The Co-Mission Podcast - Planting in Tolworth

In December 2024 Bart, pastor of Hope Church Tolworth, was interviewed on the The Co-Mission Podcast.

You can listen online or read the generated transcript below.

In this episode, Sam Gibb interviews Bart Erlebach from Hope Church Tolworth, a new church plant that started this past November. For now, we hope you enjoy the conversation.

Welcome. Thanks so much for joining us, particularly as you’re literally two weeks into planting Hope Church Tolworth. We’re really grateful that you’ve taken the time out to speak to us. We’d love to hear a little bit about you. We’ll talk about church planting shortly, but a little bit about you first. Tell us how you came to faith, and then, I guess, a little bit about how you came into ministry after that.

So how I came to faith? I grew up in a family that went to church. So, yeah, a church-going family. It was quite a high church, Church of England that we were going to. So, you know, lots of robes and ceremony and that kind of thing. I was even a candle bearer in the church. I did that for a while in my childhood.

Then, in my teenage years, early teenage years, my parents divorced, which was horrible. A really hard time for us as a family, obviously, and for me. But at that same time, my eldest brother had started going to a church in Cambridge, and he invited me to go along as well. And particularly, I remember he invited me to a carol service.

At that carol service, I was surprised that they weren’t wearing robes, and they weren’t doing things in such a formal way. But they explained the gospel really clearly. They explained why Jesus died, and my eldest brother then got me going along to the youth group at that church, which was a big youth group. And again, the leaders there just explained the gospel so clearly—how Jesus’s death meant I could be forgiven.

One of the leaders particularly met with me one-to-one to go through the gospel. I remember one session where that person said, “Think about it—who do you think is acceptable to God? Think about bad things people have done and good things people have done. Where do you think God draws the line?” So I thought about that, gave an answer, and the person said, “Well, God draws the line differently. It’s not about how good or bad we’ve been. It’s about whether we’ve come to Jesus, whether we’re forgiven by Him, whether Jesus has died for our sins. And if He has, then you can be right with God.”

And that blew me away. That was amazing. I loved that. I loved the Bible teaching I was hearing at that youth group. As I went through the youth group, some of the leaders met with me, did one-to-one sessions, and encouraged me to think about ministry in the future. So, I kind of had a go at things. I even did some assemblies at school while I was still at secondary school.

And I just gave things a go. And, yeah, as I tried things, as I tried preaching, teaching, that kind of thing, God confirmed that, yeah, this was the route He wanted me to go down. So I’ve got a lot to be thankful for with that youth ministry at the Round Church.

Tell me, did you go into ministry relatively quickly after that? So Round Church and then straight into ministry, or did you do something else first?

Not quite. Yeah, no. So, after school, I had a gap year, went to York University to do Psychology, which is where I met Bev, who’s now my wife. So we did three years of psychology at York.

And then after that, I did a year as a lay assistant at All Souls Place, and then two years in Eastbourne after we’d gotten married, doing youth work at a church there. During that time, I went through the Church of England selection procedure. It’s funny, I met my wife at York University, then did a role as a lay assistant at All Souls as well, but then went in a different direction. Didn’t go towards the Church of England, but into a different path. But there you go.

Praise God for universities and His sovereign plan over our lives, even when we don’t necessarily know where it’s leading. That’s right. Absolutely.

So now you’ve just planted Hope Church Tolworth. Tell us a little bit about the start of that. Is it a recent church plant? Is the idea relatively new?

Yeah, so, just over a year and a half ago, I was struggling with the Church of England—the difficulties with the direction the Church of England was going in, particularly with the ‘prayers of love and faith.’ I got to a point fairly quickly, about a year and a half ago, where I was struggling to see a future for myself in the Church of England.

And I talk with the church family at Emmanuel sort of saying, like, I don't know what the Lord's got in store for us in the future and sort of thinking about what future options could be within the Church of England or or thinking of something different. And I got together with, a few people from Emmanuel to pray together, and just to seek the Lord about, about the future, not knowing any idea what he might do. So that was, just over a year ago, we started meeting to pray, a small group of us. And in the Lord's goodness, I mean, it it was staggering to me that Pete Woodcock from Cornerstone Church the week after we started praying. This little group started praying.

He met with me. I had mentioned to him that I was struggling with Church of England, but he met with me and said, if I was interested in doing a a plant, doing coming out of the church wing, doing something independent that Cornerstone Church would be willing to back that, and to explore that with us. And, that blew me away that the lord would answer our prayers like that that as we started to meet, we could see an answer starting to come together there that that we were approached about that. So, yeah, I mean, that's that's when it started just over a year ago, really. And why toll with what why that that area is it particularly the the Sunray Estate?

