The Future Church
Sunday 07 March 2021
I love what Brian Houston, the pastor of Hillsong church says, he says this churches aren't built on the gifts or talent of a few, but on the sacrifices of many. We are in the middle of a little vision series. Last two weeks ago, we celebrated five years and, as we've been celebrating all that God has done over those five years, Rachel and I have found ourselves so many times being so thankful, so grateful for the many of you who have sacrificed to be a part of this vision. Everyone who's financially given, everyone who's prayed for God's favour, everyone who's given of their time to volunteer in different ways. Your sacrificial service and giving has made such a difference.
In fact, none of what we have seen over the last five years, would've been possible without you. So thank you. In the midst of what has been such a challenging disruptive year plus, with the pandemic with buildings being shut in so many different ways of having to gather as church, in the midst of all these difficulties, we've actually seen God do so much amongst us and through us.
In fact, in some ways I believe as a church, we've seen our vision to be light for the city being outworked in ways that we've never ever seen before. God is doing something extraordinary in our midst. I mean, just take, Love Your Neighbour for example. Since we planted this church as a leadership team, we've constantly been praying and asking God, how can we best connect and serve in this area?
We don't wanna just be a church that gathers to worship on a Sunday. We wanna scatter and we wanna carry good news wherever we go. It feels like over a year, God has exploded this amazing work of Love Your Neighbour. Love Your Neighbour is our way of serving and loving people around us. And since the lockdown, we have served 16,416 people with food parcels. That equates to serving over 250,000 meals to people in this area.
Love Your Neighbour. We've made 1,495 phone calls to people in the area, and we're now regularly supporting and connecting with 632 people who all live close by to our buildings. It's been amazing what people have done. We've initiated over this year all of these different streams. We've got a food bank which provides emergency food parcels for those in need. We have Money Matters, which is providing support for non-regulated financial needs. Hopefully this is gonna come up on the screen. We've got a debt center, regulated financial support for more complex issues. We have a shopping service providing assistance in acquiring groceries for those that can't afford them.
We have a befriending team, who are making connections with those in the community that need a listening ear. There's Stay & Play, drop in sessions for families to connect. There's Kids Matter, which is delivering accessible, effective parenting training for parents who need that. There's Safer Families, which is providing support, creating community amongst children, young people and families. All of this stuff has exploded into life over the last year because of people's generosity and giving. To date, 98 people have either served through Love Your Neighbour, or are currently serving Love Your Neighbour and it's just been stunning, what God has done. And as a church, your financial generosity has enabled us to pour 150,000 pounds into Love Your Neighbour to do all of this thing, at a great time of need we've been able to be quick and generous to respond, and that's because of you. So thank you. Also externally as a church, we've been able to be a part of seeing 35,000 pounds given to other various ministries, whether it's Urban Devotion or Worship Central, where the vision to train worship leaders, Birmingham City Mission, Elayos, Newbigin House, St. Chad's church. At a time of challenge, we've been able to be generous and God's been so faithful.
So that's Love Your Neighbour. But beyond that as a church community, a family, we're seeing growth in the midst of all these challenges. Currently there are 556 people in Gas Street small groups that's spread out over 37 groups. We have a hundred students engaging with zooms and all sorts of things. On Friday night, they had a prayer meeting and it's amazing what's happening with students. With our youth and kids, our youth, there's 55 young people on our books and every Wednesday there are youth hubs and about 35 on average at gathering to pray and worship and play Fortnite together. With our children, you know, Gas Street Kids has been engaging loads of people. We've got about 200 plus kids connected in with our church.
Alpha. You know, currently we have 67 people doing alpha online and since lockdown began, we've seen 250 people sign up to do Alpha. That's more than we've ever usually seen in a year. God is at work. And then, two weeks ago, we had a Hello and Welcome zoom where we could connect with new people, and we had 50 people who've moved to the city who are new to Gas Street wanting to find out "How can I plug in? How can I make this my home?" We've seen growth and expansion in a time of lockdown. Why? Because God is at work. God has been so faithful.
And so today I just wanna take a moment to look at our vision. What do we feel God is calling us too? And I've been involved, over the last month or so, in a number of conversations, asked to speak at various things, where the question is, "What does the church of the future look like? Let's reimagine. There's been so much shift and change. What does the church of the future look like?"
And as I've tried to reimagine, what I've found myself doing is actually returning. Not reimagining, more returning and looking at what did the church, the early church, what are some of the key distinctives and markers that were so profound and said in place for the early church that saw kingdom expansion?
And I honestly believe that if we are to see God's empowering presence, God's favour and blessing on us as a church, we need to return to some of the things that the church has always done. Things like prayer, things like purity, things like radical, sacrificial faith. The things that don't feel very exciting, but actually they're necessary, and they've never been more essential for the people of God to grab hold of. You know, please listen. I believe God is at work. God's favour and blessings are coming, but we are gonna see his kingdom come, his kingdom being released and unleashed, as we go deeper in being a people of purity. As we grow in being a people of faithful discipline, passionate prayer, as we become more and more expectant in our faith.
I've found myself, over the last month or so, reflecting on Joshua. I love Joshua. And I love the story of God working through the people of Israel. And you'll know the backdrop, you've probably seen the Prince of Egypt. But Moses and the people of Israel, they're held as slaves in Egypt, and God begins to rescue the people of Israel. He leads them out of captivity, through the Red Sea, the miraculous parting of the Red Sea. And God says, he vows to them, that there's a promised land, a land of blessing that God is gonna give to the. Where they can bed down, set up roots, create family. That can be theirs, no longer will they be a Nomadic people, they can have a home. So exciting. But they get through the Red Sea and, because they get things wrong, they end up wandering around the desert for 40 years.
And Moses has now died and God has raised up Joshua as the leader of Israel. And we're gonna see in Joshua Three this amazing moment where God suddenly, early in the morning, suddenly he begins to move. And he begins to lead the people of Israel through another water, the River Jordan. And again, the River Jordan is in full flood, vast amounts of water, and you've gotta see 3 million Israelites cross from one side to the other. And God says, "You start walking, step into the river and watch what I do." And they, in faith, step into the river and a miracle happens upstream. The water stops flowing, and God leads the people of Israel through the river Jordan, through on dry land, to the promised land, their destiny, everything that God had said he'd provide for them.
But just before they begin this miraculous journey, God says this. We read in Joshua three, verse five, "Joshua told the people: 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow. The Lord will do amazing things among you.’" Consecrate yourselves, get ready. Get right before God, because you wait. Ah, God, "I am gonna do stunning wonders amongst you." And I believe this is a word for us. Church, consecrate yourselves. God is giving us a moment, a window to get right before him, because he is doing, and he is about to do on a level, which we, I believe, have never seen, stunning wonders in our midst.
But we need to get right before God, God is purifying his church. The church of the future I long to see is a pure church whose walk is blameless, people who are kind or people who are true to God's word and we've seen it.
God is beginning to expose. He's bringing it out of the darkness, into the light, any sin, any attitudes, any behaviour patterns that just do not match up to the person, the beauty of Jesus Christ. And we're seeing it public leaders falling from grace because God is beginning to purify his bride, purifying his church, cuz he's called us to be a holy people.
and for me, as I've reflected back on so much of 20, 20 and 2021, I've seen that in my life, God's been purifying me. You know, this lockdown, this pandemic has been so disruptive, it's been painful. And some of these things that we can hide behind activities, things that we do that can kind of enable us to forget the real us.
We've not been able to do them. And I've found, I've discovered the real. And it's not been pretty. It's not always been pleasant. I think we've seen the best of each other, but we've also seen the worst of each other. And I've discovered at times how selfish I can be, how unkind I can be. Just my attitudes, my ambitions, the greed within me, all that's in me that isn't pleasing to the Lord.
And I've at times found myself humbled before God. He he's been purifying me. I believe he's been purifying us. Anyone who has had to homeschool. I am convinced God, it would've been purifying him. Anyone who's had to worry over finances has been furloughed or been made redundant. You you'll know what it's like to fill everything being stripped away.
