Catalyst – A growing family of churches

I hope this finds you well! As you’ll hear in the video below, we are taking a moment to thank God for how Catalyst has matured and developed. We are now a family of over 1000 churches across more than 40 nations, and what is especially encouraging is not just the scale of what God is doing, but the depth and quality of the work. We are thrilled to be training church planters, translating leadership resources, and serving churches in both some of the poorest and some of the wealthiest nations in the world. I’m sharing this video because we want to celebrate that together, but also to be honest about where the work has grown and why that requires us to think again about how we resource our shared mission as a family of churches.

Catalyst is not an organisation but a family of churches on mission together. Our local ‘hub groups’ of churches rightly own the life and leadership of the movement, and they are doing the apostolic work on the ground so well. At the same time, as Catalyst has grown globally, we’ve needed to strengthen the central support team that serves the whole network – ensuring we function well together as an international family. The central team helps the network stay connected, stay resourced, stay accountable, and move forward together.

Part of being a big church family is our commitment to one another through our finances, and I’m sharing a video below to clarify our heart and our ask in this area. In the video I outline a simple, shared framework for thinking about giving beyond the local church. This isn’t a rule which we’re imposing, but a helpful guide that we’d like to ask all churches to consider to help us own our shared mission together. We’ve asked church leadership teams to prayerfully consider how your church can partner with us in this.

One-off Giving – Catalyst Festival Offering

Later in the year there will also be an additional, one-off ‘ask’ linked to our Catalyst Festival offering, which happens every two years. At the previous Catalyst Festival in 2024, we raised over £340,000 !!  As a result we have been able to specifically fund the following projects, among many other things:

• Seed funding for the Train1000 global church planting initiative, aiming to train 1,000 church planters, now launching in the UK, Africa and being translated into multiple languages.

• International leadership development investment, including gathering and supporting church overseers serving in some of the toughest nations for Christians, with a leaders’ gathering in Albania.

• Contribution to a business redevelopment fund, supporting church planting and sustainable livelihood projects in rural Laos.

• Vocational training initiatives in Laos, including fish farming, mechanics, sewing and tourism training to support local communities and church planting.

• Provision of 400 Bibles for outreach work on the Laos–Vietnam border, supporting new believers and baptisms through local outreach teams.

• Vocational and ministry training for at least 10 leaders in Laos, equipping them with practical skills to sustain themselves while building the church in some of the poorest areas of Asia.

• Purchase of a permanent church building in a Middle Eastern nation, enabling daily ministry and official recognition of the church in a highly persecuted context.

• Equipment for a home recording studio for Kurdish worship leaders, resulting in 20 newly recorded Sorani worship songs shared online.

• A five-day Encounter camp for around 200 people from deprived backgrounds, where over 20 people committed their lives to Jesus and many experienced physical and emotional healing.

• The graduation of 30 new church leaders in Uganda and Rwanda, through theology and ministry training.

• Support for Christian artists, enabling them to continue being salt and light in creative industries.

• An East Africa regional leaders’ gathering, bringing together around 40 leaders from 14 language groups for training, mentoring and spiritual renewal.

We will continue to be transparent with Catalyst Finances. Our desire is that Catalyst would continue growing in health, depth, and impact – starting and strengthening churches that multiply disciples and see God’s kingdom fill the earth – and we are deeply grateful for the way you already pray, give, partner, and serve with us in that.

Thank you for being with us on this significant journey

Simon Holley