Is that the that the area that you're you're in? That's right. Well, that in the Lord's goodness, that's where we are where we've planted into. Yeah. That wasn't initially quite where we were looking, but it was in the toll with area.

It was always in the Tolworth area to be not too far away from Emmanuel, and in an area where Cornerstone said, actually, yeah, we've got people kind of living over that way as well. It was always in the Tolworth area to give a possibility for those also from Emmanuel who wanted to come out of Church of England, to come along to that, as well. Now in the Lord's goodness, we we originally thought there would be another venue that we would go to, but beginning of the summer, this summer, we looked at that venue again, well, we met there for to sort of see whether it could work and realised it wasn't gonna be big enough for the number of people who said they wanted to join. So, in the lord's goodness, he opened up the way for us to to launch into a primary school, yeah, on the Sunray Estate. So that's just over the other side of the a 3.

And, again, in the Lord’s goodness, that’s an area where there had been no churches meeting in that estate. So, yeah, we’re planting into an area where there’s nothing really in terms of church presence there.

Tell us a little about that area. What does it look like? What kind of demographic of people are there?

So you’ve got quite mixed housing in a fairly small area. You’ve got some terrace housing, and then you’ve got some semi-detached houses, which are a bit bigger at one end. So there’s quite a mixture of housing. You’ve got plenty of families and lots of different nationalities in that area as well. Tolworth, which is a bit bigger than that area, has about 10,000 people in it.

People might know it for the Tolworth Tower or the bowling alley and that kind of thing. But there are also new blocks of flats going up in an area called Signal Park. So there are some towers going up, and more towers are going to be going up there as well. So we’ve got all those new blocks of flats going up in that area.

And two weeks in, I know it may seem unfair to ask you to tell us about some things that have been going on because, as a church planter myself, I know what it’s like two weeks in. I can hardly remember the names of my own kids or family, let alone what’s going on. You’re just right in the middle of it. But what are some of the things that you’ve been encouraged by? What have been some of the highlights so far?

We’re two weeks in, so we’ve only had two services, but we’ve been starting to get together to pray, meet, and have socials since the beginning of the summer. That’s been part of the joy—just building those relationships and getting together. People from Emmanuel Church and people from Cornerstone Church have been coming together, getting to know one another, and praying together.

That first prayer meeting where we said, “Let’s pray about this together,” was so exciting. Just so you know, in terms of numbers, we have about 30 adults who came over from Emmanuel, about 30 adults from Cornerstone Church, and about 20 children. So it’s a really good number of people.

One of the other big things we’ve seen is just how willing people have been to serve and get this working. It’s been incredible how it’s all come together because people have put so much hard work into it.

Early this summer, we set up teams of people to work on different areas that we needed to think about—things like the PA system, children’s ministry, music, and that kind of thing. And in the Lord’s goodness, we had people so gifted and able to head up all of those areas that by the time we launched on the 24th, we had two practice setups, and it felt like we’d been doing this for weeks already.

So the Lord’s provision and God’s people working together have been a huge encouragement.

Some of the churches we’ve been involved in planting as part of the Commission network started with really small teams, but you guys sound like it’s a much bigger launch. When we planted our church, all we had was 20 adults and two kids. This is a bigger thing.

What would you say are some of the benefits for people thinking about church planting or joining a church plant? What are the benefits of having a bigger team to kick things off?

Yeah, I mean, with a bigger team, you can get started on things straight away. You go in knowing that you have enough musicians for a band—in fact, maybe more than one. You have enough people with the skills to set up AV and other things, which I personally have no idea about. But because we have those people—both from Cornerstone and Emmanuel—who are really experienced in those areas, things just come together.

For example, setting up the hall—I’m not used to doing that week by week, but we have to set up the school hall here. So to have someone like Paul M — who I think some people from Commission will know well—has been invaluable. He’s a fabulous guy. He comes in and says, “I know how to set things up. I know how to set up a school hall for church,” because he’s been doing it for so long. And he can involve others in doing that too, so it’s not so onerous on one person.

It feels very different. I’ve talked with others who started churches with just two or three families. That has its advantages, but there are also advantages to starting with a bigger group, where you can get going straight away. So I think either approach can work really well.