But I believe this purification we've been walking through is a gift. Why, why is this a gift you might ask? Because when God begins to move, he starts by purifying. His people purifying his church, a period of repentance and consecration will always proceed a great move of God, consecrate yourselves. Why?
Because tomorrow the Lord will do great things among you and for the people of Israel, the way they'd consecrate themselves is they. Wash their clothes, wash their bodies as a symbolic way of saying, God, we want to get right before you, we offer you everything that we are. You know, we we've sometimes in the church reduced holiness and purity to, you know, it's not watching naughty things late at night on the internet or it's, it's not swearing and it's not having too much to drink.
Purity and holiness consecration is when we come before God and we say, God, it is all yours. Every part of me, we lay all the pieces of our lives before God at the altar. And we say nothing is off limits. Lord. I want my life to be set around who you are to the truth I read in your word, not what society, not what culture might say.
However, convincing that might sound. Lord my money and my resources, my career, and my future, my family and my relationships, my sexual ethics and behaviour and choices. Lord, all of it is at the disposal is surrendered before you. And if your word says something different to what I want or what the world would say, I ultimately choose you.
That is purity. That is holiness. And what happens when something is consecrated, it suddenly becomes sacred. when something is consecrated, something that is ordinary and common suddenly becomes noble and worthy. And what happens is the people of God. When we consecrate ourselves, when we go through this process of surrender and say, Lord, it's all yours.
God says, brilliant. I will make you holy. I'll take you at your word. And because of the blood of Jesus Christ that has the power to wash away all of our sin, every stain, all the junk within our lives. Suddenly God looks at us and says, you, you are holy people. Yes. You get things wrong. Yes, you sin. Yes. You make mistakes.
But I see Jesus living in you and therefore you are holy. And because we are. God begins to entrust us with his kingdom. He begins to entrust us with the riches of who he is, and we begin to steward a great move of God. Not because we're perfect because Jesus is alive in us. And we recognise the depths of our failings and we recognise our limits and our weakness.
And we come before him and say, God, all of you, I need all of you. I surrender everything. I am ask that you'd breathe in and through me so that we could be a part of seeing these great things we know that you're gonna do. And so this is a season for us to get right before God, to consecrate ourselves.
We're gonna have to look at this a whole bunch more as a church, but this is exciting. Second thing, I feel a key distinctive for the church of the future is prayer. Again, one of the most exciting things I feel we've seen as a church is a galvanising of prayer. You know, the Tuesday mornings, Thursday nights, Insta live prayer meetings have been amazing. Praying together, prayer emojis. It's been fun, but we've specifically prayed into lots of things. We've heard stories of healings, and we've just been able to faithfully keep praying for our nation, for our city, for our church. It's been wonderful. We have a 24/7 sign up where right around the clock, people are praying and it's just been amazing to see, but if we're gonna see more, the fullness of God's kingdom, we need to get serious about prayer.
The church, I believe God has given the church, the keys to breakthrough, the keys for more. God said, "I'm giving them to you", but we don't wanna use them, because the keys are prayer and worship, but we wanna do more exciting things than that. Prayer's pretty hard work. You know, I can feel like I spend time praying and it's like, oh, am I achieving anything?
Like on Sundays, I get up early to do my hour of prayer for the 24/7 prayer room and I'm battling to stay awake. I'm thinking, God, what's going on here, but these are the keys to breakthrough, you know, new businesses, new church plants, new expansion, new breakthroughs in your relationships, in your health, in your finances.
They're found when we get on our knees in prayer. We gotta keep pressing into being a prayerful people and Joshua, as a leader, he understood the significance of prayer. When he served under Moses, there's this beautiful moment that they had the tent of meeting, which is where the people of Israel would gather, and Moses would step into the tent of meeting. And in the tent of meeting, God's presence would reside, his holiness, his awe. And Moses would walk in and God would speak to Moses face to face. And then Moses would go and say to the people of Israel, what God had said. It says in Exodus 33 verse 11: the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend, then Moses would return to the camp but his young aid, Joshua son of Nun, did not leave the tent. Joshua would spend days, weeks, in the tent of meeting on his knees face before the Lord, crying out, praying seeking God. And so it's no surprise, years later, we see him leading the people of Israel into the promised.
