City Vision day at Heath Hall

Monkeys aren’t sharing the bananas through the cages!!

Thank you Tony for peaking our interest right from the get go. It was that saying along with a few others that you have gathered along the way which always makes us think.

The one thing we need to focus on more is that you can’t see the culture you are most familiar with. What does that mean to you?

However the question that soon ran throughout as it does in many of our meetings - What is the narrative and who is actually setting that for our city? -

What many may fail to realise is that we still have broken churches trying to reach broken cities and until we have a healed church we won’t be able to have a blessed city.

Much of this has to do with our perceptions and are we serving our community well in ALL areas not just one or two.

Even though there are many other religious groups who seem to be determining the narrative already - we must always remember that we will NEVER be able to stop GOD bringing His narrative.

These conversations as we come together are to help us learn from one another but also to challenge us to do something to begin to make room for God’s narrative to break through.

Will it be the same for every city? Probably not because every city has different needs- different leaders etc but wouldn’t God already be aware of that before you started?

Even though we were privileged to hear stories from different cities and even our international team of what God is doing in their areas - we are looking to engage as many of you as possible to join forces and be a part of the conversations that are bringing solutions- connecting people divinely and empowering each other to join together collectively to make a difference across the UK in our cities.

Our next gathering will be announced soon - let’s start sharing the bananas.

Wynelle Cowdery

Vision Wakefield Away Day

Jesus was the perfect model of friendship. He loved without limits so that we could learn what true friendship is with Him, with the Father and with one another.

The question of how to obey the new commandment has been a challenging one to grapple with. What does it look like to love one another unconditionally the way that Jesus first loved us? We talk about love easily, but what does it actually mean for us in practice, on the ground, between church leaders of different denominations?

Eleanor, a leader at Wakefield Baptist Church shares her experience.

Being part of a unity group in a city and attending meetings can often just be a box to tick because it seems to be the right thing to do; but over three years and a series of 43 workshops, we’ve watched as church leaders of different denominations in Wakefield have grown to know one another on a deeper level and become friends through praying together, running joint projects, and meeting informally to eat together.

At our recent Vision Wakefield away day there was a genuine love and warmth in the room. Naz set the tone of the day with a short talk on the guidance of God, followed by some anointed worship. Flora, a leader at Wakefield Baptist Church and at Wakefield City of Sanctuary, felt guided to sing ‘Let there be love’. Though simple, the lyrics are very poignant.

Without this foundation of love, anything we do would be in vain and our message would be empty.

what is our collective message?

After a warm up exercise of sharing and praying together in pairs, we launched into the question of message and narrative. Not only ‘what is our narrative to Wakefield city council?’, but ‘what are the implications of it?’

Some great discussions and questions came out of this, like what kind of relationship do we want with the council? What can we offer them? Do churches need to see beyond budget and numbers in order to gain credibility with the council? Relationship and ongoing dialogue with the council is so much more important than only contacting them for certain projects.

When the group came back together we talked about our language. When it comes to spiritual well-being, the church can’t talk about ‘holiness’ to city councils, but it can talk about ‘wholeness’ - physical, spiritual and mental well-being. We must discover what their heart is and find common ground.

We also discussed just how much the church is doing that the city doesn’t know about, how can we ‘let our light so shine?’ Letting our light shine feels somewhat controversial to us Christians, as we are also called to be meek and humble…how can we find a healthy balance? The more time we have spent with the leaders in fellowship and workshops, the more we have discovered just how many good news stories of God’s goodness there are to celebrate and showcase!

What is the potential of the collective church combating loneliness?

Loneliness is just one of the many things crippling our nation, so we talked about ways in which the church has and could combat it. On our tables we heard some heart warming stories of when congregation members have said things like ‘the church saved my life’, and ‘church is the only place I see and speak to people’. These are the kinds of stories very much worth capturing!

We discussed the fact that many churches aim to be community hubs where people of all backgrounds come for various well-being enhancing activities, feeling loved and accepted with no judgement or pressure on them. Many areas really benefit from these local community hubs, and would be greatly effected if they were to close down. It’s important as the church to help build stronger, more supportive networks and communities, where we can learn to love those around us as Christ loves us.

Speaking of well-being; fresh air and exercise is good for the mind, body and soul, so we headed out for a walk in small groups to reflect and continue our discussions in the sunshine and beautiful greenery of Heath common. We enjoyed lunch together on our return.

After lots of thinking and plenty of stimulating conversations in the morning, we came before His throne again to reset for the afternoon, singing ‘I surrender’. It was also a privilege to honour and pray for Luke who is stepping into the role of lead pastor at New Life Church in Wakefield, as Kevin leaves Wakefield for a new adventure in September.

Measuring the spiritual climate of the city

How well do we know our cities? How often do we even think about the city as a whole, and our role in it and for it as the collective church? It is so easy to get caught up in our own area and to not consider the the bigger picture, but the truth is that the spiritual climate of the city is our responsibility to measure and to partner with God to shift.

We were shocked to hear some of the the pain points in Wakefield and the cost of them to the economy, such as family breakdown costing approximately £260 million a year, rehab services £55 million a year and mental health problems £193 million a year. Think about the impact that a change in the spiritual climate of the city could have on these figures.

We posed this statement to the leaders, ‘The spiritual climate in the city is the responsibility of the church leaders and a function of their collective relationship. Discuss.’