Tell us about Emmanuel and Cornerstone—two very different churches in lots of ways. How has it been bringing those two together? I guess the gospel heart is the same, but some of the contexts and cultural aspects of each church would be quite different. Would that be fair to say? How has that process of merging people from both churches been?

Yeah. Right from the start, as Pete and I were talking about it, we were asking, “Are there any red lines? Are there things where we’re so different that this isn’t going to work?” And I’m so thankful to the Lord that there’s a generosity of spirit, where we can say, “If it’s not essential, it shouldn’t stop us from planting together.”

We can work together. We can sit under God’s word together and figure out how to shape this new church. So yes, there are differences. Although, actually, I think there’s a kind of cliché.

There's more that unites us than than divides us in this. So, yeah, even style wise, there's a lot in our services, which actually was, is quite similar. But, yeah, there are there are things that we're gonna have to work out. And, yeah, as we started to meet together as a group, of people, you know, people saying, yeah, we wanna be involved in this from a manual anchor on this thing. We said, like, it is gonna be different.

It’s going to be different for the people from Emmanuel. It’s going to be different for the people from Cornerstone. We’re not trying to replicate either church. We’re trying to start something new—start Hope Church and do things in a Hope Church kind of way.

And I think people have come to it with that attitude in a brilliant way, saying, “Yeah, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to start something new together and work on that together.” That’s great—really encouraging.

The Sunray Estate specifically has been there for a long time. I imagine that, over the years, different attempts at gospel work have taken place, and different things have gone on. Tell us a little bit about the history of what has happened there and how you guys got involved.

You’re right. People have been praying about the Sunray Estate for a long time.

Going back, I was told that people from Emmanuel started praying about the possibility of a church plant on the Sunray Estate 40 years ago. There was a passion for saying, “We need to do something over there,” because the A3 is a bit of a divider. People don’t necessarily go back and forth between the two sides. So there needed to be something over there for the people who don’t know Jesus.

Actually, 10 years ago, people from King’s Church Chessington and Cornerstone Church in Kingston said, “We ought to be praying about a church plant on the Sunray Estate.” A group of us started gathering to pray about it. But interestingly, nothing happened at that point. The doors we pushed were all firmly closed—there was no momentum.

Yet, in the last year or year and a half, every time we have pushed a door and prayed, the Lord has opened it. We’ve seen the Lord’s timing in wonderful ways.

For example, when it came to presenting the idea to the churches and asking if people were interested in joining the plant, there were enough people—lots of people—who said, “Yes, we want to be a part of this.”

When it came to the finances, as we were starting up, there were churches and individuals who said, “Yes, we’re willing to back this financially.”

When it came to finding a venue, as we explored options and pushed on doors (not literally!), they opened up.

So in the last year, it’s just been incredible to see how the Lord has opened those doors. In previous years, people had been praying, and the Lord was clearly hearing and preparing to answer—but it just wasn’t the right time.

That’s important, isn’t it? When we think about praying and church planting, sometimes we have such a short-term mindset. We think, “I’ll pray, and if God is going to do something, He’ll do it now. If He doesn’t, then the door is closed.”

But in reality, years and years of persistent prayer—groups of people from different contexts praying for the same area—can lead to a moment when, in His perfect timing, God opens the doors and does His work through His people.

And that is a massive encouragement.

Yes, absolutely. That’s exactly what we’ve seen.

And even at Emmanuel, yes, we started praying a year ago with that small group. But even before COVID, we had been praying, asking, “Lord, what are you going to do? How are you going to work?” Because we wanted to see the gospel grow in this area. So we prayed, and we kept coming back to prayer together as a small group.

We then stopped for a time, came back together, started praying again, and then saw the Lord answer. So you’re right—the Lord’s timing is not our timing. We tend to rush things. But it’s been a huge lesson for me to see that when you pray, the Lord does answer—not in your timing, but in His perfect timing.

But what would you say to people who might be listening, who are really happy in the church they’re in, but who recognise that they are part of a church and a network that wants to plant churches? As they try to discern, Could God be calling me to be involved in a church plant? Could God be calling me to go somewhere I don’t yet know much about?—how would you advise them?

I think you’ve got to start with prayer, haven’t you? Of course, you have to start with prayer—coming before the Lord and asking, Lord, where do you want me to be involved? How do you want me to serve? Lord, grow Your church, but how do You want me to take part?

I think there are times when it’s right for people to say, “Yes, I should be part of that new thing.” Especially if they have particular gifts that will really help a church plant, whatever those might be. If they have that servant-heartedness and a deep desire for the gospel to grow, that can be a great thing.