What we long to see in Birmingham, what you long to see in your life, what I long to see in my days, the keys are prayer and the church for the future has to be a prayerful church. DL Moody, the great teacher and revivalist, he said "every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure." Oh, we need kneeling figures who are gonna pray and intercede for revival.
We can all do that. And I'd love to encourage us, sign up to the 24/7 prayer room. Go to the website gasstreet.church. Click on prayer. Sign up just an hour a week. It can make such a difference. Get involved with the instant prayer meetings. Tuesday morning, Thursday nights. Grab a friend, commit to praying 30 minutes a week. It's so easy now on zoom. Just pray, pray, pray, because God is at work and we need to pray.
Third distinctive is radical, expectant faith at a time where the world is in chaos. And so much of what we hear about regarding the church and the press is about decline, division, disillusionment. We need a people who have eyes of faith, not to see what the world is perhaps seeing, but say, God is at work.
This is a remarkable opportunity for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, the world is getting darker, but the light of Jesus Christ is shining brighter. I love it, that as we're sharing today, the Pope is in Iraq, I just saw pictures, standing in the rubble of a church that's been decimated by ISIS and he's there symbolising hope, symbolising the love of Jesus Christ. Yes, the world is getting darker, but now is the time for the light of Christ to shine brighter. And you, you sitting in your lounge right now, sitting on your bed, watching this, you are the light of Christ. That's what Jesus says of us. It’s time to shine and we need radical, expectant faith.
And again, Joshua, we see him, he saw differently to everyone else. Moses, when he was leading at one point, he sends 12 men to spy out this promised land that they're trying to enter. What's going on there? What's it like? What kind of enemies are we gonna have to defeat to enter it? And these 12 men go and they come back, and 10 of them, they just breed fear in the camp.
"The enemy's too strong. We can't do it. It's too difficult. Give up hope. It's not gonna happen, game over." But Joshua and Caleb, they come back and they say, "we can certainly do this." They had eyes of faith and it's no surprise that they were the only two from that 12 to finally be there when God leads them into this promised land.
Now is the time for us not to look with eyes of fear, eyes of disillusionment, not to reduce our expectations. Now is the time to be a people of faith. God, we believe you can do the impossible. And we're gonna pray as if you can, as if you're going to, we're gonna give as if you are gonna break through in remarkable ways. God, we wanna be expectant. That's what we need. That's what the early church had. They just had such radical sense of expectancy for what God could do.
So as we look to this coming year and beyond, there's a few things we believe God's been speaking to us about as a leadership team. And we've been praying this through and sharing it with leaders within the church.
The way I see it, the people of God, you, me at Gas Street, we're Word and Spirit disciples. Passionate, surrendered to the word of God, filled with the Spirit of the living God. And we talk about being a community that gathers together and worst and pray like we're doing today, online albeit, but we also scatter in our workplaces, our families, our communities, we share the love of Jesus Christ. But I believe God is giving us three channels of focus, strategy as it were, to carry this vision through. And I've got a picture that's gonna come up, it's my flux capacitor - for anyone who's passionate about Back to the Future, you'll love this. But there's these three things I think God has been opening up for us that we need to keep stepping into. It's church on site, church online, and it's Love Your Neighbour. And I just wanna briefly talk about these three things.
You know, God has a vision for your life, god is doing remarkable things in and through you in your everyday living. But there's a call on us as a community when we gather together. And I wanted to spend a moment talking about onsite. For the last while we've been meeting online, but we're beginning to emerge out of lockdown. And we're planning towards, obviously we have to hold this lightly, but if everything goes well, we're planning towards opening up the doors to this building on April the fourth, which is Easter Sunday. We just think that could be a beautiful way, on the day where we celebrate Jesus' resurrection we begin to open up the doors.
