How Inside Out Church turned lives upside down — in the best way.

When Richard and Klaudia Cairns were searching for somewhere to plant a church, God led them to Barnsley. They told Chris Rolfe about the first few months at Inside Out Church.

For years, Richard and Klaudia dreamed of planting a church but they never knew where it would be. But when Klaudia read the biography of Barnsley-born Hudson Taylor and Elim’s team prayed for an MiT with a heart for Barnsley, everything began falling into place.

“Our hearts were drawn to Barnsley through Hudson Taylor’s story, and even though I’d lived in Corby my whole life it only took two visits as we scouted out this potential place to realise our hearts were already there,” says Richard.

That’s why, last May, the couple and their four children left Corby to plant Inside Out Church.

Hot dogs

With their passion for evangelism and nurturing welcoming communities, Richard’s first move was to host an event on the green outside their home.

“We wanted to meet people so we organised a fire pit and hot dogs. I wondered if anyone would turn up, but 50 people came!” he says.

“They told us no one had done anything like this for years, so I explained we’d moved here to start a new church.”

The conundrum of where to meet was solved when the leaders of a Wesleyan Reformed Church offered their hall. “They were really excited about what we wanted to do in the community and for young people. They offered us space for our first six months, then we’ll see where we’re at and take it from there.”

First Christmas

Inside Out held its first meeting on 8 December and waited excitedly as its launch team moved to Barnsley, with the official launch weekend on 14–16 February. Since then, they have been active growing and shepherding their new church family

Years serving at Hope Church in Corby taught Richard and Klaudia what the DNA of a healthy congregation looked like. Their desire, therefore, is to reach families and build a community-centred church which – as its name suggests – will help transform lives from the inside out. With this in mind, they launched an Alpha course in February and invited a Limitless Pioneer team to work with them for six months to launch their youth work. Richard also connected with neighbouring Churches Together groups.

Helping addicts

A huge part of Richard and Klaudia’s vision is supporting the most vulnerable in their town. Richard has signed up as a hospital chaplain and, as a former addict himself, is actively involved in street outreach.

“Barnsley has a big addiction problem, but before Jesus came into my life I was a drug addict so I can relate to that straight away,” he says.

“I work with a lady called Adele who, like me, has a heart for the broken, homeless and addicted.

“She bakes wonderful cakes, we give out fresh clothes too, pray with people and have a drop-in morning. I try to be a bridge to help people into rehab, but if they’re not ready for that I just try to reach them where they’re at.”

A neighbouring church is funding Richard as an outreach worker for eight hours a week and is bidding to increase this to three days to expand this work. “When we arrived they told me that although we were there to plant a church, they felt we were there to be an asset to the town because of my past too.”

Core values

As Richard and Klaudia and the team continue to establish Inside Out, Richard says everything they are doing is rooted in three values God has given them.

“The first is to be authentic – we’re about real people and real stories. Someone once told me, ‘There’s something authentic about you and your ministry and that’s what people are looking for.

“The second is to be audacious – to believe big and take risks for the community.

“The third is to be available. A friend once told me, ‘Richard, all you can do is turn up and be available.’ And I thought, ‘that’s what God’s saying.’ Now, we turn up every day, we’re available if there’s a crisis and we’re there whatever is going on. We want to be the heartbeat of this community.”

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.