But it can also be a good thing to stay where you are. I think that’s something we’ve seen—yes, people have come and joined us, but you don’t want to weaken the church you’re planting from either. If too many people leave, that can be really difficult for the sending church.

So there’s also a good and necessary calling to stay and keep supporting the church that is sending out the plant. In some ways, that can be even harder because the excitement and enthusiasm are often around the new plant. It’s wonderful when people join, but you also need enthusiastic people to stay—people who will keep serving at Cornerstone and continue the ministry there.

So there’s no hard and fast rule that says, You must go. Instead, it’s about praying, assessing the gifts you have, and discerning where you can be most useful to the Lord. But having a passion for the growth of the gospel—that’s key.

What have been some of your highlights over the last year as you’ve gone from meeting as a team and praying to actually launching and having your first services?

I think, as I’ve said, some of the highlights have been those early socials, where we just started gathering together. Seeing people from the two churches come together, excited about the gospel and eager to plant together, has been incredible.

Seeing people won for Christ. Walking into that room for our first social was so exciting as people gathered, committed to this new work. Seeing those relationships grow.

And, like I said, that first prayer time—so exciting to experience that together.

And then, as we’ve kept meeting, we’ve appointed provisional elders as well. A real highlight has been meeting with them to start working together on Hope Church. That was really exciting. And, of course, the first service was so much fun.

The launch service was incredibly exciting—actually, even the rehearsals were a lot of fun as we gathered in the school hall for the first time. People were unboxing equipment and setting things up, saying, “Let’s get this together.” Getting the chairs out, arranging everything—it just started to feel real.

It was that moment when you realize, “This is actually happening. We’re going to gather and start this, and the Lord has brought us to this point.” We also had people from a few other local churches come along to support us at that first service. Just gathering together, singing God’s praises as a new church—it was incredible.

I had never been in a church where we had the very first service together as a new congregation. It was brilliant. I can see why people love doing this—church planting is kind of addictive! Actually, we have a few people at Hope Church who have planted churches before, and I can see why they want to do it again.

They’re the real church-planting veterans! They’ll be with us for a few years, and then the next opportunity will come along. But hey, praise God for that. Actually, that’s not entirely true—they stayed with their previous church plants for a long time. So I trust they’ll be around for a few more years at least!

It’s great, though, when you’re planting, to have people who have been through it before. Some things that might make you think, “I have no idea what’s going on,” they’ve already dealt with, and they just handle it without panic.

We had a meeting with the team leaders for different areas of ministry, and I asked, “Has anyone planted before?” One person, Paul Morley, raised his hand. He told us that in previous church plants he’d been involved in, they never had anywhere near this level of equipment or structure. But just having that calming presence, someone saying, “We’re okay, the Lord is providing wonderfully,” was such a reassurance.

One of the things we love to do on this podcast is pray for people. We’d love to pray for you, for Hope Church Tolworth, and for your family. I know from experience that planting affects the whole family, so it’d be great for our listeners to be praying for you.

What are some of the things we can be praying for over the coming weeks?

Yeah, I’d love for you to pray for us as a family. We have three children—well, they’re not really children anymore, they’re a bit older. Our eldest two are at university

So, please pray for them, at university. And as they come back, they were there for the launch service, which was lovely. It was great to have their support. But please pray for them as they’re going on with the Lord. Please pray for the Lord to keep strengthening them, which is wonderful.

Please pray for our youngest, who’s at home with us. It’s just myself and him at home. Pray for him, for patience with us, and for him to continue growing in the Lord as well. So please pray that the Lord would strengthen him too. And, yeah, for the adjustment for us as a family, as we launch Hope Church—like you said, it’s hard work and tiring. But it’s great to see the Lord working. So pray for the Lord to keep encouraging us and keeping us faithful in reading His Word, praying, and being devoted to Him.

Pray for us as a church, please. This coming together of people from two different churches… Please pray that the Lord would continue to unite us under Jesus, and that we would continue to put aside personal preferences for the sake of the gospel, and that we would love one another and continue to love one another.

Please pray for us over the coming weeks as we seek to reach out to the Sunray Estate, Signal Park Towers, and Tolworth. We’ve got great contacts at the school where we’re meeting. Please pray for those contacts and that they would develop, with good opportunities to proclaim the gospel. Pray for wisdom in how to reach out to people who don’t yet know Jesus. All those things would be great.