The Bishop of Chelmsford agreed to license David as a "Public Preacher". Having found various people concerned for their own relational networks, we began 4 Mission Units in 2001 among 6th Formers, International Students, Town Centre Workers and Families with Pre-Schoolers. We found that some of the people we engaged with desired to meet for worship. In June 2001, we started Live @5 worship event in the Arena Leisure Centre.

Key values

"The Spring-up" factor - An organic approach.
Our job is to "…sow and reap and plant vineyards…" to quote Isaiah 37, 30 (out of context, we know, but this is a fundamental metaphor for our ministry). God's job is to make fruit.

Running with "inspired vision" and ditching "bright ideas"- waiting on God to figure out the difference!

Incarnation- creating communities of faith, which embody the "fingerprints of Jesus" as described in Luke 4, 18-19.

Multiplication- as in Acts 1, 8.

Evangelism is a "with" word because "com"= "with"
We communicate the Gospel message;
We invite people into community life;
We share our communion with God;

Ministry Teams

One-to-one Mentoring

Micro-churches (2-4 people); mini-churches (5-12 people)

Sacramental Character of Marriage

Indiscriminate Grace /"The Cornelius Household Factor"

Mustard-Seeds of Faith to Move Mountains of Finance

How it has developed to date - autumn 2005

1. Colchester

- Live @10.45 (Sunday worship) - about 100 involved currently (66%-75% turn up each Sunday). These Mission Units have sprung out of the worship community:

- Marriage and Parenting

- Men

- Women

- Work Dynamics

- International Students

- Identity (12s-15s and 16s-19s)

2. Churches created by people we have sent out:

East Anglia (-ish!)

- Brightlingsea, Essex (25, including children)
- Space, Herstmonceux, Sussex (15, including children)

Europe

- Danube Church, Lauingen, Bavaria (about 30 people)

Asia

- Shanghai, Mini-church starting with returned students
- Micro-church, currently in Singapore- soon to plant in Taiwan or Thailand

What the future might hold

Locally, we expect Mission Units to become mini-churches, which, if healthy and sustainable, will grow or multiply. We are therefore hoping to train leaders effectively to ensure health and sustainability.

Further afield, we expect the movement of God's Spirit to spring up new churches across the region, the continent and the world. Therefore, we look out for the people of God's choice to lead such "spring-ups" and pray that we might bump into them in order to mentor them towards fulfilling God's call and purpose. We hope ultimately to oversee up to 12 churches beyond Colchester which each have the incarnation and multiplication genes in them."