How it all started

At this point, she wondered if the ministry journey was over.

However, God spoke a simple but clear message that day.

“It’s time to press the reset button”.

Over the coming weeks and months, Victoria and Mike, along with their children, imagined what a fresh expression of church might look like.

They began to ask questions:

“What if we could strip it all back to the basics of how Jesus lived?”

“What if we looked at the scriptures through a fresh lens of context and cultural awareness?”

“What if we genuinely met people where they were at and ministered with them holistically, socially, organically – abandoning our programmes and structures to discover together our connected humanity – celebrating the little wins and the courageous choices all the while walking together through the challenges, the obstacles and the pot holes of life.”

For many months, the ideas stayed with them, prayerfully seeking God’s clarity and opportunity. They were in the midst of lockdown and still serving the local church – albeit on-line and at a distance.

Towards the end of the year, a fellow minister from Elim – the movement Reset are part of – contacted them and said he wanted to talk about church planting. Long story short, they were granted permission to plant in April 2021.

During the first year – still in part under lockdown restrictions – Victoria and Mike spent time praying and connecting with people as best as they could. They participated in Elim’s national online Alpha course with a friend of theirs. It was a powerful and informative time – both in the sense of him discovering something of Jesus but also for them to have his insight. At the time he was a non-believer and is by nature, a logical and pragmatic thinker. Victoria and Mike often refer to this first year as the time God ‘reset’ them. They went on a bit of a deconstruction journey during this, participating with the Trinity to reconstruct what they believed, why they believed it and what this meant moving forward.

April 2022 they began to meet with a small group in person and on line. Everything was conversational and honest, they were not afraid of the real questions and life experiences of those present. What they began to realise is that there were a lot of people carrying hurt – from church, from life – all of which had left them somewhat on the edge and with a hyper-vigilant posture about church, community, people and power.

That summer Victoria was ordained as an Elim minister. She also spent sometime training to become a trauma informed practitioner. It was at this training that she met an incredible lady who came alongside us as a church to help embed a trauma informed approach to all we were doing.

April 2023 Tony joined Mike and Victoria to help carry the responsibility for Reset.

The journey continues and we are all learning together as a family how to be this thing called church. It’s not easy and sometimes it feels it would be easier to just walk away, give up on gathering and focus solely on our individual relationships with Jesus.

But the call to try and be the change we want to see is strong. We often refer to Reset as an act of justice. It’s an attempt to acknowledge the toxic practices that are being unveiled in our time; to learn from what has been and endeavour to change direction and approach, keeping it real and other-centred, inviting participation and empowering people to embrace an authentic life with Jesus at the centre.

We know we are not perfect at Reset, and we are bound to get stuff wrong along the way, but that’s no reason not to try, don’t you think?