This lead to some really interesting discussions about leadership and the role of leaders in churches. A few people raised a good point that if a leader is truly discipling, equipping and mobilising their church members to model Jesus to those around them in their every day lives, then the spiritual climate of the city would certainly be impacted and change significantly.

So, what is the ball in the back of the net?

We discussed what the criteria are that we use to establish the spiritual climate in the city, below are some of the ideas shared:

• Disciple making

• How actively people are involved in prayer (more prayer-centres) 

• Less addiction and poverty 

• Healthy relationships in every aspect 

• Knowledge of God in the city 

• Youth actively seeking and knowing God 

• More peace (covers a lot) 

• Less people hospitalised 

• Healthier communities, connections and care for neighbours 

• Supernatural occurrences, e.g healings and miracles 

Reaching the 350,000

We then discussed how to reach the 350,000 non-believers in Wakefield and what that actually means tangibly. It raised the questions, ‘how can we learn ourselves and teach our church members to share their faith?’, ‘what outreach work can we collectively do on the estates in Wakefield’ and ‘how do we break the strong British culture of not talking about religion?’

Reaching the youth

Following this we looked at the question, ‘How do we reverse the process of a slowly ageing (and therefore dying) church in Wakefield making it attractive to the young?’

David said that youth these days don’t ask ‘is it true?’, they ask ‘does it work?’, which is food for thought as we begin to think about possible collective events and activities for the youth in the city of Wakefield.

Luke shared this article, ‘7 conversations your church needs to have to reach young adults’ - https://www.eauk.org/what-we-do/initiatives/the-young-adults-conversation/7-conversations 

It was a truly stimulating day, getting to the nitty gritty of some great questions together. Watch David Gerrard, Vicar at St Catherine’s and St Andrew’s in Wakefield, as he gives an overview of the day and touches on what it means to be working together, even when we don’t agree on some things.

When 3:30pm came everybody was well fed, mentally and physically, and ready to go home and reflect on all that had been discussed. Lots of thoughts, ideas and questions were on our minds to mull over, one question remaining, ‘what does true unity and mutual submission to one another really look like?’

The answer to this question continues to unfold and reveal itself bit by bit, every time we meet, pray and work together as the body of Christ.

Watch these clips below from some of the Vision Wakefield members.

Kevin Foster, Pastor at New Life Church

Flora Davies, Minister at Wakefield Baptist Church

Bishop Tony Robinson, Bishop of Wakefield

Rob Cotton, Methodist Minister at Sandal, Crigglestone, Newmillerdam and Walton

Vision Wakefield

The City Vision team is working with a group of Christian leaders in Wakefield. Below is a blog about when we came together to pray during covid and the fruit that has come out of it. We are continuing to meet and workshop together, seeking where God is working in Wakefield and how we can join Him in blessing the city.

Vision Wakefield

God’s view of the city sees no division and unity is its strongest asset. Where covid sought to divide we came together and prayed. It’s easy to miss the significance of the word ‘together’, perhaps because the true power of ‘together’ is something we cannot fully comprehend until we are looking down at it from heaven itself. True unity can only be birthed out of true humility, and true humility is indestructible. It changed the world once and can do it again.

As a group of Christian leaders here in Wakefield we have felt the sting of covid and seen the struggle and heartbreak of those around us. The difficulties that came with this virus have only set our hearts more a-light than ever before with a passion and a love for this city and every person in it. To see the hurting comforted and filled with His peace, to see love seep into the cracks of the broken places, to see strongholds fall and people freed.

Before lockdown

Prior to lockdown and meeting together online, our first gatherings as a group were about having a ROC (Redeeming Our Communities) conversation in Wakefield with founder, Debra Gree OBE from Manchester. This sparked interesting conversations together as a group about what else we could do for our city as Christians together.

The ROC conversation was successful and insightful, the highlights from it are below.

Input from Sheffield

Following that we invited Jon Watts and Sandie Keene CBE who are part of 'Together For Sheffield' to come up and talk to us about their experience of running a Faith Action Audit, which also created an excited buzz in the room as the Wakefield leaders began thinking about and discussing how we could measure the good works in Wakefield.

Christmas card

Since coming together weekly to pray we have begun to experience unity like never before as a collective group of Christian leaders and it has unveiled a doorway to the city. As well as praying weekly, we started to workshop together and pool our ideas as to how we can love and bless the people of Wakefield. During our time together an idea came for every resident of Wakefield to receive a Christmas card from us to bring some joy and let them know that we are praying for them at this difficult time.

From that seemingly simple suggestion stemmed a whole array of ideas such as a website with a joint welcome video message from us and a place to send in prayer requests and stories; a phone line to call in with prayer requests, digital vans around the city with the card and a message on them, a joint online live streamed Christmas service; and a drive - in carol service.

From the moment of that suggestion the following months became very busy and exciting as we continued to meet weekly to pray and plan. We wanted to bring a glimmer of hope, to let people know that they are loved and to help them to see and love their city in a new way.

This is the front and back of the final card design after much deliberation and joint decision making. We made sure to keep it current by including covid masks and honouring key NHS workers, and we also kept our main message on the front - 'God with us.'

We commissioned the Royal Mail to post one of these postcards to 65,000 houses in Wakefield.

We also offered a generic version of this card for other cites to use if they so wished to.

