Debbie Hyde grew up in Somerset, in a home where the front door was always open. Not just physically, but in the deeper sense that mattered more – her parents welcomed the people others might overlook. The ones who needed someone to care. A real open house. Every day.
“It was the people that other people maybe wouldn’t love so much,” she says. “My parents did that in abundance. They showed me what it looks like to see people through Jesus’s eyes.”
The other image that has stayed with her all her life is simpler: every night, without fail, her dad would quietly disappear and get down on his knees before bed.
“Not what we declare, but what we demonstrate,” she reflects. “How we live our lives, how we love people – that’s the real witness.”
Baptized at 11 by her own father, Debbie never had a dramatic turning point. Faith was just always there, as natural as breathing. And that quiet, rooted faith would be tested in ways she never expected.
Ready to Go… and Then Nothing
Fast forward thirty years. Debbie and her husband James had built a full life in Devon – a thriving church of up to 400, a discipleship culture that was genuinely reproducing, and a shared sense that God had more for them.
In 2010, they made a bold decision: take their two boys out of school for six months, do a YWAM Crossroads course in Hawaii, then head to India as a family on mission. It cost them a lot of money. They didn’t know if they’d have jobs when they returned. They didn’t know if the boys would get back into school.
But they went. And while they were in India, a clear word came over their lives: James and Debbie would one day serve together in ministry.
“We were so excited,” she says. “We got back home and we were ready, raring to go. We were prepared to give up our home, move anywhere in the world. We just said: here we are, Lord. We’re ready.”
And then… nothing.
“Every door we pushed closed firmly. The Lord just said, nope, this is not for you. Nope, not this one either. I was so frustrated.”
Weeks became months. Months became years.
The Lesson in the Waiting
What Debbie didn’t know at the time was that the waiting was doing something in her. She went back to school at 50 and qualified as a primary school teacher – not because teaching was the dream, but because she wanted to be ready if God opened a door abroad. James completed a master’s in theology for the same reason.
“We thought: while we’re waiting, let’s prepare. Let’s make ourselves ready for whatever the Lord has in store.”
Eventually, something shifted. Not with a dramatic announcement, but quietly – the way most of God’s best things seem to arrive. Debbie took a job three days a week at a family centre in the middle of town. Suddenly, she had long weekends free. James had started working with M4 through Counties, facilitating learning communities with UK church planting teams. He turned to her one day and said: would you like to come along?
She had never attended a learning community. She had no idea what one was. James handed her the facilitation manual and said, more or less: you’ll be fine.
“I read it cover to cover on the way,” she laughs. “And I thought, yeah, I could give this a good go.”
She did give it a good go. She also got the templates in the wrong order. “You learn: lay them all out. Once you’ve done it once, you know for next time.”
What Church Planters Actually Need
After facilitating multiple learning communities with eight UK church planting teams, Debbie has collected something more valuable than theory – real insight from the ground.
The one that surprised her most? “Church planters need to be really good at forgiving.”
When a team is under pressure, moving in different directions, or simply being human with each other, friction is inevitable. “There can be pain ahead,” she says. “We need to have a heart for forgiveness, keep the lines of communication open, and not hold on to grudges. That’s what makes or breaks a team.”
The other insight came from a church planter who said something quietly remarkable: discipleship is not cheap. “When you open your home, feed people, run outreach events – it all takes money. Some church plants really do have to live by faith. And if you’re walking in the way of the Lord, he will provide.”
Two Different People, Better Together
Debbie and James are, by her own cheerful admission, completely different. James is careful, detail-oriented, thinks things through. Debbie goes “jumping off into the deep end” and gets excited about everything immediately.
“I am the push that James sometimes needs – sometimes you have to take that step of faith without having all the answers. And sometimes I need James to say: hold on, slow down a little, let’s pray this through.”
That dynamic – two people who balance each other out, whose differences are actually the point – is what she’d offer to any couple wondering whether they could serve together.
Her advice is practical and honest: pray together, pray individually, seek out people who can counsel you and pray over you. Start small. She and James began by preaching together, sharing a single sermon. Then leading communion. Small steps that built into something real.
“Ministering together is not always easy,” she says. “But it’s worth it.”
“When the Time Is Right, I the Lord Will Make It Happen”
When asked about the future, Debbie answers without hesitation – and without pretending to know more than she does.
“I have no idea what the future holds. But I do know who holds the future.”
She comes back to Isaiah 60:22: “When the time is right, I the Lord will make it happen.” It’s the verse that carried her through the long years of waiting. It’s the one she’d put in the hands of every church planter who feels stuck, frustrated, or unseen.
“In the waiting, your strength builds. Your faith builds. His timing is perfect. Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, the Lord can work in us and through us to the people around us.”
That’s what she and James are doing. Together, finally, the way they always believed they would be.
Listen to the full conversation with Debbie Hyde on the M4 Podcast: