Last week it was a huge privilege to meet with Terry Virgo, the father of the Newfrontiers family, along with 20 other pastors from across a wider group of Newfrontiers churches. Terry continues to travel the world, sharing the good news of Jesus and helping leaders to build healthy churches – it was amazing to hear what was on his heart.
For the past five years, I have enjoyed meeting with this group of leaders once a year; to stand with one another through joys and challenges of leading. It’s a great opportunity to hear the diverse and often fascinating stories of the churches they lead. I’m always drawn to stories of God’s incredible provision and, in many instances, this has related to church buildings.
I’ve followed the journey of Hope Church Ipswich, as God provided them with a 5-screen cinema in the town centre. It’s also been an honour to stand with Hope Church Worcester, as they have recently bought and begun to renovate a city centre site in the heart of Worcester. It’s so encouraging to see God providing a home for His Church all over the nation.
At leader’s meetings, there is always lots of space to pray and prophecy over one-another. During our last time together, two pastors made a b-line for me! They both had similar impressions of what God wanted to say to me, and to us as a church: that God has buildings for us which will help us serve the city, and that this is part of our inheritance as a church. It was wonderful to hear God speak directly into our context here in Bristol. Interestingly, a recent Sunday visitor at City Church spoke to Ben after our Cotham meeting, saying he also felt God wanted us to have a building in the city which would help us connect with people.
We need to pray these prophetic words into being! When God speaks, it’s important that we do what we can to line ourselves up with what He says. Therefore, as we look for our own building for City Church to call home, we have set up a building fund in preparation for when the right building comes along. If you’d like to contribute towards this, please head over to our giving page for more information.
We’re excited and expectant for God to provide a space for us to reach out to the community, to work with the disadvantaged in the city, and ultimately to make Jesus known across the whole of Bristol.