Digital Vans

Here is one of the two digital vans that traveled around Wakefield every day for nine days!

A Christmas animation we made to display on the digital vans and on the website.

A Christmas message from the leaders.

Online Christmas Service

As City Vision's media producer, Charis had the privilege of producing the pre recorded online service which was to include a message and a carol from each church leader of Vision Wakefield as well as to showcase good works from around the city and capture good news stories. It became more of a program than a service.

"The process of actually getting out into the heart of the city, meeting people and seeing what’s happening in different places opened my eyes and gave me an even greater love for Wakefield. I filmed at two food banks, the Community Awareness Program, the City of Sanctuary and I met some local people with truly heartwarming stories to tell. I really got a flavour of the city like I never had before, and one of the comments afterwards about the service was “that was the first time I have ever felt proud to live in Wakefield”, so it seemed to have had the same effect on those who watched it." - Charis

Filming at St Catherine’s Church and centre

People bring donations for the food bank at St Catherine's

Filming Rob Cotton at Sandal Methodist church

Interviewing Clare Trueman who shared her uplifting story of fighting Covid

Filming Viv Hodges and Bishop Tony at the Wakefield Cathedral, who presented the program

Wakefield band - New Familiar performed 'O Holy Night' for the Christmas program

The Christmas program was for congregation members who wanted to attend a carol service but couldn't due to covid, but it was also for all of the residents of Wakefield who were to receive a Christmas card from us. That means people all ages, races, religions and none, and so our main message to them was one of love and that 'God is with us'.

With such a wide audience the intro to this video needed to be gripping and relevant to all of those watching. We wrote a poem that included some of Wakefield’s history and culture, some reference to the covid times that we are living in, and most importantly a glimpse of God’s heart for the world. Below is the opening of the program with the poem.

We live-streamed the program on Sunday 20th December and it has had around 1000 views in total including some of Wakefield's church congregations. The website has had around 2000 visits and people have sent in their prayer requests.

One request was from a 76 year old man living alone who was extremely grateful for the card and the prayer. Although we didn't get thousands of responses it was all worth it to hear those that did come through!

People were touched by the Christmas program, here is a message from one church member:

"I really enjoyed the Vision Wakefield carol service. It was so well put together. Thank you so much to all involved for their hard work and dedication. On top of it all, it's such a brilliant way of bringing the meaning of Christmas to all those who don't go to church or wouldn't ever consider doing so. What a great idea to spread the Good News! For the first time ever (I think!), I feel proud to belong to Wakefield." - Member of St Helen's church

Below are some clips extracted from the program. The Community Awareness Programme (CAP Care) in particular had a lot of recognition with 38 shares on Facebook!

O Holy Night - New Familiar

Community Awareness Programme

Clare Trueman

Wakefield District City of Sanctuary

Drive - In Carol Service

The program, with it's mix of stories from all over the city, was also shown at the Trinity Drive - in Carol service which was pulled together by Methodist minister, Rob Cotton. This also took place on Sunday 20th December at 3 different times in the day and was a fantastic way of bringing people together in a safe and law abiding way.

All of the tickets for the drive - in service sold out quickly and the car park was packed with cars excitedly beeping in response to what was happening on stage. As people sang along in their cars, some adorned with Christmas decorations, there was a real sense of togetherness and hope after a tough and surreal year.

Rob Cotton hosting the service David

David Gerrard from St Catherine's and St Andrew's church helping to lead the carols at the drive-in service as well as talking about some of the good things happening in the city!

Drive in service as it got dark

Bishop Tony, Tony Hodges, Viv Hodges, Charis Dirdova, Naz Masih

"The drive in was a wonderful opportunity to enjoy 'being together' and singing Christmas Carols which has been sadly lacking this year, a real uplift to our spirits. Thankyou to everyone who helped make it such a lovely occasion and probably froze in the process!" - A commenter on Facebook

There were all kinds of people at the service, including the regional Methodist leader who oversees 230 churches and the Bishop of Wakefield. We filmed a short interview with them both and some of the other church leaders about the power of unity and being the hands and feet of Jesus to serve others together.

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Feedback

Below are quotes from some of the church leaders of Vision Wakefield...

"Meeting and praying together has brought a sense that we can definitely work together and love one another, we can’t do it without each other." - Pastor Kevin Foster, New Life Christian Centre

"The quality is much better than what we could have done alone. Harry S. Truman said, 'It’s amazing what you can achieve when you don’t care who gets the credit.'" - Reverend David Gerrard, St Catherine’s and St Andrew’s

"I really appreciate the opportunity to be involved with the prayer meetings, something that has been quite significant for me over the last few months, very precious." - Pastor Flora Davies, Wakefield Baptist Church

"Having a shared focus of doing something together for the people enables relationship to grow as we work and pray together." - Reverend Rob Cotton, Methodist Minister, Aire & Calder circuit

"It's amazing to meet on zoom much more regularly than in person. There is time in busy schedules to make this happen if your heart is for the city" - Sally Martin, St Helen’s Church

Investing time together produces fresh insights. Each one knows things about the city that others don’t know, sharing ideas blesses others. Coming together has helped us widen the connection that we have and we can reach more people and church leaders in this city. - Pastor Daniel Kamalu, Strong Tower Christian Centre

Campfire Nine - Stephen Gunning

Video - 40:29

Originally training as a Chartered Accountant with PWC, Stephen Gunning co-founded his first business in 1998 to develop computerized patient record systems for hospitals. After some serious trials, it became a market leader, before being acquired by the global giant, Philips, in March 2008. He then started a new mobile app business, Thrive.App, which has many international clients.

