The Journey, River's new congregation

Since the start of the summer it has been a sort of "open secret" that we have been exploring a relationship with a church planting team looking to establish a student congregation working into Royal Holloway Univerity of London. "Open secret" meaning we have talked about it at full leadership team meetings and in other forums, but we have not announced generally - this is simply because we were still exploring the relationship. New students have now arrived and the church, called "The Journey", has gone live. The Journey will be a River congregation, though obviously the focus and location mean that things will work slightly differently to the other congregations, for example they meet Sunday afternoons.

A Connection

Royal Holloway University sits between the village of Englefield Green and the town of Egham, and it's the college where Chris and Judith Forster met. At the beginning of this year Chris felt prompted to contact a couple he knew in the area to offer help/support if they were thinking of church planting. They weren't, but had been, but decided the time wasn't right for them; however they knew that the Fusion student worker into the university had a vision to plant a student church. The day after this conversation Al Bullen came into a meeting of the main River team to talk about his work with Fusion and mentioned the "excellent" worker at Royal Holloway and his desire that River should be more involved in student work. Given this "connection" Andy Read and Chris Forster arranged to meet Vicky, the person in question.

It quickly became apparent that there was a lot of overlap between Vicky's vision for a student church and Chris's vision that River should be a resource/support to help establish new churches up and down the Thames Valley. The only real question was what exactly our relationship would be. Vicky started coming to Maidenhead so some of you may have met her.

Vicky already had two contacts who wanted to be involved in the church plant, Phil Simcock and his wife T. from Open Heaven church in Loughborough, a Student Church now ten years old. River were able to bring Tom Tora into the mix creating a foursome who would rent a house in the Green and start the Church. Just before the students arrived for a new academic year it was agreed that "The Journey" should be a full part of River, we would help resource their gatherings and provide leadership and infrastructure support, and they would take part in our shared programme. At this point the Journey is self-financing.

Introducing The Journey team

The core team is Vicky Earll, Tom Tora, T. & Phil Simcock.

At the start of September the four of them moved into a shared community house in Englefield Green, just down the road from Royal Holloway University.

How we got here...

Vicky was a student at Royal Holloway and graduated in 2001.  As a student she experienced with her friends a move of God's Spirit on the campus which included Christians being active in their faith and seeing a number of their friends saved, healed and delivered.  She felt God call her to committ to seeing his plans and purposes outworked at the university through planting Church into the student culture. Since then as a Fusion Networker she has encouraged the Church in the area to actively engage in serving the students. Read more about Vicky's journey here!

Tom graduated from being a student in Southampton in 2001, he worked with young homeless people in a hostel for 18 months and has just completed a discipleship & training year with DNA based at River Church. He has a heart to support and see students grow in their relationship with God whilst at uni.

T. has worked as a youth worker for local Church and the Council, and currently is a Learning Support Assistant in a local secondary school.  Over the past few years she has studied Theology, Counselling and completed a Teacher Assistant Training course.  She married Phil in 2000 and they lived in the university town of Loughborough for 3 years as part of Open Heaven Church.  T. has a big heart to see young females be restored and grow in their faith.

Phil studied at Loughborough University graduating in 2003.  During his time as a student he saw God's favour as several of his friends encountered God through experiencing Christian community.  Phil was on part of the leadership team at Open Heaven Church for 3 years where he led the student work.  As a Fusion Networker he seeks to encourage and see Church built with students across the nation.  He has been married to his wife T. for 4 years and together are enjoying life's adventure.

and so the journey continues...