Paul Machonochie

We are a large Sheffield-based church operating across several Bases in different parts of the city. These Bases operate both as local churches and as part of a single whole Network Church with a vision to 'call our city back to God.' We work together for a regenerated, healthy, prosperous city with strong and open communities and freedom from addiction, crime and violence. We also believe that creating opportunities for people to choose to follow Jesus is an important part of this process.

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Paul Maconochie

Paul Maconochie is the senior leader of Network Church Sheffield. He has been part of the church since 1992 and has been on staff since 2000... He is a Baptist Minister and was the Senior Leader of St Thomas' Philadelphia before moving into his current role. He also leads a national network of missional churches called the Covenant Kingdom Network and is a Guardian of The Order of Mission, a multi-denominational religious order. It is an international covenant community of kingdom leaders. Paul is married to Elly and they have two daughters, Grace and Hannah.

John Lovell

John Lovell has been a member of the strategic leadership team of the church for over 30 years, and has a commercial marketing background... As executive team leader his primary responsibility is to ensure that the organisational structures and resources of Network Church Sheffield support and facilitate its missional focus, aims and objectives. John and his wife Liz are Guardians and founder members of The Order of Mission. Their home is often used as a place of retreat.

Rich Robinson

Rich Robinson is part of the senior leadership team of Network Church Sheffield, responsible for missional communities and training... He has been involved with missional communities for 12 years and has developed leaders' training, coaching & consultancy resources and a coaching team to disciple leaders and support the work across the city. He is also part of the national network team training, resourcing and coaching churches and leaders in building a discipleship culture, forming a missional mindset and launching missional communities. Rich is married to Anna and they have three young children - Josiah, Esther and Samuel.

Welcome to Network Church Sheffield

Network Church Sheffield has a rich Anglican, Baptist and House Church heritage and a diverse church membership. Our three Bases are resourcing centres which support a network of incarnational missional communities across the city. These are places where missional disciples live out their faith through community on a daily basis, to be good news to our city and its people.

Each missional community gathers around a common missional vision for a particular neighbourhood or people group within our city. These groups naturally grow as people express the vision they feel that they have for their life. We encourage our members to start groups as they grow in leadership and are called by God to do so. Leaders of missional communities meet regularly with each other and with a coaching team (some volunteers and some staff members) for accountability. Our basic discipleship principles are described by Lifeshapes (An introduction to Lifeshapes is given by the book Building a Discipleship Culture, by Mike Breen and Steve Cockram.)

We are called to:

  • Build community around our homes, fostering an ethos of mutual care, friendship and support in our local neighbourhoods.
  • Support our schools and community centres, working with children and youth to promote positive values and behaviour, as well as an understanding of the Christian faith.
  • Invest in students and young adults, working to raise up the next generation to become men and women who will impact our nation for good.
  • Build relationships in our places of work which allow high productivity with strong teams of colleagues, while also deepening friendships and support.
  • Work with the poor and the marginalised, including addicts and sex workers. We have a number of members choosing to live in some of the more deprived areas of the city in order to live in community with those people.
  • Invest time, money and effort into the city of Sheffield to help regeneration and growth.
  • Tell people the Good news that God loves them and encourage those who are interested to join us in following Jesus.

All of these fit within our overall vision to 'call our city back to God.'