Stephen is full of inspiring stories from his own experience of God at work and has spoken extensively around the world at various conferences.

Stephen is also Chairman of The International Christian Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) UK and previously served on the ICCC International Board.

Campfire Eight - Dr. Brian Beattie

Video - 42:49

Chapters

30:47 - Question 1

36:11 - Question 2

Dr. Brian Beattie is a husband, father, speaker, writer and visionary leader. He has been described as passionate, compassionate, courageous, direct and tenacious.

Brian is presently the Lead Pastor of Freedom House in Brantford, Ontario; the President of Freedom Training Centre and on both the National and International Teams of Transform Our World. While visiting the TOW conferences in Monterey in October 2019 and Santa Cruz in January 2020, Tony heard the story of Brantford, saw the video, was impressed by what Dr Brian Beattie and the team had achieved and deepened the fellowship with him.

Brian shares a mixture of testimony, teaching lessons learned from experience.

Campfire Seven - Tony Fitzgerald

Video - 1:07:19

Tony Fitzgerald shares his testimony and what he has learned over the years about spiritual fatherhood.

Tony is an Australian who’s been in Christian ministry for 50 years. He worked with street people during the “Jesus People” era. He was also involved with the charismatic outpouring in the 70’s and saw many signs and wonders accompany his ministry.

He moved to England and, with a team of others, began planting kingdom communities, eventually seeing them relate under the banner of Church of the Nations. Their influence now extends to 50 nations.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro and background

10:37 - Who impacted you?

18:54 - Understanding spiritual fatherhood

32:32 - What can we do to learn here in the UK?

39:41 - Closing prayers

43:15 - Questions and discussion

Campfire Six - Dennis Pethers

Video - 16:48

Dennis Pethers, founder of The Rooftop, shares about how leaders can love and support other leaders.

Dennis came to faith in Christ having been an atheist. He now leads a global movement, ‘The Rooftop’, that is equipping churches across the world to Join Jesus in His Mission and make disciples who make disciples beyond the walls of the church.

Campfire Five - Daniel Ghinn

Video - 33:18 mins

Daniel Ghinn is founder of Worship.Works, an organisation that equips followers of Christ to put their faith to work in their careers. He is passionate about seeing work as worship and he leads a team of ‘marketplace ministers’ who co-work with God to develop Holy-Spirit-led business practices.

Daniel is also CEO of an innovative insights consultancy to the global healthcare industry which he founded with his wife Jo in 1998. Daniel exemplifies what it means to build and run a Kingdom company.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro and Background

10:23 - PowerPoint Presentation

28:08 - Question one (Staying in a place of peace)

29:55 - Question two (What kept you going?)

32:19 - Question three (Hardships and spiritual warfare)

Campfire Four - Lloyd Cooke

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Video - 24:06 mins

​Lloyd Cooke shares about this current situation from a City perspective and addresses some of the challenges that cities are facing at this time.

As CEO of Saltbox, Lloyd has oversight and leadership of a truly multi-faceted charitable organisation. As well as overall responsibility for the charitable services provided by Saltbox, Lloyd’s role sees him advising civic leaders and advocating for marginalised members of the community, working among church leaders, and bringing the two together to effect meaningful change in society.

Campfire Three - Toby Isaacson

Video - 41:44 mins

Toby Isaacson is both a passionate Christian and an expert in the area of digital transformation.

We live in an age when the church is having to play catch up in so many areas about the possibilities that a digital approach offers.

Toby speaks into this situation to help us to understand how we may have to change our thinking about what digital channels offer. He discusses the mindset required to adapt to the digital age that has come upon the global church.

Campfire Two - Piet Brinksma

Video - 21:14 mins

Piet Brinksma is an influential church leader based in Holland. He has a long history of seeing, and being involved with, church and city transformation in Amsterdam.  He wrote his Ph.D on city transformation and speaks from both a marketplace and church perspective. He has been the national leader of the Four Square denomination in Holland and is connected internationally. 

Campfire Discussion One - Ken Janke

Video - 53:09 mins

Chapters

01:21 - Ken’s talk

28:18 - Virtual Communication

33:30 - Perfect Love (Mike Brickley)

35:18 - Ken in Croatia

42:20 - Post Covid 19

In this first City Vision Campfire, Ken shares important insights for ministry leaders about how at Global Advance he and his fellow directors have had to rethink their approach as a result of the pandemic. He also shares some of his testimony.

Ken Janke is the Director of Programs and Partnerships at Global Advance (www.globaladvance.org) and has actively served as a Pastor, a Church planter and a social entrepreneur. He supports community leaders and works to position people, organisations, and businesses for their effective future, believing transformation is possible through collective ideas, and collaborative action.

The UK visits Brantford, Canada!

While visiting the TOW conferences in Monterey in October 2019 and Santa Cruz in January 2020, Tony heard the story of Brantford, saw the video, was impressed by what Dr Brian Beattie and the team had achieved and deepened the fellowship with him. 

