January & September 2026

Church Planting Collective

This training is designed to equip teams to plant Reformed, covenantal churches. 

This collective is not just for equipping primary or facilitative church planters, but also for all other teammates involved in a church plant, so that everyone understands how to contribute to a healthy church plant.

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    • How do you keep the Gospel at the center of a church-plant?

    • What are the characteristics of effective church-planters and church-planting teams? 

    • How do you see your culture in light of our doctrine?

    • How do we engage culture? How do we contextualize appropriately?

    • How do you develop leaders?

    • What factors are important for a church-planting movement?

    • To understand the biblical foundations of church-planting

    • To wrestle with the typical challenges every church plant faces

    • To establish a church-planting method which can be contextualized

    • To inspire and motivate participants toward church-planting

    • To interact with helpful literature on church-planting

    • To be able to clearly present your church-plant’s strategic plan

    • A clearly formulated philosophy of ministry

    • A concrete strategic plan

Schedules

ATHENS INTENSIVE TRAINING SCHEDULE

View Intensive

EDINBURGH INTENSIVE TRAINING SCHEDULE

View Intensive

The Trainers


  • Sashko is leading an international group of young adults who are seeking to plant a Reformed church in the city. His passion is the process of making the gospel message relevant to different groups of people depending on where they are at geographically, socially, culturally or spiritually. This happens through different social projects, Facebook posts, conversations over coffee, text messages, sermons or blog articles.

    The church that Sashko is leading reaches out to the local community through arts (including an annual Art&Thought Forum), women’s ministry and student ministry. Sashko also runs a small Reformed publishing house. He loves reading, listening to jazz and watching not-so-famous TV series from different countries around the world.

  • Alex is pastor of a church-plant in Exarcheia, Athens, and part of the Polis Church Planting Network.

    Alexandros is the pastor of Exarcheia Church, a church in downtown Athens, which he and Tim Coomar planted together in 2013. At the end of 2014, Exarcheia Church set up an NGO serving unaccompanied refugee minors and youth, which went on to play a significant role in the refugee crisis of 2015 onwards.

    In May 2019, Tim and Alexandros planted Urban Chapel, Exarcheia Church's first daughter congregation. They also both help coordinate the vision and training initiatives of Polis, a church planting network in Athens.

  • My name is Robbie Sweet and I serve as the team leader for MTW NEXT in Europe as well as the interim assistant team leader for MTW Glasgow. The vision of NEXT is to serve the global church in reaching the next generation for Christ, and since 2015 my wife Lydia and I have been engaged in that mission in Europe. We spent 6 years in St. Andrews, Scotland and have been based in Glasgow for the past 4 years. We currently are serving in partnership with the Free Church of Scotland with the aim of supporting and developing healthy ministries to the next generation throughout the denomination.

    Prior to moving to Scotland with MTW NEXT I worked on the youth staff at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church for 10 years. 

  • Andrew Lupton, along with his wife Laura Kate and their 3 children, has planted an international church in Oslo, one of Europe’s most diverse and secular cities. Through this flagship international church, the Luptons support MTW’s new Norwegian church planting movement.

    Additionally, Andrew coordinates church planting for the Missional International Church Network. Their prayer is to see healthy, Christ-centered international churches started and strengthened in strategic cities where the nations and the next generation intersect.

  • Tim is the City to City Europe Associate Director and Catalyst Coordinator.

    Tim Coomar is married to Cynthia and they have three children, Anna, Jane, and Jonathan. Tim grew up on the outskirts of London and, after graduating from university in the UK, worked for a year doing international student ministry before heading off to Athens, which very quickly became home. After a short stint working back in London as a web developer, Tim returned to Greece in 2008 to work as a ministry trainee at First Greek Evangelical Church in downtown Athens. It was during this year that a vision for the city was birthed, with church planting at its core, and so began Tim's association with City to City, as he shortly found himself on a plane to New York City to attend the International Intensive six-week training course for church planters. The training proved to be a transformational experience for Tim. In his own words, "it not only gave me the tools to do the work of church planting, but a renewed confidence in the Gospel as the power to change everything".

    Today, after 12 years as a church planter in one of the most post-Christian neighbourhoods in Europe, Tim feels called to serve this same vision for gospel movements in the cities of Europe in a new capacity, but with the same confidence in the power of the Gospel for change and renewal.

  • David Meredith is Mission Director for the Free Church of Scotland. He is involved in supporting evangelism, church planting and revitalization both internationally and in Scotland. David was previously senior minister at Smithton Free Church in Inverness, Scotland where during his thirty year ministry the church grew from a church plant to one of Scotland’s largest congregations. It has been his privilege to speak at conferences in the UK, mainland Europe, Africa and the USA. He is married to Nina and they have a grown-up family. He numbers among his interests motor cycling, reading biographies of interesting and diverse people. He was a politics major at College with a special interest in US politics. He is a close observer of SEC football but refuses to reveal his favorite team.