And it's gonna be a little bit different for a while. You're gonna have to wear a mask. We're gonna have to socially distance. We're gonna have to book tickets in advance - they're free, you'll be glad to hear, of course they are - so that we can fit the number of people that we're allowed to fit in here. But God willing, we just believe this is gonna be an amazing way for us to begin to gather together. in person. The church was always called to be an incarnational community. You know, we gather together, we share together, experiencing God together. It's so important. And so we're excited about that.
And, and as part of beginning to reemerge and gather together, one of the things, and we've been talking about this for so long and every time we've tried to step into it, hasn't quite worked, but we're gonna go for it now. We're gonna launch a brand new worshiping community at Gas Street St. Lukes. There is a stunning existing community who have faithfully worshiped and prayed at St. Luke's for many years, but we want to launch a new worshiping community. And it's been remarkable because over the last year St. Lukes has been the hub of Love Your Neighbour. So much of what we've been doing, all the things I was just talking about - they've come out of St. Luke's. We've been sowing seeds, as it were, for a year and now, I believe, is the time for us to begin to reap. And I want to encourage a worshiping community to be down there, so that on Sundays, there are people worshipping and praying and welcoming all these people that we've been serving food to, connecting in with the local primary school, you know, making befriending phone calls, so that when they come in, they experience the love of Jesus Christ. They're a part of a worshiping community where the Spirit of God is being poured out.
We want to encourage people to pioneer in this. I am so excited about this. We've got amazing campus pastors, Tim and Claire Bateman, who've been with us for a year and they're gonna be overseeing this, but I want to ask you to pray, think about serving, committing to worshipping, at Gas Street St. Luke's. This isn't a church plant, you're not leaving Gas Street to do this. We're one church, now worshiping over two campuses. But if you are a pioneer, if you want to be in at the start of God moving in miraculous ways, you want to get down there. And so from the 4th of April, we'll be opening up a new gathering, and we hope that's gonna grow and build.
As we begin to emerge, opening up both at Gas Street St. Luke's and Gas Street Central here, we're gonna need volunteers. We're gonna need people who can serve, hosts and hello and welcome team, to welcome new people in. To encourage people and help people get connected into the heart of the church. We're gonna need, in time, kids and youth helpers, we're gonna need worship teams and production, and I know that there's probably a whole bunch of people you've joined our church over the last year, but you've probably never actually stepped foot in this building. We'd love to encourage people to serve. You know, this is not the time to sit back. This is the time where we need to rebuild. This is a time where we need to rebuild. Please don't wait for someone else to do, choose to play your part. You might have had the vaccine and you feel confident and you're ready to go. Great. You might feel younger and that you are a bit more confident, whatever your stage, we'd love to encourage you to think about getting involved, serving. And if you want to, you can go to our website gasstreet.church/teams, sign up, we'll get in touch. And we're excited about what God is doing as we reemerge. We rebuild. Church on site.
And then the other thing about church on site is church planting. We've always been passionate about church planting, loved hearing stories of what God's doing at St. Mark's Coventry and Anchor Church and Hanzekerk in the Netherlands who are celebrating their second birthday today.We've been a part of that, but we're about to plant a new church in Pype Hayes, St. Mary's. We have an amazing couple, family, Trev and Cat Meardon, who've been with us over the last few months. Again, moving in lockdown, really challenging, but there's an existing congregation and the idea is to begin to gather a new congregation, to worship there, to be a part of what God is doing in that part of the city. I want you to watch this video that just captures something of the vision, and for you to be perfectly asking God, are you calling me to be a part of this new pioneering project?
Let's watch this together.
Trev Meardon: Here we are in Northeast Birmingham in Pype Hayes. Pype Hayes is part of the broader Erdington area and right next to Walmley. It's got a current population of about 11,000 people and it's a growing, diverse area, especially with a growing younger age demographic.
Cat Meardon: Like many great cities, it has great needs. From child food poverty, to loneliness, and the need for some positive youth activities. All of this that's been heightened by what's happened in this last year.
