Introducing Julian and Liz Marsh
Julian Marsh has taken over as Director of the Church Planting Initiative from 1st September 2009. The work of CPI is to identify potential church planters and church planting locations across the UK, support church planters, encourage their work through supervision, mentoring, training and pastoral care, and provide a fellowship and a sense of belonging for them. Julian will be seeking to expand the work of CPI by increasing significantly the number of planters in fellowship with one another amongst independent churches, particularly amongst churches with Brethren roots. He has succeeded Roger Chilvers who has been Director since April 2004.
Julian commented, ‘When I retired as Chief Executive of the George Müller Charitable Trust last year, my wife and I were sure that the Lord had a further role for us. We are excited by the challenges of expanding the work of CPI and believe that our experiences to date, particularly in the extensive church partnership work at Mullers, can be applied to good value in CPI.’ Julian was Chief Executive of Mullers in Bristol from 1994 – 2008. He and his wife have been church planters and are involved in leadership of Gordano Valley Church in Portishead. Julian has also been involved in the leadership of a wide range of Christian activities and initiatives in the Bristol area. He was formerly a college lecturer and senior educational administrator.
Leslie Lucas, the CPI Chairman, said, ‘We, very warmly, welcome Julian and his wife to fellowship in the work of CPI. We believe that this enables us to take another positive step forward in developing the work. At the same time, we are very grateful to Roger Chilvers for all that he has achieved in CPI. We are also very pleased that Ian Smith of GLO in Motherwell has joined us for up to a day a week as Finance Officer, and thank Mike Peach for all that he has done for us as our Administrator over the past 9 years until April this year when he stood down.’
Julian, who is 62, has been married to Liz for 38 years and they have three grown-up married children, all of whom are involved in church leadership in one form or another. They have four, young, lovely grandchildren who keep them young!