Day 4: Sheffield, Sunday night and Monday at St. Thomas Crookes Church

We arrived on a rainy night (not sure how that is different from most other days/ nights in England!) for 7:00pm worship at St. Thomas Crooks Church. It is an interesting building with a mix of new and old sections. The original church survived the bombing of Germany during World War II but when you see the names on the wall plaque, you see many of the people did not. The church has a long history and a bright future in an area where once again few know who Jesus is or what he did for them.

Worship on Sunday consists of "traditional" and "contemporary" worship styles and the times are:

8:30 AM prayer service

9:30 AM young children and their families 

11:00 AM families, students and people of all ages 

7:00 PM College students

Every weekday: prayer at 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM

We joined about 300 students for worship at the 7:00 PM worship. Excellent music and movement during worship to create a meaningful time of gathering. Worship is described this way: "Worship is a time where we expect God to show up and be present and if God does not show up, something is wrong." They expect to have concrete things they can point to that God does in the lives of people. They pray for it, they look for it, they celebrate it as individuals, as a church and as a staff.  

Pictured below is the staff of St. Thomas. The man and woman in the front are the Rev and Mrs. Mick Woodhead.

What do you notice about the people in the picture?  

The staff, and it might not be as apparent from this photo is...young...like 20's something young. I was one of the old American's visiting! These people are raised up and are on fire for the Lord. They are mentored and trained (more on that later). 

By the way for my pastor friends who might be reading this: you might know the name Mike Breen or 3DM, This was Mike's church he was the pastor some years back. The discipleship and missional community DNA is big in this church. Go to their website and see how this church is organized and you will see how this is a very different model of "church" than American church. http://stthomascrookes.org/who-we-are/church-churches/

So what was one take away because I have pages of observations!

Bath everything, EVERYTHING in PRAYER!!

This church, this staff does nothing without prayer first. The staff and anyone who wishes to come for prayer at the 9 and 3 gathering times for 30 minutes of prayer come. The staff pray over and over again during staff meetings after each topic is discussed. They have taught the congregation to pray the way the staff prays. Prayer is as normal as taking a breath. During the worship service, they have what is termed "concert prayers". Concert prayer is where everyone is asked to pray about some particular thing for X amount of seconds and everyone prays out loud their own prayer to God. There is a time of prayer after the service where staff gathers to pray with anyone who wishes. There are prayers for healing and anointing with oil (as encouraged in scripture to do). You may be wondering if there are "corporate" prayers lead by the worship leader and yes there are and also sometimes the worship leader will even close out a time of concert prayer. Everyone knows how to and participates in prayer. I know because I was not praying sometimes and looked around at the people gathered because I wanted to see if this was being embraced by the people, and it was! 

(I know I am bad! 😊) 

As I said prayer is as natural as breathing and people are not afraid to pray or ask for prayer and God is expected to answer those prayers in some way even if its a "no". As I moved through the week this was a common practice at every church and ministry we visited. In the week we were there we prayed a lot and for people and ministries we did not know and guess what? IT DID NOT MATTER if we knew them or not because we know Jesus and they are our brothers and sisters in Christ and those ministries are His mission!

We were also prayed for and were given some words of the Lord to hold and see what God might do. This week I struggled with some back issues which is not generally an issue I have. I also struggled being away from my wife especially since she finally made it to our Florida home not much time before I had to depart on this trip. She is still in need of prayer but I guess I did not realize how much I needed prayer in the midst of praying for others and praying for her. 

I was gifted this while in England. 

It is gently used as it had been in a person's pocket for some time. Now it is mine each day. A reminder of many things from this trip as well as the many promises of God.

God's Peace and remember...pray without ceasing!

Pastor Andy 

If you would like to see about a 7min. clip from worship at St.Thomas click on the link below. Sorry, but it was recorded by me on my phone so the quality is so so at best. 

https://youtu.be/srbdq_-RUCs

Day 3 Birmingham: Sunday Worship

GAS STREET CHURCH

St. Luke's

10 of us loaded into 2 taxi's Sunday morning and off we went to worship at St. Luke's Gas Street Church. It is in a post-industrial area of Birmingham. Little in England seems to be torn down and completely replaced but instead, the buildings are re-purposed. Gas Street church is no exception. This was not an office building but a working plant/ transfer station that was responsible for piping natural gas to homes and street lights decades ago. The inside comes complete with its own rail track where tanker cars would pull up and into the building.

Worship was vibrant and highly participatory. It was multi-generational but definitely on the young side of couples with young kids (Early elementary school to infant). 

People arrive early for coffee and tea and a social time in the "narthex" area. sometimes the worship is a family worship where all the kids come and sometimes the kids are separated out and have a lesson time of their own. 

This an area of the Gas House that has just been re-purposed and they are preparing to open up for use. 

 This church is part of the Anglican church body. It was started about a year ago by song writer, Tim Hughes. 

That may be a familiar name if you are into Christian Contemporary music. He is a well-known musical artist who received a number of Dove awards (like a Grammy) before he was 30. In 2013 he became an Anglican Vicar which is like a pastor in our church tradition. He worked for Holy Trinity Brompton in central London which is known the founding church for ALPHA educational materials written by Nicky Gumbel, a priest in the Anglican church. Tim, who we met while there came with about 25 other leaders from Holy Trinity Brompton to Manchester to start the Gas street church. 

So what was one of the key things I took away this day?

Healthy churches plant healthy churches. I said this in my opening blog but its worth repeating. Holy Trinity Brompton which we visited later in our travels has started over 30 churches since about 1989. The churches they plant, plant churches! I saw this over and over again through out the week at every church we stopped it. 

Gas Street Church under the leadership of 38-year-old Tim Hughes is about a month away from breaking off a group of about 30-40 people and starting a church in a city about 30 minutes away. They do not have feelings of "competition" or "turf" or "sheep stealing" because they know when they start new they reach new. The Anglican church has been dying for decades. Less than 6% of the population is of any faith tradition yet I see God building something new. For Vicar Tim Hughes and Gas Street Church, that something new is working with local police and bar owners in this post-industrial depressed area to help those who have had too much "fun" to find a safe way home, or into the church to sober up, warm up, and clean up. For Gas street church its planting new to reach new.

More insights on a number of these things will come in the days ahead. Next, we boarded the rail system for a couple hour train ride across the English country side to Sheffield. The trains move too fast to take pictures. Sorry!