Gather and Celebrate

There's a new season ahead of us as we look to start gathering at Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) for our Sunday Services, with Revelation Church. We want to share some of the key moments that have led us to this point, to help us all see the journey God has had for us. The picture that has really helped us navigate this whole journey for The Church in Bassett Street has been of a dot-to-dot, with one moment faithfully leading into the next.

Here are some of the key dots:

1. A history of partnership

We have a long history of partnering with other local churches. Kentish Town Evangelical Church and New Life Church served together frequently over many years, through children's parties, outreach, and Sunday preaching.

2. Local leaders praying together

That heart went further than just Kentish Town Evangelical Church and New Life Church. For many years, leaders from New Life Church, Chalk Farm Baptist Church, St Luke's Kentish Town and Revelation Church (Rev) have met monthly just to pray together. This has been vital to the unity in this area, and it has always led somewhere - joint Alpha courses, the Kentish Town Fleet Festival - real fruit growing out of those prayer meetings.

3. Kentish Town Evangelical Church merges with New Life

In 2019 Kentish Town Evangelical Church began to talk to New Life about working together. This was at a time when New Life had also been talking to Rev about collaborating more closely. New Life joined Relational Mission at that time, of which Rev was already a part and after lockdown it all came together in the most beautiful way: New Life Church joined Kentish Town Evangelical Church with a few from Revelation Church becoming The Church in Bassett Street. People from all kinds of backgrounds and church experiences, brought together to see Jesus glorified and make Him known in the area.

4. Partnership with Revelation Church continues

The Church in Bassett St has continued to work with Revelation Church in a meaningful way. In particular, we've run a CAP Debt Centre, a Foodbank, done combined youth work and Christmas outreach, and continued to pray together regularly. Nick, Bob and Luke have continued to meet with their elders, regularly talking about our growing partnership and how we can best collaborate.

5. London Calling (2023)

In 2023, Mike Betts, who leads Relational Mission, pioneered London Calling, where we prayed together once a month for God to move in this city, to open doors, and to save people. We did this faithfully for two years, along with Revelation Church, Hope Church Tottenham, and other churches from Relational Mission.

6. Growth at The Church in Bassett Street

As we prayed at London Calling and have continued to pray for God to move powerfully, He has moved. As a church we've seen encouraging growth, with over 30 people baptised, whole families finding their way in, and doors opening into schools and other corners of our community. We give God all the glory for what he's been doing.

7. A word to gather before multiplying (2025)

At the London Calling Day a prophetic word was shared with us that felt very timely, speaking into so much that was already going on. We were particularly encouraged that it spoke of a season of gathering and celebrating, and that beyond that would come a season of new families being started. It resonated with us as elders, and meant we began to look for some way we could meet regularly as one church on Sundays, something we had wanted to do for a long time, but never been able.

8. A building opens up

As we began to talk and pray about this, we started looking for buildings where we could gather and celebrate, and a door opened up at Christ Apostolic Church. This is one of the oldest church buildings in this area, a church whose own heart is to serve this local community faithfully, and who were positive about us using the building in the afternoons. As we met with them to discuss, it felt like God was really in this connection and a good thing to pursue.

9. Partnering for the Gospel

Around this time, we learned that Revelation Church had been carrying their own sense of a season of celebrating before planting, something they'd been wanting to step into as well. We wondered if this was actually a moment to partner in a really intentional way. So we asked Revelation Church: Would you come and join us on Sundays?

We want to be really clear, this is not a merger, and it's not one church swallowing another. Rather, it's the picture from Luke's gospel of the fishing boats - when one boat's nets are so full they can't cope alone they call out to their partners in the other boat to ‘come and help us bring this catch in’. That's the heart of joining together for Sunday services - two churches pooling what we have so we've got the energy to go further than either of us could alone, sharing the load, and bringing in a harvest together.

This isn't even a new idea for us. It goes back to a joint prayer meeting between New Life, Revelation and Chalk Farm in 2019 which focused on this same passage: Coming together for a big catch. God had been planting this seed of partnership long before we could see why. It felt like something, a direction we were already heading in, like God had put us on a similar trajectory to Revelation Church, and this would be the next dot in our journey.

10. The next dot: following in faith

Like Abraham, who set out in faith and obedience without knowing exactly where he was heading, we don't know every detail of what's ahead of us. But we feel this is the next step in this ‘dot-to-dot’ journey. We are excited by what God has started to do in the community and we are determined that In this new season, the work will only grow and increase – so this becomes the most wonderful blessing to the whole community and the whole area, and God gets the glory for it.

FAQs

  • No, this isn't a merger or a takeover. It's two distinct churches partnering together, sharing strengths and resources while remaining separate churches with their own identities and ministries.

  • Our services will be in the afternoon (timing still TBC) as Christ Apostolic Church will have their service there in the morning. There is a working team from across both churches, figuring out the logistics and format of exactly what our services will look like, but it will contain many of the same elements of a normal Bassett St service: praise, thanksgiving, kids sessions, teaching, opportunity to pray for one another - and tea and coffee!

  • The current plan is that this will likely be for the next year - but let’s keep waiting on God for the next dot.

  • We had hoped for a mid-September start, but this now looks likely to be in October. We will keep you updated on timelines as things develop.

  • We have gathered a team of gifted leaders from across both churches as a Working Group to start planning for the move. These leaders are: Luke Ellis, Annice Green, Sarah Ellis, Shamylea Miller, Paul Hickman, Philippa Green, Rich Young, Sarah Morton, Shreya Hewett, Davina Liston and Kofi Opoku-Agyeman.

Got any More questions?