Here is a 3 minute teaser clip of how God has turned Brantford around, incredible and inspiring stuff!

Tony carried the story back to Chelmsford where he was in the process of organising the 6th City Vision conference. 

Tony Hodges at the City vision conference in Chelmsford, 2nd November 2019

Since Chelmsford is famous for being the city where the radio was invented by Marconi and Brantford is famous for being the city where the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, Tony felt a peace about reaching out to Brian Beattie to see how he and his team would feel about receiving a team from Chelmsford. The idea was encouraged by Pastors Phil Hannam and Pete Bardwell from Chelmsford and David Gilbey who leads CITIC (Christians Together In Chelmsford).  The idea was quickly picked up by Caroline Anderson a previous director of Catch the Fire in London and European Director of RTF. 

A team of 15 was quickly assembled, the date agreed with Dr Beattie and trip arrangements put in place by Naz Masih and Charis Dirdova of City Vision.

The aims of visiting Brantford were multiple:

1. To explore whether the idea of the Body in one city serving the Body in another at a    
   collective level held water. While the original idea was that of one UK city serving another (“City Twinning”), there is no reason that the hypothesis should not work internationally as well.
   

2. To introduce TOW principles to leaders currently unfamiliar with them.
   

3. To expand the consciousness of UK leaders and show what is possible when TOW principles are taken and implemented with conviction.
   

4. To create a story to bring back that introduces TOW principles to the UK.
   

5. To explore the complementarity of TOW principles and City Vision principles and how both might be enriched.
   

6. To encourage UK leaders that much of what they are doing is right but there is more.
   

7. To build City Vision leader to leader relationships within the UK.
   

8. To specifically advance the City Vision initiatives in Wakefield and Chelmsford where City Vision is seeking to develop a model for transformational process that can find a home in other UK cities.

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As a result of Tony’s previous study tour experience, the idea of an extended weekend study tour to Brantford thus came into being.       

Following the flight, the Freedom House leadership welcomed us at Dave Carroll’s house starting things off with warm informal “getting to know you” fellowship over finger food. 

Fellowship on Friday evening

Canadian game, Crokinole

Snacks on Saturday evening

On the Saturday Brian gave us a full day of storytelling, teaching and “come and see”. We visited locations in the Freedom House story and were excited to see where Freedom House are thinking of as their next significant escalation of ministry. All this was extremely inspiring and shared with humour, humility, compassion, wisdom, love and faith. We saw the back story of love, service and faith in Brantford and what was behind the progress. We heard from loving lions with hearts of great courage. It was truly inspiring.

The team minus Nigel & Mat

Kindness became the main theme of the trip

Eating with the FrostyFest volunteers

Visiting the youth centre, 'Why Not'

Inside the youth centre

Some artwork in the youth centre

Worship at Freedom House

They prayed for and blessed us

We prayed for them

On Sunday we split into two teams to experience all the dimensions of ‘FrostyFest’, Freedom House’s answer to the question “How do you show love to a city by combining Disney, a funfair, ice carving, ice skating, a snow slide, mobile hot chocolate, snow taffy, larger than life living cartoon characters like Captain Kindness, Princess Kindness and Batman, all with an indoor craft fair that included stuffing your own animal (cloth!) and a fun balloon artist. We saw love, service and good planning in action.   

Below we hear about where the idea and inspiration for Captain Kindness came from and how it has impacted Brantford from the man himself!

We enjoyed Chinese and Pizza fellowship each evening in leaders’ homes and the team shared Christ where they could mindful of Brian’s comment that FrostyFest was a ‘low J’ event (we weren’t there to confront everyone with Jesus’ words but with his love). A number of people travelling on planes now also know a bit more about Jesus.

It was sad to be leaving the team, but we spent a wonderful last evening with them sharing about how enriching the experience had been for us an how much we’d learned from them. We were extremely blessed and lasting friendships were formed. 

On Monday we travelled to see the ‘not to be missed’ spectacle of Niagara Falls and had a fabulous lunch atop the Skylon tower before heading back to the airport wondering how we had managed to pack so much into 3 short days.

In an entourage of 3 cars that at times resembled a team of CIA operatives engaging in a sting operation, we swung from location to location enjoying “in van” fellowship as went. 

We returned wiser, more tired, happier (and heavier), all in all it was simply a great trip. 

The main and unexpected outcome revolved around the revelation of how the Freedom House team had embraced and incarnated Romans 2.4, “It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance”. None of us had made the connection before hearing Brian teach on kindness and seeing it in action.

There is currently much dialogue on and off the Whatsapp group (entitled ‘Brantford Angels’) dedicated to the visit about the possibility of developing a Kindness Consultancy.

Lessons and Takeaways

1. Phrase of the tour “Obedience is success”  (thank you Brian)
   

2. Study tours for leaders can work well at a variety of levels and should become part of standard operating City Vision operating procedure.
   

3. Ending the trip with a visually spectacular aspect of God’s creation seals the deal.
   

4. It’s amazing how much you can do in 3 days.
   

5. Every second counts. Tony had expected that the main input would be Brian’s teaching and not realised that the travel time, driving time, breakfast time, evening time and R&R time would all be valuable faith sharing and relationship building discussions.
   

6. Mat Eason can get there faster than anyone else and Ronny’s aim with snowballing needs improving (private jokes)
   

7. A weekend need not be heavily structured and that ‘going with the flow’ still allows time for spiritual input, worship and prayer.
   