Trev Meardon: The current church community here at Pype Hayes is about 25 to 30 people. They're a bunch of really prayerful and loving people. They're faithfully serving here already, and they can't wait to lean into what's ahead. The love for the lost of dates back to 1774, when St. Mary's church was at its original site, about a mile away from Gas Street Central, off St. Mary's Road. In 1925, St. Mary's church moved from the centre out here to Pype Hayes.
Cat Meardon: We find it incredible that nearly a hundred years later, God is gathering a team, once again, from the heart of the city to come out here to Pype Hayes and be light bearers across the city. In 2010, while we were pastoring Eternity Youth church in Bracknell, we heard the words "I'm calling you into the fire." Now, a journey of refinement isn't comfortable, but through it, we knew with a hundred percent certainty, God was calling us to where we are right now.
The site here has some amazing potential - as you can see, it is huge - and we would absolutely love to see it flourish.
Trev Meardon: We envision this space being a really warm and welcoming area, somewhere where we can host a cafe and have Love Your Neighbour, a food bank and drop-ins, as well as Alpha courses and prayer meetings and other community activities all throughout the week. We want it to be a creative, warm, and light space, somewhere where people can be blessed, both practically and encounter the life changing love of God.
Our heart is to see this community blessed by the love of Jesus. To see lives transformed as they encounter the Holy Spirit.
Cat Meardon: We are so excited that already we are exploring a partnership with Urban Devotion Birmingham.
Andy Winmill: We're looking forward to working together on initiatives that help young people rewrite their narratives, where we've got domestic abuse and teenage pregnancy, youth violence and drug abuse. We wanna see young people really thrive and realise their potential.
Ruth Harrington: We'll be doing this by walking the streets, connecting with the local primary schools and secondary schools. We'll just be chatting to young people as we meet them, connecting with their families. We are just so excited to get started.
Trev Meardon: So here are three ways that you can get involved. Firstly, we would love for you to pray for us, to pray for the community here at Pype Hayes and the vision for us to be light in this place.
Cat Meardon: Secondly, why don't you consider joining us if you'd like to find out a bit more email hello@gasstreet.church, because we would absolutely love to connect with you.
Trev Meardon: And finally, after Easter we are hosting a Gas Street group all about exploring what the church plant will be like here in Pype Hayes, so join us and we would love to pray with you to see what a God is saying about what he's doing here in Pype Hayes.
Tim Hughes: Awesome. So exciting, isn't it. And maybe God's calling you to get involved and we're gonna be sharing more about this over this year, but believing God's gonna do great things at Pype Hayes. So that's church on site, but then church online. We've seen God do something really special over this last year plus. January, 2020, we gathered our leaders together and we had a prophetic friend called John Scott come and speak. And he said, "God is gonna open up multimedia for you as a church, there's gonna be favour on this." Who would've known six weeks later, everything was multimedia, but we've seen God just use the gifts and some of the team that God's gathered here to really take church online and for it to reach so many people.
On a Sunday through YouTube, if you're watching on YouTube, shout it out, 3,750 people are subscribing to gather with church online. On a Sunday morning, this is taken from January, on a Sunday morning at 10:00 AM, live gathered - that's all of us together over the different devices - we have 1,677 people connecting. That's just at the 10:00 AM. And then obviously loads more watch it throughout the week. That's significant growth from what we were seeing when we gathered here on a Sunday in person. And online, throughout January, 19,800 people have engaged with Sunday online. They've joined us for the worship or for the teaching. It's been amazing to see real growth and expansion. And this is an incredible opportunity, I believe church online to communicate the gospel. We we're seeing that we're able to reach new people with the story of who Jesus is, and I think the church of the future, of course it's gonna be on site, incarnational, but this online opportunity is a gift I believe from God, for us, and we need to keep being faithful and stepping into it. Recent research found that unchurched adults who, they used the phrase their high digital openness now I don't quite know what counts as being highly digitally open, but you can use YouTube or Facebook, for those unchurched adults who are that, 87% said that they'd be really interested in watching church online. That's massive. 87% of adults would be open to connecting with church online. And we're seeing that - new people coming, people inviting their friends, unchurched engaging with church through online.
