What follows are some edited highlights and snapshots of of our history together.

The Start: We have come a long way since the 8th September 1991 when a small ‘seed’ group of 25 young people from Crawley Community Church were ‘planted’ into the soil of Reigate and Redhill.   This band of brothers and sisters were dynamically led by Stephen Gyles supported by his wife Theresa.  Mission was in its DNA and they were fuelled by two foundational prophetic words of being; ‘a light to the gentiles’ (Isaiah 49:6) and being ‘a church for the unchurched’.   In those early years, a team led by Adrian Holloway (including Mark Hope and Aaron Barnes) called at every home in Reigate and Redhill area. By 1994 the Church had grown to 80 members.

Firsts: 1995-97 saw a number of firsts:  1st  Saturday morning Dads & kids football at Priory Park,  1st Community Day at St Bede’s School, 1st Church walk in Yorkshire, 1st Alpha course at RRCC, 1st Christmas Show, 1st Carol Service, and the launch of our 1st Cell groups.

Staff: Another outworking of the church’s missionary heart can be seen in the number of Church members hearing the call of God to serve the church full time. Adrian Holloway (1996), Alisdair Semple (1998) and Neil Chitty (1999) all came onto the full time staff of RRCC.  Later, as God moved people on, others have featured in this team of servant leaders; including Paul Hanley, Pascale Siddall, Karen Wheatly, Sally McKercher, Mark Hope, Miriam Griffin and Kath Semple.  Many others have served on staff for one or several years through the ‘Frontier Youth Project’ (now called ‘FP Impact’) and over the years we have seen more than a dozen people serving in this way.  Many others have found different ways of serving and have played vital roles.  Links were built and relationships developed with local schools and colleges.  After a difficult year in 1998, the Church enjoyed a period of stability.

Going: At the final Stoneleigh Bible Week in 2001, we heard God’s call to fully embrace the mission of God and to ‘Let’s Go’.  Many have responded to God’s prophetic leading over the subsequent years.

Outreach: In 2001-2004 aiming to reach children and young families, two outreaches,
‘Little Acorns’ and ‘KidzKlub’ were launched affecting young families, many of whom would never have come into contact with RRCC otherwise.  Nik & Claire Ball responded to the call to ‘Let’s Go’ by taking on the youth work in RRCC.  Under their leadership the things began to take shape and the RRCC Surf trip and Sublime were launched.

Growth: In the first eighteen years of RRCC we have seen approximately 135 people begin to follow Jesus as their Lord and saviour (this estimate excludes ‘KidzKlub’, KidsChurch and many others whom we simply don’t know!)  We have seen many people leave the church for good reasons and but have also seen people leave because of difficulties.  More recently, we have had the joy of seeing people return to this family after a period of time away.  There have been many people healed.  The desire to see people saved and added is in our roots, and our commitment to preaching the good news of Jesus on a regular basis has borne fruit.  In 2003 we saw our largest ever attendance at St Bede’s, when we hosted Ian (Jellyfish man) McCormack.  His powerful preaching and testimony saw 25 people respond to find out more.

Prophecy and People: Our prophetic heritage has had an abiding influence upon us. The foundational early prophecies that we were to ‘Look to the rock from which you were hewn’ [Isaiah 51:1-2] - and that we would be ‘a Church for the unchurched and a church that plants churches for the unchurched’ has come to pass in the many people who have gone off to be involved in church plants, or to be involved in aspects of church leadership:
• Phil & Helen Sutherland et al - Church planting in ‘The Vine’ Dorking
• Luc & Catherine Ferraro (née Norris) - Church planting in Beziers, France
• Adrian & Julia Holloway - Evangelist and elder in ChristChurch London
• Eric & Alison Cairns - Church planting in Glasgow
• Neil & Sonya Chitty - Leading elder in Bethany Community Church Harpenden
• Yann & Hannah Dubrieul  - Four Marks, now an ordained Anglican Curate
• John & Laura Nickson -  Graduated from Moorlands Bible College
• Martin & Estea Potgieter - Church planting in God 1st Church, Johannesburg
• Kaye Misodi (née Hieatt) - Church planting in Birmingham

• Hannah Wagstaff - Working with Youth Offenders for the Message in Manchester

Where are we now?