8. That if Naz , Charis and Ronny’s perpetual giggling in the back of our 7 seater could be bottled we could open a happiness factory.
   

9. God was in the trip from end to end encouraging us, inspiring, loving us and helping us all the way. 

The whole team who came are deeply appreciative of the time, love, fellowship and fun delivered by Brian, Dave, Nikki, your fellow leaders and spouses and partners. Thank you for allowing us to invade your homes, eat your food, take your time and share a little of our lives with you. We thank God for you. It was a blast!

Quotes and reflections from the team

Caroline Anderson, London

“Bowled over by the whole event” - Chris Smith, Sheffield

“Thank you everyone for a wonderful collective experience. Thank you Tony for initiating the trip and inviting us all to come along. What a profound experience. Thank you Brian for imparting so much to the UK” - Caroline

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“Brantford was such a huge inspiration! From a few to inspire so many to reveal the Kingdom in the most authentic and normal way (kindness) to transform such a wide reach. So many take homes. What was profoundly clear was that friendships and relationships with Him and each other were (and are) foundational for inspiring community transformation. Love it!!” - Mat Eason

Mat Eason, Kent

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David Gilbey, Chelmsford

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“Thanks to everyone in Brantford for sharing your homes and hearts with us. You have started fires in our hearts for exploring love and the overflows of that love in each of our contexts. Thanks team for the laughs and fellowship this weekend. And thanks Tony for your generosity, encouragement and vision. It’s infectious!”

“The Father’s love and redemptive purpose is underneath all that is happening in Brantford. This was not a “cool city” to plant a church in. A city in many senses in decline; Economically, environmentally and socially. Yet the team we met chose to look at Brantford and not focus on the problems, but the people.” - Pete Bardwell

“For me, visiting Brantford was on two levels; firstly realising that it is kindness that brings 'salvation' to a City, and secondly, I believe we established a supernatural UK - Canada connection - I saw a picture of a golden cable 'sparkling with Heavenly activity, that is part of a new global Kingdom Highway!” - David Gilbey

(You can also read David’s blog of the trip here - https://ctic.org.uk/ctic-goes-to-brantford-canada-kindness-transforming-a-city/)

Pete Bardwell, Chelmsford

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Brian Beattie, Brantford (right), Batman (Left)

“Thank you for taking the time to join us this weekend in Brantford. We were very blessed by you being here and pray that whatever you picked up here you can contextualize for your cities in nation and beyond. Kingdom love and prayers” - Brian

“Here’s the article from our local newspaper… The Brantford Expositor… It’s a great overview of Frosty Fest, plus there are interviews and pictures of a few of you from the UK. Blessings!”

https://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/news/local-news/frosty-fest-attracts-visits-from-near-and-far/amp

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David Gerrard, a Vicar from Wakefield did a vlog

(video log) of the trip, watch it below!

Watch the best bits from

Frosty Fest below.

'Believe'

One of my favourite and funniest cross stories is when I accidentally dropped one at my slimming world class. The leader put a photo of it on the Facebook page to ask whose it was, before I could even reply somebody asked what John 3:16 was. A Muslim lady looked it up and replied to the comment with the bible verse!

Two weeks later I went back to slimming world and the leader said she saw the word ‘Believe’ every day and lost 8lbs! She then gave it to someone else who was struggling for a few days and told her to believe, that lady too lost a couple of pounds!

The cross was handed to another lady before it got back to me. It was great to share with the three different ladies what ‘Believe’ actually means for me as a follower of Jesus.

Kinder Kalsi, Sheffield

God’s Vision for Cities

Whenever we gather in Cities there is an acute awareness that we are part of an ongoing story, a narrative that existed before us and will continue when we are gone. The Chelmsford story is unique, the U.K’s newest city, the place where the first effective system of radio communication was developed by Marconi. A place influenced by Saint Cedd who traveled to Essex from Lindisfarne, a city whose motto is ‘Many hearts, one mind’. This motto is surely a rallying call to unity for those who have ‘the mind of Christ’. 

The conference opened with the story of Nehemiah that carries so much relevance for those of us who long to see our cities whole and secure. 

Tony Hodges, founder of City Vision, invited us to picture an ancient city, with walls, ramparts, towers and a temple. This is the picture that was used to help us make sense of our role in cities throughout the day. 

Debra Green (ROC) and Mat Eason from Cinnamon then took us through ways that churches in the city are working together to meet the needs of cities across the UK,  underpinned by prayer while Mat shared a challenged from Central government that they want to work with the church ‘can’t find the front door’ to the church as a whole because of the level of disconnection. 

Jon & Tricia Watts shared about the dramatic inroads they have been making towards unity in the City of Sheffield as they have sought to work in partnership with the police and with other churches through initiatives like street pastors which are supported by over twenty churches in the city. Meanwhile Ben Woollard from Together for Sheffield talked about the beauty of the Proverbs 31 church as well as the Cinnamon Faith Action Audit and its ability to cause a sense of cohesion and celebration in a city. 

Jon Peterson from City Force shared some inspiring stories of supernatural unity between Christian groups from his work in Amsterdam while local Chelmsford ex-policeman David Gilbey talked about what God was doing in Chelmsford through the unity groups there - including prayer walkers who pace the city praying peace and looking for opportunities to serve.   

