At the beginning of 2021, the members of Ruiton Congregational Church decided to take advantage of gospel partnership offered by the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches (EFCC). The partnership enabled the church to seek and appoint a Pastor to lead the revitalisation/replant work at Ruiton CC.  Despite Ruiton CC being a historic church, with the chapel and school building standing for almost 200 years, the membership had seen slow decline over the past two decades.

 

An aspect of the decline was not having a Pastor for 25 years, so the first step in making sure Ruiton CC had a future was for the members to appoint a qualified man to become their Pastor. In June 2021, the church appointed Rev Grant Lawley to be their shepherd and to lead them into pastures new.

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Revitalisation is Not New

Over the last 20-30 years, the revitalisation of local churches has become something of the norm, especially in the West as the wider church has been in decline for many decades.  Ruiton CC is not alone when it comes to needing revitalisation work.

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Even in the Bible, local churches were planted and within a very short time began to head in a direction that the Apostles had to correct.  Every generation of a local church has to evaluate themselves to make sure that they are aligned with the Word of God by believing and practicing the faith as the Bible instructs. This is why creeds, confessions and constitutions are very important in the life of the church. 

 

Ruiton CC had come to a place where they needed to assess themselves and begin to make changes in order to align themselves with the Bible.  Three years in, and after a lot of hard work, the church is in a healthier and happier position than it once was.  There is still plenty of work to do going forward but we are thankful for how the Lord has provided and moved us forward as a church both spiritually and also physically with regards to our historic buildings.

 

We can now call ourselves a Biblical, Christ exalting, gospel preaching local church with the acknowledgement that we are far from the finished article but we are heading in the right direction.  By our God's sustaining grace, through the continued leadership of our Pastor preaching expository sermons, our prayer is that the Lord will build His church and shape us by His Word into a bright light of gospel witness for the next 200 years, for the sake of our Lord and our children and our children's children. We are still very much in the foundation stage and are praying for the right people to come and labour alongside us.  If you would like to join a Reformed Biblical Church, committed to propagating the gospel, having meaningful relationships with brothers and sisters, the desire to be part of the building process for something for future generations, then it would be great to meet you!