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!