from January to November 2025

Church Planting

Training Cohort

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This cohort is designed to equip teams to plant reformed, covenantal churches.  This course is not just to equip primary or facilitative church planters, but also all other teammates involved in a church-plant so everyone understands how to contribute to a healthy church plant.

LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN!

Key Questions

  • How do you keep the Gospel at the center of a church-plant?
  • What are the characteristics of effective church-planters and church-planting teams? 
  • How do you see your culture in light of our doctrine?
  • How do we engage culture? How do we contextualize appropriately?
  • How do you develop leaders?
  • What factors are important for a church-planting movement?

Goals

  • To understand the biblical foundations of church-planting
  • To wrestle with the typical challenges every church plant faces
  • To establish a church-planting method which can be contextualized
  • To inspire and motivate participants toward church-planting
  • To interact with helpful literature on church-planting
  • To be able to clearly present your church-plant’s strategic plan

Outcomes

  • A clearly formulated philosophy of ministry
  • A concrete strategic plan

Schedules

CHURCH PLANTING TRAINING SCHEDULE

EDINBURGH INTENSIVE TRAINING SCHEDULE

ATHENS INTENSIVE TRAINING SCHEDULE

The Trainers


  • Sashko is leading an international group of young adults who are seeking to plant a Reformed church in the city. His passion is the process of making the gospel message relevant to different groups of people depending on where they are at geographically, socially, culturally or spiritually. This happens through different social projects, Facebook posts, conversations over coffee, text messages, sermons or blog articles.

    The church that Sashko is leading reaches out to the local community through arts (including an annual Art&Thought Forum), women’s ministry and student ministry. Sashko also runs a small Reformed publishing house. He loves reading, listening to jazz and watching not-so-famous TV series from different countries around the world.

  • Alex is pastor of a church-plant in Exarcheia, Athens, and part of the Polis Church Planting Network.

    Alexandros is the pastor of Exarcheia Church, a church in downtown Athens, which he and Tim Coomar planted together in 2013. At the end of 2014, Exarcheia Church set up an NGO serving unaccompanied refugee minors and youth, which went on to play a significant role in the refugee crisis of 2015 onwards.

    In May 2019, Tim and Alexandros planted Urban Chapel, Exarcheia Church's first daughter congregation. They also both help coordinate the vision and training initiatives of Polis, a church planting network in Athens.

  • My name is Robbie Sweet and I serve as the team leader for MTW NEXT in Europe as well as the interim assistant team leader for MTW Glasgow. The vision of NEXT is to serve the global church in reaching the next generation for Christ, and since 2015 my wife Lydia and I have been engaged in that mission in Europe. We spent 6 years in St. Andrews, Scotland and have been based in Glasgow for the past 4 years. We currently are serving in partnership with the Free Church of Scotland with the aim of supporting and developing healthy ministries to the next generation throughout the denomination.

    Prior to moving to Scotland with MTW NEXT I worked on the youth staff at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church for 10 years. 

  • For George, being a church planter in Athens not only means knowing the Bible thoroughly, but also knowing the neighborhood well. In establishing the Glyfada Church, located in the Glyfada suburb just south of the Athens center, he took great measures to ensure he understood the area and carefully thought through how best to be a church that helps meet locals’ needs. He adopted a “life on life” ministry, in which he and his family became a vital part of the community to serve others in the community. This has since become the church’s philosophy: to feel the responsibility of its role to help locals and be a beacon of hope to its community.

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  • Born and raised in a Christian family, Giotis felt the call to pastoral ministry at the age of 16. He completed the Bible School in Greece when he was 21 and started serving the Greek Evangelical Church of Volos as its pastor. He then went on to continue his theological studies in Boston, while serving as the pastor of the Greek evangelical church there. For the past 20 years he has been serving as pastor of the First Greek Evangelical Church of Athens. Through the ministry of First Greek Evangelical, he was enabled to conceive and initiate a wider vision for church planting in Athens, leading to what is today called the “Polis” network.

    Giotis studied Sociology (BA, Panteion University) and Theology (Diploma in Theology, Greek Bible School) in Athens before transferring to the USA for further studies (MSt, Boston University School of Theology, and MDiv, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary). He also holds a PhD, awarded by the theological faculty of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

    He is married to Nopi and they have three sons, George, Theofilos, and Jason.

  • Tim is the City to City Europe Associate Director and Catalyst Coordinator.

    Tim Coomar is married to Cynthia and they have three children, Anna, Jane, and Jonathan. Tim grew up on the outskirts of London and, after graduating from university in the UK, worked for a year doing international student ministry before heading off to Athens, which very quickly became home. After a short stint working back in London as a web developer, Tim returned to Greece in 2008 to work as a ministry trainee at First Greek Evangelical Church in downtown Athens. It was during this year that a vision for the city was birthed, with church planting at its core, and so began Tim's association with City to City, as he shortly found himself on a plane to New York City to attend the International Intensive six-week training course for church planters. The training proved to be a transformational experience for Tim. In his own words, "it not only gave me the tools to do the work of church planting, but a renewed confidence in the Gospel as the power to change everything".

    Today, after 12 years as a church planter in one of the most post-Christian neighbourhoods in Europe, Tim feels called to serve this same vision for gospel movements in the cities of Europe in a new capacity, but with the same confidence in the power of the Gospel for change and renewal.