Then to Government (the gates of the city) both national and local as Lord Nat Wei asked: What would it look like for the church to lead the way in picking up the pieces in the aftermath of a damaging brexit journey for our country? Could Chelmsford, which was 50/50 split during the referendum, be the home of a festival of empathy? A place where reconciliation is bridged between the two viewpoints. 

Then to Councillor Rev Sean Blackman who told of his role in bringing about reconciliation between different local political parties and encouraging us not to give into the tribalism of politics but instead recognise the importance of the good in each party. 

James Noble and Chris Edwards from Coventry raised the volume as the room was filled with the roar of engines. This was Motofest, one of Europe's largest Motor festivals and a picture of what can happen when church seeks to serve the city unconditionally. 

We finished the day by hearing from our partner Ken Janke of Global Advance about his journey of seeing transformation in a run down neighbourhood New Haven, Connecticut. 

If you weren't able to make it but want to find out more about what is happening across the UK and beyond in cities , please join the conversation and watch the highlights here. 

City Vision in Hereford

The City Vision team were privileged to be invited to the beautiful city of Hereford to share the City Vision story and individual testimonies from the team. We had an inspiring time meeting some amazing people and seeing what God has been doing in Hereford!

Road Trip!

Pizza Express with the young adults!

We met together to worship, share testimonies and pray with some of Hereford’s young adults who are from various churches but have the same heart for Jesus and their City!

The next day we met with christian leaders from the city to share our vision and story. The whole CV team felt an incredible unity in the room between the leaders as they met and shared together, displaying a unified love for one another and for the city of Hereford.

Tony, Jonathan, Ben, Naz, Charis

Our host Jonathan Rendall wrote the following about our trip:

‘This last 24 hours we have experienced a unity and love in the Spirit that is releasing a fresh revelation of the Kingdom, an impartation of the message of Jesus for the transformation of our City of Hereford.

Tony, Ben, Naz and Charis: we honour and thank you. Your partnership with us and your servant hearts are releasing dreams for the City; your passion and your experience are sparking imaginations and equipping us in the exploration of God’s big picture for our City.

An evening with the Young Adults where Naz and Charis shared their testimonies so powerfully, followed by inspiring talks from Ben and Tony ignited by worship in the Spirit on Monday evening.

Then today, Tuesday, some 30 Church leaders came together for the day with the CV team: a great day! We were given excellence in the presentations and challenges by Tony and Ben releasing encouragement and challenge, vision and momentum as we seek for the discipling of our City and Kingdom come here.

The Presence of Jesus has been tangible these last 24 hours here in Hereford. We listened to God, we learned, we shared and we were so richly blessed. Thank you City Vision Team: we honour you and your hearts for transformation.

A fire has been ignited in our hearts by the Spirit .... be blessed Team as together we rejoice in God’s Love Grace Mercy and Goodness following the your meetings in Hereford .... I am deeply moved in heart and spirit but for now, simply, a huge “thank you”. ‘

Thank you Jonathan for being such a welcoming host!

And last but certainly not least the lovely house of restoration, ‘Apples of Silver’ definitely deserves a mention!

Thank you to Val and Mark for being such wonderful and accommodating hosts! We were extremely blessed to stay at your place and we felt the undeniable peace and presence of God there. I don’t doubt that you’ll see some of us again one day knocking at the door!

Naz, Val (Apples of Silver), Charis

CV in chelmsford 6th June - by David Gilbey

Introduction to City Vision on 6th June – what happened!

We asked the question – how can a City truly be transformed for The Kingdom of God? Cities have great prominence in The Bible. Does Chelmsford have a God ordained destiny? Since 2012, we have been England’s newest City. Good questions!

At the beginning of 2019, Christians Together in Chelmsford were introduced to City Vision. Its founder Tony Hodges and his team have since started a dialogue with some of the Christians Together in Chelmsford Committee and other leaders and influencers within our City.

Tony Hodges, is also the founder and now Chairman of AHC, a successful consultancy company of over one hundred staff,  with offices in the UK, USA and Australia. They help large,companies and corporations, many of whom are household names, to communicate pension and benefits choices to their employees.

Tony freely admits that his personal understanding of Pensions is limited, but as a gifted communicator the foundational principle upon which he has led and guided AHC to success is as, ‘a People Business, friendly and informal, dedicated to making a real difference to the lives people lead’.

Tony, is a committed Christian and is passionate about seeing Great Britain return to its Christian roots and to see revival for the good news of Jesus Christ to come to our nation. He firmly believes that Cities, which contain an ever greater percentage of the nation’s population and the Christians who live and work in them, both at a ‘grassroots’ and civic level, have a crucial role in seeing this happen.

From the profits of AHC, about 5 years ago Tony established City Vision, to explore through Holy Spirit guided process, how cities and their people can be transformed and become living demonstrations of The Kingdom of God on earth.

City Vision is continuing to develop their processes, to connect leaders and influencers from Civic, Business Education, Charity and Christian Community, so all might work alongside and serve each other better. It is about bringing the marketplace and The Church in a City together and removing that barrier between ‘secular ‘and ‘spiritual’ that is so often created. It is about loving and ascribing to all throughout our society equal value, even if we might disagree with their views or lifestyle – just as Jesus loves each of us, Christian or not.

