About

One church with many congregations. 

The vision for Derby Urban Church is to grow one church with many congregations and ministries of different sizes, styles and people but still all connected to the one church.

These are our four values:

More. By sharing what we each have, and not duplicating, we look for more: 

• more expressions of God’s Kingdom; and
• more people hearing the good news of salvation and transformation through Jesus; and
• more people using their gifts of grace given by the Holy Spirit; and
• more growing & learning together in Christ; and
• more with fun, laughter and celebration; and
• more standing together through good and bad times as a united family; and
• more serving & loving God, each other, and our neighbour; and
• more time for worship, prayer, teaching, fellowship and mission; and
• more growth by multiplying.

Multiplying the smaller to grow the Kingdom (mustard seeds).  Rather than trying to build one large church or congregation, the vision is to build lots of smaller slowly growing congregations of equal value.  Inspired by Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed which grows into a great tree, we seek to grow God’s kingdom in this way through mission.  We look to care, share faith and disciple people better in smaller congregations, enabled by being part of something larger.

Belonging to God, congregation & church (the vine).  Finding a place of belonging in a Derby Urban Church congregation with its distinctive identity is important, but to be one church we also seek to value and care about all of the other congregations.  Inspired by Jesus’ saying about being connected to the vine, we seek to remain connected to God as well as each other.  We expect this to lead to wonderfully unexpected opportunities as the Holy Spirit inspires us, and sometimes to new Derby Urban Church ministries or congregations being formed or join.

Urban.  Wherever God leads us in the future, Derby Urban Church has been birthed and has its origins in the inner city urban areas of our city.  This is an important part of who we are.

The Trellis and the Vine is an idea about how to organise church, from a book of the same name by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne.  The Vine is the growing congregations and ministries of the church – sharing the gospel message, worship, prayer, pastoral support and serving our communities. The Trellis is all the things that are needed to support the vine, to enable and not hinder its growth.  So this includes governance, policies such as safeguarding, finance and fundraising, communication and much more – have a look at the Trellis section of the website.  If you are passionate about using your gifts of administration to help Derby Urban Church, we’d love to hear from you.