UK Partnership

Although the UK has a rich Christian history, church attendance has fallen dramatically in the last 50 years. Ralph Cunnington of City Church Manchester points out that, although the greater Manchester area is the 2nd largest metropolitan area in England (with 2.8 million residents), church attendance is only 4%.  Compare that with church attendance rates in the American south of over 40%, and the difference is striking.

This eventually led to the beginning of the UK Partnership in 2013, with what seemed like an aggressive goal at the time – investing $1 million over 10 years directly into the planting of indigenous, Reformed churches in the UK. What would make this partnership different from others was that the UKP would have no staff, no membership fees, and no overhead – 100% of every dollar would go directly to UK church planting. The plan was simple: the UKP would introduce PCA congregations to UK nationals to help facilitate church-to-church relationships that would result in church planting throughout the UK.