City Vision is also about seeing all Christians, whatever walk of life they are in, realise that they are an influencing ‘leaven in the dough’ of City life and an affecting aroma of Christ wherever they work, play or find themselves.

Our meeting – Thursday 6th June at Life Church

On the evening of 6th June, we had an opportunity to discover more about City Vision, at Life Church and be part of an ongoing conversation about what it could mean for Chelmsford. Seventy-eight people, including leaders and influencers from our Christian Community, attended to hear a most passionate Tony Hodges unpack his vision! There is now much to consider and pray through.

However, amongst the graphs, the charts, the processes and strategies to be explored, Tony spoke of one most simple. He always carries with him small wooden crosses, about 2 inches high and when The Holy Spirit prompts, he gives them to people in places he visits, such as businesses, shops, restaurants, hotels and in the street.

The cross is an enduring symbol of Jesus’ love and sacrifice to us all, a real conversation starter and they have touched many who have received them. Surely we could all engage with this? Wouldn’t it be amazing if our City was known as the place where you can receive the message of Jesus love by the giving of a cross?

City Vision is able to supply these crosses in quantity and we will be looking at obtaining a quantity for Christians in our City to carry and give away.

The Rooftop

We also welcomed an old friend to the Christian Community of Chelmsford, Dennis Pethers, who formally led Viz-a Viz, a well known ministry to young people. Dennis now heads up an international ministry, The Rooftop  – https://therooftop.org/.  Dennis spoke for a few minutes about The Rooftop, the vision of which which has some striking parallels to that of City Vision.

Dennis lives in South Woodham Ferrers, a few miles from Chelmsford and there is a growing thought that he has a new and significant role to play, as God unfolds His plan for the transformation of Chelmsford.

Next steps, including a Conference in Chelmsford - 2nd November

This an unfolding journey. Initially CTiC intends to facilitate further introductions to the work of City Vision meetings within the Christian Community of our City and leaders and influencers who wish to engage directly are most welcome to do so.

We are also really pleased to announce that on Saturday 2nd November 2019, City Vision will be arranging a Conference here in Chelmsford to further explore what God has for us and the other cities of the United Kingdom. This will be held at Life Church. Please put the date in your diary and further details will be released soon.

ReUnion - Reconciling Your City to God

There’s something about gathering in a 12th century monastery that gives one perspective.

Perhaps it’s the sense of history; the reminder that we are brief visitors on this earth. That our time, like vapour, will soon disappear. Paradoxically by the same virtue this is our time, and this brief moment is our responsibility.

It was in this context that leaders and influencers from across the UK convened at Coombe Abbey for the City Vision ReUnion conference.

Lord Wei opened with a birds-eye view: The national and international context is simple – the structures and governance that have developed over the last five decades are crumbling and whatever happens with Brexit, things will never be the same again. It’s the role of the Church, the Ekklesia, to stitch and weave the separated elements, remain and leave, together.

Then to cities. As we know a city is an unwieldy entity which is why it’s important to find a simplistic way of viewing a city without losing the key elements that we need for both strategy and focus.

Thanks to over 40 years of working on complex client projects Tony Hodges, founder of City Vision, was able to introduce the model that the conference worked with for the day. Each element of this was informed by a key speaker with lived experience in the field. It was then over to the delegates to wrestle with the information and opinions they were given as we sought to apply it to our cities and places of influence. Key areas covered were Discipleship, Prayer, Civic Leadership, Volunteer Hours, City wide celebration, Crime & Safety and Leader Intimacy.  

Dennis Pethers

Cllr Rev Sean Blackman

Lloyd Cooke

Jon Watts

Ben Woollard

Jessie Wilde

David Gilbey

Mat Eason

Eugene Ajayi

To find out more and if you are interested in the materials produced on the day please contact us. In the meantime, consider these questions that we were faced with on the day:

How true is it that we as a church gather often and achieve little?

What does it look like to live like Jesus in the place where you work and live?

What are the big industries in your city and who is praying for them?

We look forward to seeing you at our next gathering.

City Vision at The House of Lords

The City Vision team had a great time visiting the House of Lords recently to join Lord Nat Wei, who chairs The City Vision Advisory Board. It was an opportunity for key city leaders from across the City Vision network to meet Dr Ed and Ruth Silvoso from Transform Our World, (TOW). Ed’s book Ekklesia is a game changer in thinking around city transformation principles; he and Ruth are based in Silicon Valley, California, USA, so it was wonderful to meet them in London as they received the tour around the House of Lords by Lord Nat Wei. Lord Wei has been closely associated with TOW for many years.

Ed shared some key principles around city transformation together with paradigm-changing challenges to those leaders who were present from across church, business and marketplace ministry in one of the committee rooms in The House of Lords

It was an opportunity for Tony Hodges, City Vision founder to also share something of the heart and vision behind City Vision and for the partnership with Transform Our World to be strengthened as Tony and Ed/Ruth enjoyed lunch together.

All those present were left inspired by Ed’s input, as well as stories of transformation shared by Tim Dunnett from Bethshan Church in Sunderland. Tim is also the UK director for TOW.

What a huge privilege to have been there and to have been able to pray for our government, peers and MP’s alike.

Dr Ed Silvoso and his wife Ruth, (centre), together with Lord Nat Wei, (to the right of Ruth) at the House of Lords with City Vision.