Three into one does go!

With the launch of a congregation in Bonnyrigg, Edinburgh Elim became one church on three campuses, fulfilling a longstanding vision. Gordon Allan told Chris Rolfe about this latest plant.

Edinburgh Elim’s mission has long been “bringing the Kingdom of God to the city and beyond”. So when the church spotted an opportunity to plant a new congregation in Bonnyrigg late last year, it leapt at it.

Bonnyrigg Elim is actually its second plant. From the mother campus at Morningside in Edinburgh city centre, Haddington Elim was launched in 2020.

But pastor Gordon Allan has a longstanding passion for church planting and was keen to establish a third congregation. The idea of Bonnyrigg started to form around lockdown when a leadership team began to emerge.

“A couple of folks were investigating the potential call of God on their lives,” says Gordon.

“David Walkingshaw had recently moved to Edinburgh from Cumbria. He and his wife had had a vision of our church as the place they were to go to. After joining us he’d done the Ministry Foundation Certificate at Malvern and was asking God what was next. Then Ikhide Ehimiyein from Nigeria had moved to Edinburgh with his wife Ajoke.

“She is a vet and they’d come to Scotland so she could do further training. When lockdown hit they stayed. At our 90th anniversary meal in 2022 Ikhide got talking to Chris Cartwright, who shared about his favourite Bible story, the miraculous catch of fish.

“Ikhide had had a fish farming business in Nigeria and had been involved in youth pastoring and church planting too, so this story sparked ministry thoughts in him.

“Ikhide had a conversation with me, and David had a conversation with me and I said, ‘It’s time to test the calling you’re both feeling. Let’s look to plant another church campus.”

They began by choosing a location. Just as with Haddington, Gordon had a clear criteria: it should be in a town which didn’t already have a Pentecostal church.

“We decided to look at Midlothian and drove around the towns there. We felt Bonnyrigg would be a good place,” he says.

Over the next year, preparations were made, then a prayer meeting was held in November in the Waverley Pavilion Community Centre, followed by a carol service in December – so popular that it was standing room only. The first Sunday service was held there on 12 January.

From his years of planting, Gordon has learned the importance of tailoring each new church to its own area.

“When I was pastor at Clydebank – which was close to Glasgow but a town in its own right – people would lump the two together, but the worst thing you could do was foist a Glasgow mentality on people from Clydebank.

“So we knew with Haddington and with Bonnyrigg that we couldn’t just transplant Edinburgh because they both had a very different feel from the city centre.

“They needed its DNA, but for it to be specific to their own communities.

“The leaders needed freedom to discern and respond to local needs too.”

David and Ikhide are therefore getting to know locals in Bonnyrigg – a former mining community. They are also partnering with other churches.

“They’ve had a really positive response, with people wanting to meet for coffee and invite them to inter-church events.”

One of Gordon’s other hats is being co-lead for the Edinburgh, Lothians and Fife pastors prayer group, which he says has “a real ‘Team Jesus’ culture”.

“A ministry colleague there is involved in youthwork in Bonnyrigg so he let other folks know we were planting.”

Meanwhile, at the heart of the new church are its Sunday evening services; “the launch pad to declare Jesus before everything else is bolted on”, as Gordon describes them.

“They were averaging 14 to 18 each week in the first month and David and Ikhide reckon they saw one person each week join them from the community.

“These early days are like setting up base camp,” says Gordon, “meeting people, prayer walking and leafleting, looking at the lie of the land with your eyes and ears open to needs and what the Lord might be saying. There’s strong prayer and resource support from our other campuses too. People really feel this is our mission together.

“We’re one church with one vision meeting in three different places.”

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