For the Sake of Your City

“I love you. I always have loved you. I always will love you.”

These words opened the Leeds conference as Tony Hodges recalled the affirmation he received from God when he first began following Christ.

It isn’t always common to have a gathering of city influencers, leaders and business people discussing love, but the Gospel doesn’t allow us to escape it’s reach and transforming power.

If love was the context then restoration was the theme, as Lord Wei reminded the one hundred plus who gathered of the immutable words of the prophet Isiah to ‘restore the waste cities’.  

City Vision conferences aren’t just places for knowledge and expertise sharing, although those things happen, they create a space for us to engage with God’s heartbeat for our cities in real time. While strategy can change things, it takes love to transform.

Throughout the day we heard from city influencers, church leaders and business people who have been compelled by love to pay the price necessary to begin seeing the change they desire to see in their city. Ken Janke from Global advance put it best when he effused that often we are called beyond the ‘cutting edge’ to the edge where we are misunderstood and falling over, ‘The Tripping edge’, yet it is on this edge that we are able to boast in our weaknesses as Jesus is glorified in our cities.

We were also privy to some of the underlying principles that underpin many of the structures and groups who seek to see their cities transformed and His Kingdom Come.

A business owner from Sheffield who was present expressed how he’d experienced a huge paradigm shift in terms of his understanding of role the Ecclesia/Body of Christ in a city. Eugene Ajayi who has been involved in city transforming projects for decades in Aylesbury said that what the Body of Christ needs is physiotherapy, a sometimes painful process that ensures all the joints and limbs work together!  

Another huge takeaway was the impact of the Ecclesia delivering city-wide festivals. We were given two clear examples in the guise of Motofest in Coventry and the Bristol Housing Festival. Two very different festivals that have helped shift the perception of the church in their cities as they have sought to engage with the needs of the city rather than engage the city in their programs and agendas.

With thanks to our friends at Global Advance who helped make this conference possible.

It’s not too late to book onto our conference in Coventry: Click here to reserve your place - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk

Arlene Westerhof visit to City Vision HQ

Arleen Westerhof is the co-Senior Pastor of the God’s Embassy Church in Amsterdam, together with her husband Dick, www.embassyamsterdam.nl. She has a Ph.D. in Chemistry and originally came to the Netherlands to work as a Research Scientist at a large multinational corporation. After several years of chemical research and teaching God called her into full-time ministry.

Arleen is the Founder and Facilitator of the Netherlands Prophetic Council, www.nederlandseprofetischeraad.org, where she trains and raises up national level prophets. She is also an advisor to the Coalition for Apostolic Reformation, CAR. Arleen has a passion to help raise up those with the wisdom of Joseph and Daniel (from the Bible) to be change agents by bringing divinely-inspired solutions to bear on the problems our societies are facing.

Arlene is also Founder and Executive Director of the European Economic Summit and she’s a friend of City Vision. She recently visited our base in Yorkshire to spend time with the City Vision team but also members of staff of AHC, the company established by City Vision founder Tony Hodges.

Arlene’s gift of prophecy flowed dramatically across the day spent with the team as she imparted specific and individual prophetic inputs to team members as well as powerful words of encouragement, challenge and vision for City Vision to expand and grow. Her input even resulted in one member of staff at AHC giving their life to Jesus.

We have been greatly encouraged by Arlene’s visit and the legacy it leaves, with the sense that God will start to position us in ways that can leverage city transformation with a domino effect:

A domino can knock over another domino about 1.5x larger than itself. A chain of dominos of increasing size makes a kind of mechanical chain reaction that starts with a tiny push and knocks down an impressively large domino. Original idea by Lorne Whitehead, American Journal of Physics, Vol.

City Vision attends prominent city transformation conferences

The Business as Mission, (BAM) conference in Philadelphia, USA, 21st to 23rd September

City Vision has been privileged to attend three important conferences recently. Tim Coleman, Communications Director for the charity began a 10-day trip to the USA recently with the Business as Mission (BAM) conference in Philadelphia. A range of inspiring case studies were presented of city transforming businesses and projects that adhere to the quadruple bottom line principles of bringing glory to God, of making profit, of being good for the environment and of having significant city and societal transformational impact. Tim was able to spend some time with conference MC and member of the BAM Advisory Board David Skews, himself a businessman for over 35 years and now based near Liverpool. Tim also connected with Netherlands-based Mats Tunehag who chairs the BAM Global board and who ran a fascinating workshop at the conference, which looked at the top 10 issues facing BAM and businesses who follow the BAM model. Here’s a video of Mats from the conference:

Here’s another short video from Shane Claiborne from BAM who’s involved in supporting the most vulnerable in Philadelphia with projects that offer employment opportunities:

Tim then went onto the Transform Our World conference at the Marriott Hotel in San Jose, California. Over 800 delegates joined Ruth and Dr. Ed Silvoso for his annual global gathering of nations. Dr. Silvoso has written a number of groundbreaking books, including his seminal work: Ekklesia. Tim was praying about which table to sit on at the opening night gala dinner, hoping he would be able to connect with other delegates from the U.K. He felt led to a table in the corner of the ballroom, only to discover he was sharing the table with Lord Nat Wei, who’s been involved with TOW for years, together with ministry leaders from Bristol and Crawley. Over 3 amazing days of worship and prayer, delegates were inspired by stories of transformation from cities across the globe, including the Sunderland region here in the UK. Guest speakers also included YWAM founder Loren Cunningham and Bethel Church leader, Kris Vallotton. New connections for City Vision were made at the conference and we’ll be making available to you in the near future all the conference sessions and some of the city transformation story videos from the conference.

