Church’s past shaping its future

How do you build a new vision for an historic church? Three years ago, Gary and Rachel Gibson sought God to do just that. Since then, they’ve been actively building missional and community links.

“If we were planting a church in Kilsyth now, what would we do in terms of mission and evangelism?”

That is the question Gary and Rachel Gibson have been mulling over since coming to pastor Church of God in Kilsyth, near Glasgow, three years ago.

Having grown up in the church until the age of ten, Gary was familiar with its strong missional past, not least because his grandad Jim Gibson pastored there from 1960-1986.

But what should things look like in the 2020s?

“Both Rachel and I feel strongly that the destiny of the church is rooted in its history, but we feel called to renew and re-envision it by discovering God’s plan for it today,” Gary explains.

So the couple sought God and, following his lead, have concentrated on two main areas: the church’s missional/community and its Pentecostal roots.

Pentecostal roots

Gary and Rachel say they have been keen to build on Church of God’s deep missional history.

“The church was formed in 1897 under the auspices of the Kilsyth United Evangelistic Association because the local churches felt they weren’t reaching the town with the gospel,” says Gary.

“Then in 1908 there was a Pentecostal revival here and as a result Kilsyth became a leading centre of the New Pentecostal Movement which was sweeping Great Britain and North America at this time.

“As a church we later became affiliated with Elim, while John Glass became pastor here, before his time as Elim’s General Superintendent.”

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