  • David Meredith is Mission Director for the Free Church of Scotland. He is involved in supporting evangelism, church planting and revitalization both internationally and in Scotland. David was previously senior minister at Smithton Free Church in Inverness, Scotland where during his thirty year ministry the church grew from a church plant to one of Scotland’s largest congregations. It has been his privilege to speak at conferences in the UK, mainland Europe, Africa and the USA. He is married to Nina and they have a grown-up family. He numbers among his interests motor cycling, reading biographies of interesting and diverse people. He was a politics major at College with a special interest in US politics. He is a close observer of SEC football but refuses to reveal his favorite team.

  • Jonas Stava is a native Norwegian and has served with MTW since 2021. Before that he served as a missionary in countries like Taiwan, Mongolia, Latvia, Jordan, England and the United States. He has been married to Pattie Lee since 2014 and have three wonderful children ages 7, 5, and 2.5.  He and his family have been planting churches in his home country of Norway since 2018 and currently help serve and plant their third church plant in Oslo, Norway. (Grace International church of Oslo) They have a heart to see people transformed through the gospel and for Biblical gospel cantered churches planted. They are interested in seeing the intersection of inter-cultures, bible, society, and the sojourner. They look forward to see how God moves in Europe and the world. Jonas holds a degrees from Oxford University, Westminster Seminary and a D. min from Knox Theological Seminary. In his free time Jonas enjoys taking long hikes, reading books, and spending time with his family. 

  • David, son of a PCA church-planter, was raised in Louisiana and Tennessee. Christ captured his heart in high school while he was participating in short-term mission trips, and David has felt called to missions ever since. At King College in Tennessee, he majored in political science and modern foreign languages, earned a Masters of Divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) in California, and a Th.M. from WTS in Philadelphia.

    David and Eowyn joined MTW’s church-planting movement in eastern Berlin in 2001. Over the past 20 years that team has been involved in planting five churches and a campus of the Martin Bucer Seminary. David currently serves as International Director for Europe, overseeing MTW’s vision, strategy, and personnel in Europe. Eowyn assists David in his role and supports church-planting through evangelism, teaching, and women’s initiatives. They have 5 grown children.

  • Neil MacMillan is the minister of Cornerstone Church (Free Church of Scotland) in Edingburgh and part-time lecturer on evangelism and mission at Edinburgh Theological Seminary. Neil attended James Gillespie’s High School and has a long association with this part of Edinburgh. He likes live music, Raith Rovers, good coffee and movies..

  • Dr. Neil Powell is founder and Co-Director of The London Project, working to bring churches together for gospel missions across London. With a background in church planting and a passion for helping cities thrive, Neil loves seeing diverse communities united in Christ. Before moving to London, he led 2020birmingham, a church planting network in Birmingham. He is the author of Together for the City: How Collaborative Church Planting Leads to Citywide Movements and also works with staff from Redeemer City to City, providing training on starting and strengthening collaborative movements in leading global cities. He is married to Jane, and they have two sons, Rufus and Felix.

  • Mike Tilley and his wife, Molly, worked with a core group to plant Lake Baldwin Church (PCA) in 2006. He served as senior pastor until 2022 and is now Pastor Emeritus.

    Prior to planting Lake Baldwin Church, Mike served with Cru for 29 years. The last four years he was a global rep, working with nationals in Europe, Africa, and Canada.

    While serving as pastor of Lake Baldwin Church Mike was invited to speak at the annual pastors’ retreat for International Christian Community (ICC), a network of international, English-speaking churches in the cities of Europe. Over the years Mike became part of the board of directors. Today he is focused full time on the work in Europe, serving as Pastor at Large. In this role Mike shepherds pastors, preaches in various locations, and works with church planters. Molly works alongside Mike to encourage the wives of pastors.

    Mike did his graduate work at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Reformed Theological Seminary, where he received the Master of Divinity.

Need a Church Planting Coach?

FAQs

  • It does negatively affect the dynamic of a cohort if participants just attend occasionally. If you are not able to make all the meetings and intensives, please let us know in advance and we can think through whether this year's cohort is the best fit and timing.

  • Absolutely. The hope is to get as many from the core group to participate so that everyone is processing the information and exercises together.

  • Yes. The hope is that this becomes a yearly cohort.

  • At this point Saško Nezamutdinov (nezamutdinov@yahoo.pl) and David Stoddard (david.stoddard@mtw.org). We are looking for additional trainers and coaches. Saško is planting a church in Krakow, Poland and has participated in City to City’s intensive as well as Train the Trainer course. David has served as both primary and facilitative church-planter, and through the role of International Director learned a great deal from church plants across Europe.

  • In addition to having more coach-mentors and practitioner-teachers, we could use administrative help and help with videoing. If you would like to serve in any of these ways, please reach out to David or Saško.

  • Ideally, before you start a new church plant, but the principles are valuable at any time. This cohort is best suited as “just in time” learning for those who can apply the learned principles to an immediate situation instead of “just in case” learning.

  • This training is not intended to force everyone into a single mold, rather to encourage each team to apply healthy church-planting principles in a contextually appropriate way.

  • First, this will operate from a reformed and covenantal background. Second, most other programs target primary church-planters. We intentionally want all those helping with a church-plant to have access to training.

  • It would be great, if we could find someone who would could coordinate this for us.

  • In order to have effective interaction we would like to keep it under 20 participants.

  • Unfortunately we don't have the capacity for that at this time.