SO far and Beyond
It had to start somewhere.
In January 2021, the Lord began to stir the hearts of Pastor Aaron and Faith to plant a church in the midst of the Global Lockdown. Taking a step of faith on Valentine's Day, a small group of people began to meet via Zoom. Roger Miller was overseeing the worship whilst Pastor Aaron was teaching and then the group would have zoom chats about the future of this small group who became Journey Life Church. In the first year, whilst governmental restrictions were being lifted, the church community grew whilst meeting in back gardens, homes and then at a veterans’ club in Flixton, Manchester.
It was at the beginning of 2022 the Lord was preparing two churches to merge into one.
During the first AGM in 2022, Pastor Aaron set out the “big vision” and encouraged prayer for resources. At the same time, Pastor Sam and Jackie, pastoring Sharon Church, a well-established and historic church in Old Trafford, were praying for leaders to come and help lead the church.
Vision to see more
Desiring to have bi-monthly worship nights, Journey Life Church approached Sharon Church to use their youth centre. Neither the two churches nor the pastors knew each other, but God surely did! The Lord spoke to the Fentem’s about merging Sharon Church with Journey Life Church. A couple of months later, they spoke to Pastor Aaron and after a couple of months of prayer and discussions, the merge was agreed. One of the challenges we had was understanding what it would mean for both churches to change their identities and launch as a new church. Having established a Transitional Leadership Team, we journeyed through much prayer, hours of talks, meetings, to our new name: KINGDOM LIFE MANCHESTER. Holding to the same vision and mission, culture and values that started in 2021, we launched in January 2023 and haven’t looked back since.
What’s next?
We sensed from the beginning Kingdom Life Manchester is more than a church. The “big vision” is just beginning to take shape with the supernatural intervention and then provision of blueprints for a new multi-purpose centre: Kingdom Life Worship Centre, Kingdom Life Youth and Community Centre and Kingdom Life Housing. With a local to global missional vision, we are partnering and working alongside missional organisations and churches with the same heartbeat locally, whilst beginning to bring the Kingdom Life vision and mission in countries God is leading us to through Kingdom Rise. How? By faith…