You know, just two weeks ago, we had our fifth birthday and we received the most amazing email. To be honest, we get emails most weeks from people, unchurched or people who've lost their way, finding faith through Gas Street online.
But this stunning story came in, this 23 year old guy shared his story. He grew up in the church, but turned his back. He'd gone off and basically he'd lived a life and he was lost, he was at the end of himself, he was completely broken and confused. And he found himself crying out God "help", basically. "I need to find purpose." And through a bunch of random connections, he found himself two weeks ago, watching Gas Street church online.
He sent this beautiful email in, it said "This morning, after finishing work at 10:00 AM, I drove home and asked my parents to put on your YouTube channel. As my parents and I watched together, I felt so emotional as I watched. I couldn't help, but think I want to be part of what this church is doing and what they stand for. I want to be part of this family. My eyes were welling up the entire time and I burst into tears on several occasion. Everything you discussed, including shame, addiction, returning to faith, it all resonated with me. It spoke to me, it renewed my faith. For the first time in my life. I felt completely moved by the message of God that I was receiving. Watching along, even from the sofa in my living room, it felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be at exactly the right moment. It felt like God was speaking directly to me."
How amazing is that? He'd have never come into this building, but he's watching online and, God willing, he's gonna become a part of our church and our family. And I believe there are so many more people who are engaging with us online, and now's not the time to shut it down. Now's the time to say, God, continue to blow and breathe through this to extend your kingdom. We're also called as a church to be a resource church. And we're seeing that as a church through online ministries, being able to resource and encourage others. Again, so many emails coming in, people who are committed and a part of a local church elsewhere, but finding that they are getting encouragement or envisioned through what we're doing. And that's a part of what we're called to do.
And we have all these ministries as a part of our church. We've got Gas Street Music, we're launching our EP next Friday, it's going to be amazing, called Rewilding. And there's so much more to come there. We've got Worship Central, which is a global ministry to train and equip worship leaders, but it's based here. We've got Worship for Everyone, which Nick and Becky Drake are doing through schools and churches, encouraging the whole family to worship. All the stuff that's happening through Gas Street online, our Sundays. We have an amazing leadership program, which we could get out there. There's so many resources that God has placed within us that I believe, through church online and our online ministry, can encourage the global church. So we're so grateful for people who've invested and enable us to step out in church online. But I believe this is a channel, a vehicle where God is gonna continue to move and bless.
And then finally, finally Love Your Neighbour. Wow. What God has done through love Your Neighbour is possibly the most exciting thing we've seen since we've planted Gas Street. I feel like we're finally doing everything that we've talked about, being light for the city and serving our community. And it costs money, we've been generous in, in releasing that, but we need to find ways to make it financially sustainable. But this isn't a moment to think "Okay, there's a global crisis. This is a momentary opportunity to serve the needs of those around us. And then when the pandemic calms down, we'll kind of wind it up." No, this is the first step out and there's so much more. And some of these have already just begun to start up, or if not, they're gonna start soon. We're setting up a job club, I think it maybe met for the first time this week, helping job seekers gain tools, skills, confidence, to step back into employment.
We're setting up a sensory space. We've been given some grant money to do this at Gas Street St. Luke's, where people in the community with children with additional needs can come and engage with all - I don't fully know what's gonna be going on in that room but from things I've been told it sounds amazing, I want to be in it. And then on Sundays, you know, families whose children perhaps find certain things overwhelming, just a designated space where they can find love and hope.
Detached youth work, we're setting this up. We've got two unbelievable people who are pioneering this work, and we're gonna be connecting with the local schools, mentoring young people. Oh my goodness. Do young people need mentoring. People who are gonna champion them, believe in them, speak life and hope over them. Amazing.
And then this music therapy initiative, which will be for parents and carers to help support kids in their developmental needs, understanding perhaps emotionally what's been going on over the last year or so.
It's just beautiful, what God is doing, what God is doing through Love Your Neighbour. And we want to keep stepping out in this. As I said, we've got this debt centre, CAP, which we are seeing so much opportunity to connect with leaders and people.
