Blog

Written by Lisa Mason
on 8th July 2025

I love meeting people and hearing their stories and it's always exciting when people’s stories resonate with our own. With that in mind, I wanted to share the story of our discipleship journey so far in the hope that it might bless and encourage others who are hearing God speak in similar ways. This is a longer read so make sure you’re sitting comfortably!

Chris and I moved to Leeds in January 2005 to join Mosaic church, an exciting church plant that was only a few months old but already thriving. Newly married and full of fresh enthusiasm, we had a five year plan to get stuck in and learn as much as we could about church planting before heading to Eastern Europe to do the same ourselves. We threw ourselves into serving wherever we could, eventually ending up as leaders of a rapidly growing student work where we made the most of all the learning experiences and training opportunities available to us. We were grateful to receive deep investment and discipleship from the more experienced leaders in the church and as we waited to be sent, we studied language and church planting, continuing to build relationships and connections in the nation we felt called to.

As our five years came to an end, we began to push doors, tentatively feeling our way into the next step of what was most definitely our plan until God very firmly shut that door and spoke clearly to us about planting the Oak Church in West Leeds. This was an exciting time for us, we were blessed with a large team of people who all had a heart for the area God had called us to. We quickly grew out of the home that we started meeting in and rented a space in the local football club, eventually being blessed with our own building in Stanningley. The church was vibrant and hospitable; a beautiful family. We had a thriving children’s work and served the local community with a foodbank, toddler group and weekly lunch club. Then six years in, God spoke again. I had been volunteering at an ESOL class in Bradford and one day as I walked through the city centre, I felt as if my heart would burst with the love I was feeling for the people I encountered. I returned home to Chris and told him “I really love Bradford, I wonder if God wants us to move there?” We decided to spend the next week praying and seeking God about this and within a week, he had so clearly confirmed that this was his next step for us as a family that we had started making plans to move house. Around the time that we moved into our new home, we attended Mosaic’s Love:Nations conference and our friend Andy (who had no idea where Bradford was, or that we had just moved there) brought a word of knowledge saying ‘Go to Bradford, God is going to show you different ways of working there.’ For the next few years, we got stuck into serving our local primary school, building friendships and connections in the community. We were warmly welcomed by the local churches and began to pray with other believers, learning that many had heard similar promises and scriptures for Bradford to those God had given us.

In 2020, when Covid 19 erupted across the country, we were starting to wonder what these new ways of working were that God had spoken to us about. As we prayed and waited, we began to feel stirred to go again. We brought this to the Oak leadership team and they were full of faith to send us to plant a church in Bradford. We shared our plans with the church and soon had a small team of people who also felt stirred to go to Bradford. As we prayed and prepared to go, we began listening to podcasts about the growth of the church around the world that was taking place through disciple making movements. A friend introduced us to the Experience Life network and invited us to join their disciple making training. It’s fair to say that this training ruined us. We learned that in nations where the gospel is spreading rapidly, believers are devoted to simple rhythms of prayer and obedience, sowing seeds by regularly sharing scripture with non-believers and searching for people of peace who are open to receiving God’s word and willing to share him with their families and networks. We were encouraged to increase the time we spent in personal prayer and devotion to Jesus and his word, as well as our time in corporate prayer and our time spent building connections with people who don’t yet know him. God used this time of learning to reveal to us areas of our own hearts and lives that were not fully devoted to him, it was a time of undoing and healing that has continued to this day. We learned the process of Discovery Bible Study (DBS), a tool that is being used by believers all over the world to teach people to study and obey God’s word together.

When we started gathering our new team in Bradford, we decided to start with a simple meeting where we worshipped and ate together and did a DBS. We initially began to meet in a church building in the city centre but we soon realised that this was not easy to multiply so we moved into our homes. We gradually established rhythms of prayer, including a monthly half night of prayer where we could enjoy a leisurely meal with plenty of time to worship and pray together. Once a month we would go out as a team to look for ways to serve our community, pray and meet people and we each began regularly prayer walking in our neighbourhoods.

In January 2024, God clearly spoke again. A friend shared a word with us saying that things were moving really slowly but it was because we were in the wrong place. When Chris and I asked God for direction, he showed us that he wanted us to move our family to a different part of Bradford. We prayed about this with our team and another team member had a picture of God pouring water onto tentpegs before taking them out of the ground. We sensed that God was stretching us as a team and leading all of us to new things, that as he did this, he would pour out his Spirit on us. For three of our team members, that has meant them deciding to move on and join other churches, they go with our love and gratitude for all that they have sown into us. Our church is now made up of two families. We meet every week to eat and take communion together, we worship and do discovery bible study. God has given some members of our church an incredible cafe to run as a way of blessing and serving the local community. Meanwhile, for Chris and I, moving our family to a new part of the city is taking a very long time but God’s hand has been on the entire process and we are excited for the day when we unpack our boxes and start to encounter the people who he has called us there to meet.

Our vision is to find people of peace in Bradford, people who God is already drawing to himself, and teach them to start discovery groups among their families and friends that might start more groups that start more groups, causing the gospel to spread to places that we could never reach. We are longing to see the word of God move through the many different languages and people groups within our beautifully diverse city. We know that what we are praying for is a miracle that will only happen when God moves and as we spend time with those who don’t yet know him, we are praying for him to perform signs and wonders that will open hearts and minds to receive him and his word. Chris and I continue to train people using the E-life training that we received and we have built a small coaching community with those who have received the training and want to implement it- we meet together weekly to pray, read the bible, share what we are learning and be accountable for how we are making disciples in our local contexts. Our hearts’ desire is to see God’s kingdom built in our nation and across the nations. We are overwhelmed by the love that God has for us and we know that this is the most important thing we can share with the world. If our story has resonated with you or if there is any way that we can support or encourage you, please do reach out to us, we’d love to hear from you.