FAQs
What does The Turning launch look like?
The Turning looks like local churches working together across a region until every believer is equipped to share the gospel and trained to disciple those that respond.
In the first year, this may be 3-5 Hubs within a region, with 5-8 churches working together in each Hub. Each Hub will have a Hub leader and churches working together and they will have a team from The Turning UK coming to support them for The Turning Launch.
We are aware that there are many towns within our counties and regions. This may mean that teams from churches and areas may need to travel to their nearest Hub; gaining training through this Hub and then working with the region team to create a Hub in their own vicinity. This is necessary to make sure that people will continue to go out once the launch is over.
The launch week itself will have a very simple rhythm; there will be evening encounter meetings where we will worship God, pray and enter into His presence, followed by morning outreaches. For the duration of the launch, we will encounter in the evenings and go out in the day. The morning will involve worship, prayer and training before going out on the streets. Once the launch is over, the Hub teams will continue to go out monthly, training more people within their Borough to increase the number of Hubs.
What does The Turning look like in more rural areas?
During the Launch we will, initially, focus on urban areas but this does not mean The Turning doesn’t work in rural areas. In fact, it works just the same! There are fewer people out on the streets to talk to but, more often than not, the people who respond already have a connection with a church (whether it be though messy church or another outreach within the church) making the follow up much more straightforward.
We only focus on the urban areas during the launch because there are more people in the area to talk to. If we sent 60 people out to a town of 4,000 we may be bumping into more of our team than people to talk to! However, it may be as part of the launch week we send teams to support churches in those rural areas.
The vision of The Turning is personal transformation; that talking to people about Jesus and seeing them respond becomes part of our lives, whether that is at the school gates, book club or walking our dog. This means it doesn’t matter how rural your town is (or isn’t!).
What role does prayer have in the Turning?
Prayer has a significant role in all that we do; without prayer and the presence of God we can achieve nothing. We would love to see as many Christians praying for the launch as we can possibly mobilise, without prayer we can do nothing.
There will be prayer events, as well as prayer evenings, leading up to the mission launch which will be held in individual towns but also more centralised events that will bring the region together. The hub leaders and their teams, alongside The Turning team will help mobilise the churches and Hubs with prayer.
Can you expand on the transformation of culture that you have currently seen?
In every place that we have been, churches have seen that their congregation have become more aware of those that do not know Jesus and their need for God’s presence in their daily life in order to be able to see His purposes come to be. We have seen churches take on board the need for the whole church to disciple and the whole church to be equipped to share the gospel. It is possible to hear testimonies from church leaders of the impact The Turning has had on their churches on our YouTube channel.
Tell us more about discipleship follow-up process
When someone responds on the streets we ask for their details so that someone can contact them (within 24 hours) and offer to meet them for coffee and begin follow up. The App (called ‘The Turning’) that we developed in 2018 has enabled this process to become smoother. It is really important that all people who are involved in follow-up have been trained through The Turning follow-up material. This is so that every person involved understands the process that the people who have responded are going through. This follow up is different, as these are not friends but are, more often than not, strangers that have been met on the streets and are open to responding to Jesus.
The follow-up material, available on the app as well as to the iTunes Store, is a simple guide to the basics of Christianity starting with ‘Who is Jesus?’ and ‘What is the Bible?’ and moving on to baptism, prayer, worship, sin and the local church. It means that, over about 10 weeks of meeting for coffee in a relaxed environment, the person is taken on a journey to know more about the Christian faith. A friendship begins to form so that when they are invited to church they have someone who will help on that transition. There may come a point when it becomes more appropriate for the person to go into a group setting such as a home group or other discipleship courses but to begin with this course is created to give them the journey that they need to step towards a deeper relationship with the father.
How soon can we hold get hold of the training materials?
The Turning discipleship course is already available on the App and through iTunes. However, we will be holding Church Leader Training in order to train church leaders in preparing their own congregations for the follow-up. This training will take place early next year.
The outreach is very simply going out and sharing the simple gospel to someone and then asking them if they want to know Jesus. This training is given every morning before the outreach and we encourage people to keep coming to this training sessions not just come once. This is because each time you hear it, Father teaches us something more about His heart for those that do not know him and His heart towards us! The Turning isn’t simply a training tool to share your faith, but an invitation to step into a grace that father has poured out on His church.
The follow-up material, available on the app as well as to the iTunes Store, is a simple guide to the basics of Christianity starting with ‘Who is Jesus?’ and ‘What is the Bible?’ and moving on to baptism, prayer, worship, sin and the local church. It means that, over about 10 weeks of meeting for coffee in a relaxed environment, the person is taken on a journey to know more about the Christian faith. A friendship begins to form so that when they are invited to church they have someone who will help on that transition. There may come a point when it becomes more appropriate for the person to go into a group setting such as a home group or other discipleship courses but to begin with this course is created to give them the journey that they need to step towards a deeper relationship with the father.
What are the resourcing implications for individual churches?
We would hope to see within one hub between 8 and 15 churches working together. One of the churches maybe taking the lead in the hub and this could be where the hub leader is from but we would like to see all the churches working together towards the launch. Each church ideally needs one person who is working with the Hub co-ordinator to help make the launch happen. There would also need to be a church follow-up coordinator who will be focusing on the follow-up that the church is given. These roles are not necessarily time-consuming but are essential for the launch to run effectively. However, if a church does not feel that it can support these roles or the Hub church we would never say that they cannot be involved in The Turning. We want to see every believer in London equipped to share the gospel and trained disciple those that respond, and we will work with all the resources that we are given.
We do ask that every church involved would donate to the Turning £20 a month in order to see this grace continue to grow in London, in our nation and beyond. This money will go towards the development of the app so that it becomes an even more powerful tool for evangelism and discipleship as well as to help create and start new turning across the country ahead of a mission to England in 2020.
What is the App?
The Turning app is available to download on all Apple and android phones. To download it you just need to search for ‘The Turning’ on either Google Play or the App Store. You need to register once you’ve downloaded the app and we will make sure that you have been put into the correct group. This is so that you have access to the information for your area. The app is a twofold app; it is for Christian doing outreach and it is for those that respond.
Those who respond can download the app and register themselves. This means they will get access to a Bible, to discipleship material, daily devotions and verse of the day. By getting people to respond on the streets to download the App they are able to straightaway begin to get the word of God into their life.
The app is also for the outreach and the follow-up. Christians that have downloaded the App and have been trained in the evangelism will be able to input the details of the people who respond, this means that the follow-up coordinators can then assign to follow up promptly. Those people that have been trained in follow-up will be able to access the people that have been assigned to them, so they can quickly follow them up. The app will also give people access to events, news and testimonies for their area.