  • David, son of a PCA church-planter, was raised in Louisiana and Tennessee. Christ captured his heart in high school while he was participating in short-term mission trips, and David has felt called to missions ever since. At King College in Tennessee, he majored in political science and modern foreign languages, earned a Masters of Divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) in California, and a Th.M. from WTS in Philadelphia.

    David and Eowyn joined MTW’s church-planting movement in eastern Berlin in 2001. Over the past 20 years that team has been involved in planting five churches and a campus of the Martin Bucer Seminary. David currently serves as International Director for Europe, overseeing MTW’s vision, strategy, and personnel in Europe. Eowyn assists David in his role and supports church-planting through evangelism, teaching, and women’s initiatives. They have 5 grown children.

  • Neil MacMillan is the minister of Cornerstone Church (Free Church of Scotland) in Edingburgh and part-time lecturer on evangelism and mission at Edinburgh Theological Seminary. Neil attended James Gillespie’s High School and has a long association with this part of Edinburgh. He likes live music, Raith Rovers, good coffee and movies..

  • Jonas and Pattie Stava have always had a heart for missions, even before marriage. After serving over 15 years in countries like Taiwan, Jordon, Mongolia, the U.S., they find themselves being called to plant churches is Norway, Jonas’ native land.

    Norway is one of the most secular countries on earth. With a mass exodus of people leaving churches across Europe, Norway finds itself closing doors of churches that have stood empty for years. Yet God is on the move in Norway. After planting two other churches in other parts of Norway, Jonas and Pattie and their three children have joined in planting an international church in Oslo where one out of three persons is an expat or immigrant. Each Sunday God faithfully brings people to the church hungry for the Word and looking for grace.

    They feel blessed to serve this community and are eager to see the ways God moves in Norway. Their prayer is to see lives transformed, and to see healthy, Christ-centered international churches started and strengthened in strategic cities where the nations and the next generation intersect.

  • Mike Tilley and his wife, Molly, worked with a core group to plant Lake Baldwin Church (PCA) in 2006. He served as senior pastor until 2022 and is now Pastor Emeritus.

    Prior to planting Lake Baldwin Church, Mike served with Cru for 29 years. The last four years he was a global rep, working with nationals in Europe, Africa, and Canada.

    While serving as pastor of Lake Baldwin Church Mike was invited to speak at the annual pastors’ retreat for International Christian Community (ICC), a network of international, English-speaking churches in the cities of Europe. Over the years Mike became part of the board of directors. Today he is focused full time on the work in Europe, serving as Pastor at Large. In this role Mike shepherds pastors, preaches in various locations, and works with church planters. Molly works alongside Mike to encourage the wives of pastors.

    Mike did his graduate work at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Reformed Theological Seminary, where he received the Master of Divinity.

Find Your Church Planting Coach

Meet Our Coaches

FAQs

  • Optimally, you would attend both intensives in person to fully benefit from the training. If you are not able to make all the intensives, please let us know in advance, and we can think through whether this year's collective is the best fit and timing.

  • Absolutely. The hope is to get as many from the core group to participate so that everyone is processing the information and exercises together.

  • Yes. The hope is that intensives will be offered yearly.

  • At this point Saško Nezamutdinov (nezamutdinov@yahoo.pl) and David Stoddard (david.stoddard@mtw.org). We are looking for additional trainers and coaches. Saško is planting a church in Krakow, Poland and has participated in City to City’s intensive as well as Train the Trainer course. David has served as both primary and facilitative church-planter, and through the role of International Director learned a great deal from church plants across Europe.

  • In addition to having more coaches and practitioner-teachers, we could use help with videoing trainings. If you would like to serve in any of these ways, please reach out to Wendy Stogner, Coordinator of Church Planting Collective, at wendy.stogner@mtw.org.

  • Ideally, before you start a new church plant, but the principles are valuable at any time. This training is best suited as “just in time” learning for those who can apply the learned principles to an immediate situation instead of “just in case” learning.

  • This training is not intended to force everyone into a single mold, rather to encourage each team to apply healthy church-planting principles in a contextually appropriate way.

  • First, this will operate from a Reformed and covenantal background. Second, most other programs target primary church planters. We intentionally want all those helping with a church plant to have access to training.

  • Yes, all sessions will be recorded. We’re always looking for a videographer.

  • In order to have effective interaction, we would like to keep it between 25-30 participants.

  • Unfortunately, we don't have the capacity for that at this time.

CPC Archive

View past years’ CPC schedules and topics

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