Looking for Purpose?

You may have noticed that our website has a series of rolling images. There is some purpose in that. I thought I'd chat a bit about the messages in the first of those images. 'Looking for Purpose?...An exciting adventure awaits'. Regardless of the status of our faith we are all looking for purpose in life. No one has the explicit goal of having a meaningless existence. We believe our ultimate purpose is to find our identity as children of God and live lives that glorify Him. As Christians we can't work that out outside of community so we have developed some small communities to help find God together and then work out how we can be most pleasing to Him. When we are pleasing Him we begin to discover exactly who we are and we really do find ourselves. We discover what being human is in all its fullness through Him! Pleasing Him is about becoming more like Him and He is a God who loves to be imitated. He gave us His son Jesus Christ as the model. To imitate Him we must engage with His goals, which are to see all people come into relationship with Him and see Him glorified. We work this journey out in community. We have discovered that the pursuit of this purpose certainly leads to an exciting adventure! Regardless of whether you are a follower of Jesus or not I highly recommend you try getting involved with a community that looks to be more like Jesus himself, you'll have a great adventure and you won't regret it. Don't believe me? Why not give it a try...

Miracles do happen

Here is a little story from our summer adventures that I mentioned last time round. James is a great guy who is part of CityChurch. In July he had a nasty fall and broke his ankle badly. In fact he broke six bones. At one point early on doctors were concerned he may even lose his foot. I'm a bit squeamish so I didn't like to look too closely and thankfully he had it in a great big boot. The boot, he was told would be on for 9 months and would secure the two metal plates that had been grafted in to secure his foot. After nine months he would have the boot and plates removed and then have the foot broken again and re-set without the plates. This was to be followed by nine more months in plaster. Not great! The x ray picture below shows the broken foot. If you don't quite understand it be assured that the leg bone is supposed to sit on the ankle not be completely detached as it is in this shot.

To further complicate matters James fell again and made it worse in August. Early September arrived and we upped our prayer. We have been building a culture of faith for the miraculous as we pursue the presence of God and have seen some great healings but this was a big one. However God is good and in early September James visited the doctors again and new x-rays showed that the bones were healed! The doctors removed the boot and told James he could walk on the foot! Praise God! Here is a picture I took of his ankles just last week.

Be encouraged that God does heal. Lets keep believing and keep persevering. We didn't just pray once for James, but we did keep going and keep building our faith. Let's here more stories like this one and keep sharing them. To the Glory of God.

A summer lesson

There are a number of principles by which we try to operate but every now and then God does something to really teach us the value of them. One of these is that 'Jesus is building His church'. This is aligned with the thought that our job is a different one, namely to make disciples. Entering this summer we were quietly pleased with how the first year of CityChurch Leicester had gone. Relationships were strong, people new to the city were settling well and we had identified our missional focus and got the whole church involved in missional communities. Pretty good really, but there was a nagging question for me, 'Lord, where is the fruit!?'. Nevertheless we entered a summer rest period, stopped the majority of our activity and engaged in sabbath rest. As soon as we did we began to see fruit! We didn't earn it, or strive for it or deserve it but by God's grace we saw it. New people were added, people met Jesus and were saved, new relationships developed and a series of exceptional miracles including deaf ears opening and broken bones being healed took place. In fact it is still happening, by the grace of God. We are now entering our busier autumn season but we go into clearer than ever that Jesus builds the church! He has taught us that and so we must remember it and continue to embrace the seasons of rest and abiding He calls for in John 15. We stay healthy, faith filled and clearer in our perspectives about our roles when we do. Lets keep Loving God and Loving People and leave the rest up to Him! If you want to know more about our journey get in touch!

New Website

CityChurch has a new website! You can find it at www.citychurchleicester.org. Hopefully that means we are now ready to smooth out our somewhat inconsistent entry into the world of online social interaction. You can follow us on twitter and find our Facebook fan page and now hopefully all these will now nicely interlink together. Of course technology is still dependent upon human beings so that will depend on us stepping up our game. We will try! It is easy to get quite excited about the advances in technology that allow us to interact more easily but we want to remain grounded and remember that technology isn't our God! Technology can help improve life but it can't eternally transform it like our God can. Seeing these transformations continues to be what motivates us at CityChurch and we have been blessed to see lots of small miracles in recent times. As these continue we will look to use this platform to share the stories. There are some other possible changes afoot for us, watch this space and we will let you know about them when we can!

Ready for take-off

We have been really taking our time over the last two years to ensure that we get started on the right footing. Five months since our launch, and about three years since beginning the journey I believe we are really close now to launching our first missional communities. The obvious question would be why so slow!? It's a good question and one I have continually wrestled with as it's not my natural approach but the simply answer is it has been essential.

The way we are trying to do things does not come naturally to those of us who have grown up in and be trained by the UK church. It's second nature to us to try and build "church" and try and attract people to our events in the hope that they might meet Jesus. The problem is Jesus commissioned to "make disciples" and leave the building of church to Him. Grasping that and the huge mindset and cultural changes that flow out of that takes time. In fact it takes about 3 years!

