Tim Hughes is set to lead a church in Birmingham, leaving London's Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) where he has worked for almost a decade.
In an interview with Premier Radio, Hughes revealed that he will oversee St Luke's Church in Birmingham city centre, and will move with his family around Easter.
He will remain connected to HTB, however – a small team will go with him to Birmingham, and he will continue to lead Worship Central.
"My wife and I have felt excited and called for a while now...to lead a church where we could build a community, see people being discipled, leaders being mobilised and released; and to really try and invest in a city to see God's Kingdom come," he told Premier's Justin Brierley.
"Some really exciting opportunities have come up," he added, noting that he grew up in Birmingham, where his father led St John's Church, Harborne – "It's kind of like going home."
Hughes will also oversee the beginning of a second church, planted in a warehouse bought by the Diocese of Birmingham.
"The idea is that we're going to start services with a real vision to engage young people, students, families – to see a congregation grow that will really resource, bless, and hopefully light up the city of Birmingham."
Under the leadership of Nicky Gumbel, Hughes added, HTB has been "incredibly releasing, incredibly encouraging, and [has] massively blessed and invested into what we're doing and what we're planning to do in Birmingham."
"This feels like a natural extension of what I've always been doing," he said. "My heart is worship; to see people encounter God, to see people experience and spend time in the presence of God, and I think with what we've been doing with Worship Central which is very much going to continue, has been trying to encourage local churches and resource them in the area of worship.
"But actually, it's the senior church leaders who are in many ways the gatekeepers to so much of what happens in local churches... and I think leading a church becomes more of an opportunity for me to raise up worship leaders, to create a community, a culture where we can be centred around the presence of God, where we can take risks, where I can encourage musicians, songwriters, artists to grow in their gifts, and I hope that then perhaps becomes a resource for other churches in that area."
Listen to Premier's full interview with Tim Hughes here.
