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:
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.
To introduce TOW principles to leaders currently unfamiliar with them.
To expand the consciousness of UK leaders and show what is possible when TOW principles are taken and implemented with conviction.
To create a story to bring back that introduces TOW principles to the UK.
To explore the complementarity of TOW principles and City Vision principles and how both might be enriched.
To encourage UK leaders that much of what they are doing is right but there is more.
To build City Vision leader to leader relationships within the UK.
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.
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.
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.
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
Phrase of the tour “Obedience is success” (thank you Brian)
Study tours for leaders can work well at a variety of levels and should become part of standard operating City Vision operating procedure.
Ending the trip with a visually spectacular aspect of God’s creation seals the deal.
It’s amazing how much you can do in 3 days.
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.
Mat Eason can get there faster than anyone else and Ronny’s aim with snowballing needs improving (private jokes)
A weekend need not be heavily structured and that ‘going with the flow’ still allows time for spiritual input, worship and prayer.
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.
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
“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
David Gilbey, Chelmsford
“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
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
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.