Testimony is powerful. When I hear what God is doing in your life, how you got to where you are now, I’m encouraged. My faith and expectation rises for God to move in my life and those around me, as I hear your stories. Whether they are stories of being held by God through struggles, or miraculous answered prayer, stories of faith are always encouraging. At our Testimonies Sunday I...
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Find experiences, updates and feedback on the life of the church.
Life Church Team Leader Succession Planning Context For the last few years I’ve been leading our eldership team through some of the principles and aspects of Senior Leader succession planning - to enable us as a team and as a church to navigate the journey from me as the ‘founding pastor’ to a leader for the future. We’ve been working on it together, with the help of John and others...
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A Sabbatical for James You will know that James Hatcher is a huge blessing and a gift to Life Church. He has been at my side since before we planted the church, and I thank God for his indescribable gift in James. James is both our Operations Manager and a fellow elder. Between 23rd October and Christmas 2023, James shall be taking a sabbatical. Some of you will be asking...
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In 1 Peter Chapter 5, Peter has a bunch of things to say to the church about how Elders are supposed to lead and serve the church – which is what I explored when I was preaching on those verses last week (catch up here). But something significant is almost invisible in those verses – Peter constantly talks about elders in the plural. In this passage, it is assumed that...
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‘Would you like to come to my church on Sunday?’ ‘No, thanks though.’ ‘Would you like to come to my church on Sunday?’ ‘Yes please!’ No one died. No one fell out with each other. No one was offended. Someone could find life. You will hear contrasting views when you look at the subject of how people come to faith in Jesus. Some will champion ‘Friendship Evangelism’ and ‘Being...
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You may know that God has often and persistently spoken to us about being like a life boat as a church. That means that we’re on a mission to rescue those who are drowning in all sorts of areas of life and primarily to offer them rescue in the person of Jesus Christ. I sensed that God was actually calling us to buy a building more like a boathouse; a marine skills centre; a place to launch all sorts of rescue craft from. Rather than looking for a building to gather everyone to, it was to be a building that we could send many out on mission from.
Fast forward 15 years or so and here we are having our own gift day for the refurbishment of a building; The Boathouse. There have been many gift days in churches and at Commission festival gatherings where God has prodded my heart and my wallet again and again and every time…
Exciting times! It has been so thrilling to see the church re-engaging and many new people joining us on our shared adventure, as well as seeing life begin to happen at The Boathouse. One Church We have an amazing opportunity to celebrate all the progress this Sunday as we all come together for our first One Church Sunday in two years! I really want to encourage members of...
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The football transfer window closes today on Tuesday 31st August, new signings, star players signing new contracts and seeing players go on to new things. All part of the joy of transfer deadline day for any football fan! Life Church have been busy during this summer season – get the lowdown on all the comings and goings exclusively here... DONE DEALS David McNeeElderFull-time Signed for Life Church after a long...
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It’s hard to believe that it's been a whole year since I called my first CAP client, on the day the debt centre opened. When I say that the debt centre ‘opened’ what I really mean is that I switched my phone on, opened up the laptop and was ready for clients to book in. In the pandemic world that we have been living in, the debt centre has been run...
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At last! From July 19th 2021 we can begin looking ahead with fresh faith and a sense of emerging into a new era in the life of the church. These last 16 months have been extraordinary. I would like to take a moment to commend to you our outstanding staff and volunteer team and interns. Together they have helped us navigate our lifeboat through some choppy waters! They have been...
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Six months in I’m trying to work out what an ordinary day as a CAP Debt Centre Manager looks like. I’m not sure there’s such a thing as an ordinary day! There have been good days, and challenging days, but all in all I feel really privileged to be able to do this work. A good day was when I heard that our first client had gone debt free. He...
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We are (still) making progress on both the purchase of 11 Cranbury Terrace (11CT), and the sale of The Life Centre. You’ll have noticed the absence of any announcements – indicating that we aren’t quite there on the purchase of 11CT yet! On our side, we have everything in place and are ready to proceed as soon as a few remaining legal matters are concluded. Join us in praying that...
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You may be thinking it’s been a little quiet on the Cranbury Terrace building front recently, and from an outward perspective you would be right. However, like a swan serenely gliding across a lake, the feet are pedaling hard out of sight. The process is not dissimilar to purchasing a house - our people talk to their people - more discussions happen, paperwork is generated, checked, queried, double checked and...
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Since the beginning of Lockdown in March we've held 20 Sunday services online, taken part in over 150,000 minutes of worship to God between us all, seen people follow Jesus for the first time and all had technical issues at some point! We've held almost 100 prayer meetings, made dozens of videos and shared it all as 1 family. It's been an incredible season of change, adaptability and learning for all...
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Generally, I’m a very destination focused person: I like outcomes and measurable results. I like to know why I’m doing something and what it’s going to achieve. God, however, seems to be more interested in the process; in the path that I take, as much as where it leads. He cares about my motives, about what is in my heart. I remember once hearing a Christian speaker sharing how he...
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by Dave McNee Back in January this year, none of us would have come close to predicting the kind of shape that 2020 would take – and had anyone seen the little news there was of Covid-19 in China and other East-Asian nations at the time and made predictions of the country going into months of lockdown we would have dismissed them as ‘catastrophising’. It is worth remembering that there...
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by Chris Kilby In the words of protest singer Bob Dylan, ‘The Times they are a' Changing.’ We have much adventure ahead, and are excited at the new things God is doing in us personally and as a church. God has been leading us since the end of last year into a renewed passion to pray, to love one another, and to serve our city. Life Church, we’re all on...
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by Dave McNee Generally speaking – Life Church is a contemporary church; most of the songs we sing were written in my lifetime, you can get all the communication that the church puts out digitally, there is no element of our Sunday meetings that doesn’t use some kind of technology, we use tablets to sign up for stuff and those tablets aren’t made of stone, we even have occasional gatherings...
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by Chris Kilby One of my deepest joys in ministry life is the opportunity to see God at work through the local church in the nations of the world. Being part of an international family of churches that is planting and growing churches around the globe is such an honour. In 2003 I was first invited to visit North East India and Nepal – not knowing at the time that...
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by Si Munsie All across the UK, the August bank holiday weekend was bathed in sunshine and there were festivals and events everywhere you looked: from the iconic Reading & Leeds and Notting Hill carnival, to the sun-avoiding Insomnia gaming festival in Birmingham to the more obscure Marathon du Malton – a 10k race whilst quaffing craft ales, munching on lobster brioche and roust grouse before finishing with macarons…sounds like...
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