We have had lots of great help from 3DM UK and we are about ready to go so watch this space and see how we get on, we'll let you know.


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Location:Melbourne, Australia

White Hot Centre

We have been taking our time recently to ensure we have two cultures in place. The first is an encounter culture. As Paul tells us in Ephesians when we gather as the church we are the living temple built on the foundations of the apostles and the prophets, with Jesus as the chief cornerstone. We host the presence of God. We worship Him and expect to encounter Him. The second is a culture of radical missional discipleship. We are setting ourselves up as a people on a mission, ready to carry the presence of God out into the world.

The last two weeks we have been richly blessed in our gatherings. You could say we have been longing for the white hot presence of God, and we haven't been disappointed. We have seen numerous healings and God dealing with deep issues that prevent us from knowing how to encounter Him. My experience has been that when we expose the issues in our lives that hold us back from entering His presence to the light, we give Him the opportunity to heal us.

There is more to come but it sure is getting hot!

Getting into our stride

Well CityChurch has now been going for 3 months and God has been good to us, as ever. We have been working out what it means to have a radical missional edge and a white hot centre at the same time. is it possible? How do you do it? We are convinced it is possible! A radical missional desire should always come from having consistently been in the presence of God. When we take time put loving God first we can't help but be influenced by who He is, and He is the Father who so loved the world He sent the Son and then the Spirit in order that none might perish! Being with God pushes us out! Mission born of anything else is in danger of being little more than good works done in human strength.

To help us remember this we have found Mike Breen's Lifeshapes really useful. you should check them out. The Triangle is a simple concept and yet astonishingly profound as it reminds us that our lives should be balanced up, in and out. We encounter the Father (up), then love the Body (in) and together we love this lost world (Out). If we remember that always we will stay on track.

We are encountering some wonderful opportunities at present which are a gift from God. They are not as a result of our hard work and we deserve no credit but I believe we will have some powerful stories soon about how the above works out in practice.

Love God first, let him speak, intentionally share that love with the lost and lives get changed!




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Exciting Times

Just returned from a trip to Uganda in time for the CityChurch commissioning service on Sunday. My team and I have seen God move powerfully with many healings and many people set free from demonic possession.

The woman pictured below was healed from a chronic bad leg and hip problem as a result of an accident. She was healed and delivered and danced for an hour. One of many stories.

I hope to see God move powerfully like that in Leicester in the coming years. Power encounters, the presence of God and a people committed to mission should hopefully make for a powerful combination.

Role on Sunday and the commissioning!

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Location:Riverside Rd,Derby,United Kingdom

Commissioning Service

Things are hotting up for CityChurch. We will be having a commissioning service at the Riverside Centre in Derby on 3rd July 2011. Check out the top link to the right for a video promo.

Following that the next step will be our launch celebration which will be on the evening of 25th September. Watch this space for more details about the venue and time.

We are close now to finalising our regular meeting place in the city centre of Leicester as well. I can't reveal where it is yet, but I will do soon! Oh, and the coffee will be great....

The purpose of a blog

A German friend of mine graciously observed recently that a blog is not much use if it is devoid of content. He was not the first to comment. Thus I am encouraged once again to continue 'blogging' on this site and sharing the journey of CityChurch with the masses.

In the 6 months since I last posted a lot has happened. The team has been strengthened and relationships within the city have been established. One of the reasons I have been slow to post is that I am a visionary type and I am aware that what I see happening one day can change fairly rapidly as I talk it out. I don't want to be forever giving the impression that things are changing every five minutes. Anyway here are a few things that have encouraged us deeply;

Firstly people have now been able to confirm that they will be joining us from all over the UK. Derby is the source of most of the team but then people have committed to joining us from Manchester, Oxford, Warwick, Lutterworth, Bristol and Leicester itself. There are still others who may get involved too.

Secondly we have been developing a relationship with a wonderful Baptist Church in the city that we are exploring some kind of partnership with. They are in a highly Asian part of the city and God may just be bringing us together. We shall see - watch this space!

At this time a number of our team are actively trying to sell homes and find new jobs in order to move. I honour them as this venture is a costly one and these are people who are prepared to pay the cost for the sake of the Gospel. They have seen something of God at work and it excites me greatly as I am certain God is about to take us on a wonderful missional adventure. Bring it on!

The countdown begins

First of apologies for the lack of updates recently.

I am pleased to tell you that things are continuing to take shape and develop with the plans to plant CityChurch. There is now a core group of 20+ adults committed to the plant and there is plenty of room for more. Houses are being put up for sale and job searches have begun. We may still be 12 months away from an official launch but it is getting very real.