Elders: In 2004 Charles Hawkins, Andy Gale, Nik Ball & Paul Hanley joined Alisdair Semple in a new Eldership team. The team set about praying into the Lord’s prophetic challenge about RRCC’s mission to the towns of Reigate & Redhill. Alisdair was challenged by the Lord as to ‘What can you believe me for?’  Alisdair’s reply was ‘I can’t believe you for anything less than at least half of the people here’, working out how God wanted us to be involved in this occupied much of this new Eldership’s time during 2004 and 2005.

In 2008 we underwent some major changes.  Both Charlie and Andy left the eldership, but have remained part of the church and the team leadership passed on to Paul.  Through a variety of ways, both practical and clearly supernatural,  God spoke to the elders about this change for the good of all involved.  In Acts 15:28 it says "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us ..."  and that was the way this worked for us too.  Alisdair has remained on the eldership team and is our primary teaching elder.

Vision: The Holy Spirit spoke of how he wanted us to build to see a community transformed. He began to speak of a season of preparing for and laying foundations, he said that much would be done but with little obvious to be seen and that if we wanted to see something big in the future, we would need to dig deep and go wide.

Purpose: The Holy Spirit spoke of the need to ensure our foundations were centred on our relationship with God, our ‘Being’ as an anchor for our activity or ‘Doing’.   The Spirit spoke clearly about having a definite purpose of Worshipping God, Loving people, Making Disciples and Planting Churches guiding our decisions and that we were to teach, train and model these things to the Church. We were to mobilise the body of the Church to serve God on his mission, through our Cell groups, the ‘front line’ of our mission.

Mission: Since then we have been encouraging our cell groups to have a clear vision of how they would be on a mission to reach into the communities around Reigate and Redhill. We’ve aimed to help to bring clarity to what a cell groups purpose should be i.e., being Community, Disciple-making and Outreach. Some groups heard the Spirit’s prompting and began to reach out into the community of Reigate and Redhill through friendship evangelism to work colleagues, friends and neighbours. Others have begun to reach out through a particular ministry such as Community Debt Advice (CDA). We continue to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead more cell groups to have effective outreach.

Where are we going?

Building and Buildings: Over the last 36 months we’ve received prophecies from various people about needing to ‘press on with Him in investing in this season of building – to see a community transformed’.  We have been warned that things can move very quickly and this phase will be very costly in terms of time, prayer and money.  We are on the look out for suitable premises that we could use for serving our community.

Promises: God has been reminding us of the need to recover what is in our roots as a Church and to be directed by our prophetcic heritage. Mission is in our DNA. Like the Israelites at Kadesh Barnea (Numbers 13), the entrance to the promised land, we have a prophetic destiny together.  Only two of the twelve spies who stood at the open door of their destiny entered through it into the promises of God.  The rest failed to believe God.

Pioneering:  The Bible says that they had a wrong spirit, not faith, but of doubt and cynicism. They were settlers not pioneers.  We are still on the same mission that we started on back in September 1991, for us to enter into the promises of God and fulfil our destiny as a church will mean a wholehearted committment to the mission of God.

Changing: We are faced with an opportunity that God has placed in front of us.  In recent years many of us have found our hands full with new responsibilities at home or in work.  Here is the call of God.  We must recover a culture of mission.  We are in this transition at the moment.  It involves counting the cost and refocusing our cell groups so that they are communities of loving Christlike people focused on loving one another and reaching the lost. This takes real wisdom, gentleness, firmness, courage and gifting.  Part of our transition has been seen in a change of role for Alisdair and Paul. The Eldership team has recognised that different leadership gifts are needed in different seasons.   What Paul brings to the team and the church at the moment is right for us in this season.  We had been working towards these changes for about six months when, in March of this year, God dramatically confirmed everything thorugh a startlingly accurate prophetic word from David Stroud who knew nothing of our plans!

Generosity: Most of the things we are called to do involve money.  Even in these uncertain times financially we believe God has called us to make headway towards the things he has already spoken about.  That needs money, and lots of it.  God is a generous God and He has called His people to be a generous people ... and we have been blessed with many generous people.  There still remain real financial challenges ahead, particularly if we are to obtain or even rent some buildings and use them to reach out into our community.

It was Winston Churchill who said to this country during wartime "I have nothing to offer you except blood, toil, tears and sweat"!  We too are in a 'wartime' situation, and our commander in chief is calling us to major exploits and real sacrifice ... but he adds into the equation the promises of, peace that goes beyond human understanding, joy in all circumstances and truth that will set you free.  Hard work?  Yes - but no better place to spend your life!