The Transform Our World conference in San Jose, California, USA, 26th to 29th September

Returning to the U.K, Tim then attended the Faith in Business conference at Bradford Cathedral on Saturday 13th October, together with City Vision Project Coordinator, Naz Masih. Taking an exhibition stand at the conference, it was another opportunity for City Vision to network with U.K ministry leaders, including John Kirkby, founder of CAP, who spoke in the afternoon’s session.

The Faith in Business conference at Bradford Cathedral, Saturday 14th October. John Kirkby, founder of Christians Against Poverty, (CAP) featured in the photo above

ELA Survey Results 2017

City Vision conducted a quick straw poll of delegates at the European Leaders Advance, (ELA) Conference run by Bethel Ministries in 2017 in an attempt to take a snapshot of the spiritual temperature in cities across the UK. Specifically, we were looking to identify signs of unity across the churches of a city and whether marketplace ministries are active in cities. Here's the results:

Q1: How much do you believe God has a unique vision for your town or city.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 67% of respondents confirmed that they believe God does have a unique vision for their town or city.

Q2: How would you rate the level of spiritual unity between the churches in your city?

On a scale of 1 to 10, no respondents gave a 10. 17% said 8; 21% said 7; 7% said 6; 7% said 5; 17% said 4; 17% said 3; 3.5% said 2 

Q3: Is there a team currently working across churches in your town or city to foster unity? 1=No, 2=Not sure, 3=Yes

60% =YES; 10%=NO; 25%=NOT SURE

Q4: Does your church leadership actively encourage ministry to the marketplace?
1= definitely NO; 10=definitely YES

25% definitely YES; 7% said 9; 17% said 8; 7% said 7; 7% said 6; 3% said 5; 3% said 4; 7% said 3; 3% said 2; 7% said Definitely NO

City Vision e-Glimpse

City Vision sets out vision for
UK transformation at London leaders’ conference
www.cityvision.life
 

City Vision, a national charity with a vision to see U.K cities transformed, co-hosted the “In Every City” conference at The London Academy, Edgware, on Saturday 14th July in partnership with “No Limits International Christian Centre."  Church and business leader delegates were encouraged and inspired to see themselves as agents of positive transformation in their communities, especially in London. 

Visionary speakers with first-hand experience of facilitating transformation in their own city were on hand throughout the day to provide practical examples of how to grow unity between church, business, community, voluntary and government leaders in order to see God’s Kingdom come to their city. Numerous video examples were shown from leaders across the UK who are involved in transforming their city.

The City Vision approach includes core processes, a growing range of resources and a series of conferences/workshops to support transformation in cities. These have been evolved from the corporate career of City Vision's founder, Tony Hodges with a 30-year career working with large organisations employing hundreds of thousands of people.

Tony, who set the context and broad vision for the conference said, “this was the third conference hosted by City Vision and provides a template for a roadshow for the U.K that can serve as a catalyst for growing church and business unity in any city, resulting in co-ordinated transformational action built upon godly values and the country’s rich Christian heritage. The response from delegates to the City Vision approach was so positive on the day, with the phrase “You’re onto something!” the refrain that’s been consistently fed back at previous events."

Ben Woollard, City Vision Development Director and Naz Masih, City Vision Project Coordinator led a morning session to encourage business leaders to see their work as an act of service to God that’s as relevant for their city as time spent in church.

Ben said, “There was a sense at the conference of a growing momentum of godly transformation in cities right across the UK.”
  
David Barker, the founder of the Centrist Political party joined the conference for an expert Q&A panel to discuss how the churches of a city can engage with their local government for the transformation of their communities.

Tim Coleman, Communications Director for City Vision, shared from his local government experience, taking delegates through the inner workings of how a city in the U.K functions and how to engage with and influence local government policies.

Eugene Ajayi from the Aylesbury Church Network also gave delegates some tried and tested methods and processes from the front line of positive local change.

Finally Richard Gamble from The Wall (www.thewall.org.uk) – shared his vision and an update on the UK’s first national prayer monument, with its associated answered prayer database, on how it could connect cities across the country and be a national catalyst for prayer.

Discussions continued after the conference had finished around the possibility of boroughs of London serving other boroughs in a “twinning” relationship of mutual service and the sharing of ideas/best practice in the context of transformation.

You can view the videos that were shown at the conference on the City Vision Vimeo channel.

There is also a bigger picture emerging as a number of national transformation ministries begin to work together and serve one another.

His Kingdom Come,

Tim and the City Vision team.

If you’re interested in City Vision running a conference in your city to stimulate and facilitate transformation please call the City Vision office on 01924 379796.