In all of this the mission remains central. To see the Kingdom of God come on earth as it is in heaven. In the planning for CityChurch I am stirred by the word 'Go'. Jesus said 'Go' in the great commission but modelled it through his whole ministry and the discipleship he put into others. He sent out the 12, then the 72. For us going to Leicester is just the start of the going. When we get there we will not be building a big temple to hide in, rather we will continue to take the good news to the city. When we have gone, the going really begins!

The next stage

Planting a church is certainly a journey and the next stage of the CityChurch journey is about to get under way. We will soon begin to meet monthly to build relationship and pray. We hope to do this on some occasions in Leicester but for now we will start in Derby. It will be difficult to draw everyone together as we have people from different parts of the UK coming to join City Church but it will be exciting and we will do our best! Watch this space for details.

Mission Opportunities

As suggested in an earlier post we want CityChurch to have a strong incarnational edge to it. This means pouring our lives into communities and people groups that needs Jesus. At present we are exploring 2 possible opportunities to do just this. They may or may not be things we finally commit to but the opportunities are exciting!

The first is on one of the city's estates. It is an area with no strong church presence according to the local Christians and it has lots of need. In the middle of this estate we have found an inspirational woman who has seen the lives of many locals transformed. We are exploring whether or not we can invest in this area. Are you up for moving onto an estate in Leicester and pouring your life into a needy community?

The second opportunity is very different! Missions organisation WEC have shown some interest in exploring the possibility of partnering with us as we look to work with people from other religions in the city. Who knows what will come of this, but we start talking with WEC tomorrow!

Time to step up a gear

Things are as exciting as ever as we continue to seek God and make plans for CityChurch. In order to share some of the vision more widely and give people a chance to find out more we are having a 'find out more' evening at the Riverside Centre (home of Community Church Derby) @ 8pm on April 29th. You can find directions via the Community Church Derby website link. We hope you can make it!

The shape of things to come...

Opinions about what a church should look like are plentiful in these days of rapid cultural change. Some will argue that to be truely effective a church must adopt an incarnational 'go to them' mentality. This involves significant community involvement and acknowledges that many people will never step inside a church building. Others will argue that a more traditional 'come to us' approach that relies upon people attending central gatherings and being impacted by the presence of God is still the way forward. Often it seems that a choice must be made and a preferred shape chosen. My experience, both personal and from stories told around the nation, is that both approaches remain effective - when done well.

So what will CityChurch look like?

I believe we can do both well at the same time! If one thing is certain it is that CityChurch will be a mission shaped church. We aim to see the Kingdom of God come across the whole of Leicester. To play our part in this we will definitely need to find ways to effectively impact communities and people groups outside the walls of the church. We will 'go to them'. However our vision is to see a church that impacts the whole city built. To do this we must be visible and we must have gatherings that have great expectation within them. Expectation that people will be saved, healed and delivered. If God is calling us to expect growth, and He is, then we must have faith that people will 'come to us'. We better give them an opportunity to do so.

CityChurch Leicester - gathered and scattered for the making of disciples, with expectation!

CityChurch Promo Video

CityChurch Leicester Promo Video from EMCF on Vimeo.

So who are we?

This church plant is some of the fruit of a vision that goes back 30 years.  East Midlands Christian Fellowships (EMCF) has long been committed to seeing the Kingdom of God come across the East Midlands and church planting is at the heart of the vision.  Today EMCF is made up of 5 congregations with an apostolic base in Derby called Community Church Derby.  It is from here that CityChurch Leicester is being planted.  EMCF is also part of a national movement of churches called Salt and Light Ministries.  You can find out more about all these groups via the links opposite.

The vision to plant into Leicester has been growing in the hearts of the EMCF leaders for 18 months now and Ben and Esther Rook, who are part of the leadership and staff of EMCF are heading up a team that will move into the city to plant this church.  We are in faith that this plant will begin with a strong group of 50+ adults and their children from across EMCF and Salt and Light.

CityChurch Leicester will be launched officially in September 2011 but there are already a good number of people committing to this adventure.  We will begin to meet to pray and seek God for the future of the plant soon, watch this space and drop us a line if you would like to find out more!

Its all coming together!

Come on.  The CityChurch Leicester website splash page is now up and running.  Take a look with the link opposite. Now we have a webpage, a blog and Facebook page.  Hopefully that should help us be as visible as we can be, now we just need to plant a church!

By the way 'CityChurch' is not a typo, it is deliberate.  It's a design thing.  I like it.

Up and running

Welcome to the CityChurch Leicester blog! The purpose of this blog will likely change over time but for now its purpose is to chart our journey as we head towards planting a brand new church in Leicester. There is a lot to say already about who we are, our vision and the story so far. That will all come soon and we hope that this blog will be of interest to anyone who is keen to join, support or follow the progress of CityChurch Leicester.

This weekend is a big one for us. We will be at the Salt and Light ministries European Leaders Conference and we are blessed to be recieving a bit of publicity. We have produced a short video about the plant and that will be shown at the conference and hopefully there will be some people who are stirred to consider getting involved. We shall see.

After the conference we shall begin sharing more information here on the blog. See you then!