What's 20,000 divided by 300? It's about 67. And it has something important to do with church growth. But more about that later.

Grapevine Sunday was something of a ladies morning with Irene Bell introducing Carol Alexander, the morning speaker. Carol lectures at Mattersey Bible college and spoke on the mission of God. A South African who served for many years on the African mission field she had some powerful stories to tell about how our faith can be translated into practical action. I was encouraged to reflect that a lot of what she was describing is modelled in our own church, Mosaic. Leeds is a big city with all the attendant social issues that go with a modern western metropolis and there is a lot more to do. But we're making a decent start, touching a number of very different strata of our society.

In the afternoon I slipped into a seminar led by Jarrod Cooper who leads a growing church in Hull. For years it had never got above 240 members. They had a serious look at what it would take to break this barrier and, to cut a longer story short, have gone for a model of one church that meets mid-week in multiple locations. The results have been electric. Membership is over 400, over 200 people came to Christ last year, and they have seen many more people in the church taking on more responsibility in speaking, worship leading, managing venues, hospitality and the rest. They have forged good partnerships with other churches who have quality venues that are happy to loan/rent.

There were many ideas that struck me, in particular the approach that whatever kind of even they put on they always give an invitation for salvation. "We are called to catch fish, not feed them." The Gospel is, after all, good news.

And what of that statistic we started with? It comes from a church which, when it had 500 members planned to get to 5,000 within five years. A year later they were 20,000 strong. How - by meeting in 300 locations. And 20,000 divided by 300 is about 67.