And so, 2021, we've got to continue to see how we can sustain it, how we can grow it and how we can be faithful to what God has opened up in and through us.
So there's a lot. It's exciting. I hope you are feeling excited. If you're feeling excited, put a little praise emoji up. We can have a little praise break - A) thank you God, for what you've done, and B) thank you God, for what you're gonna do. And I wanna be a part of it.
How can we respond? We're gonna finish here, and the band come up, cause we're gonna move into worship. I know we've been a bit longer, talk wise than usual, but just we want to communicate what we feel God is saying and calling us to. Here's the deal - how can we respond? Obviously, prayer. As I said, we need to get serious about praying for what God is doing at this time. So, so important. But if we're gonna do all of this, planting St Mary's Pype Hayes, continuing to pour into Love Your Neighbour, getting onsite up and running over two sites, pouring into young people, students, building community, discipleship, it costs money.
And wow, people are so generous. We're so unbelievably grateful for your generosity. But this is a stretch. This is gonna be a stretch. And as a PCC, our leadership group, as it were, within this church, we've pulled together a vision for this year, which is a vision full of faith, but also hopefully out of wisdom, godly wisdom. And we are believing, on top of everything that's coming in, if everything was to stay the same, we would see a hundred thousand pounds shortfall. But we're believing things aren't gonna stay the same, because we're believing God is gonna unlock generosity, unlock resources. We long to see another hundred thousand pounds coming in on top of what is already regularly coming in, to enable us to do all the things that we're called to do.
We have currently 319 regular giving units. Now a giving unit, I'm a family of seven, so our giving is classified as one giving unit. 319 giving units regularly giving. Your next step might be you feel you're a part of this church, maybe you've connected over the last few months online, but this is now your home church. I'd love to encourage you, if you're not already, become a regular giver.
We encourage all our churches, as part of our discipleship as part of our worship, to regularly give. That the first bit of money that comes out of your account each month is your giving to God. But you're giving to his work amongst us in Birmingham, through Gas Street.
And so I'd love to think that over the next couple of weeks, we might see that 319 become 350. It'd be amazing if it was even more, but that'd just be so encouraging that there are all these people who are saying "I'm in, I'm in, I'm jumping into the river. I'm jumping into this vision. I can't think of anything better to invest in than seeing all of this life and blessing and kingdom and investing in all that is to come." that might be your next step. Becoming a regular giver.
Secondly, your next step might be, you're already regularly giving, but maybe your next step could be just increasing that giving. Maybe by 1%, maybe by five pounds a month, maybe by 50 pounds a month. You know, our giving needs to constantly be considered before God, you don't set it up and then don't look at it for the next 20, 30, 40 years. Daily, yearly, before God, "Lord, what are you saying about giving and generosity?" It might be, you can stretch your giving, stretch in becoming a generous person. This is before you and God, you gotta figure this out, but maybe that could be your next step. For others, maybe it's a one off gift. Again, I hope you've noticed throughout this whole week, through the devotions, through some of the correspondence, we've been encouraging people to prayerfully considering what you are giving might look like, between you and God. But for some of you, you're regularly giving, but God might be calling you to give a one-off gift, over and above what you regularly give.
Now, this last year has been incredibly challenging. You know, we've all been in the same storm, but we've not been in the same boat. For some people, financially you've been hit so hard, you've been decimated and we wanna pray and believe that in the midst of that God will meet you. And we want to take off you pressure or guilt around giving. Just before you and God figure out what it looks like for you. Trusting that God will provide you. God will honour you.
But for others, I was reading about it, 6 million people in the UK have saved vast amounts of money throughout this year. Not going on a holiday, not having all these expenditures of meals and activities. Some of you, you might have saved a lot of money. And what are you gonna do with it? Is God speaking to you about maybe that could be, invested in his kingdom, in what God is doing in and through us? I want you to pray and ask God, "what are you calling us, me to do as part of my giving?" And then the final thing is, you might be tracking with us online, but you're a part of a local church.
And I know a number of you are. And we wanna say, and please, please, please hear me here. Give your giving your tithe, your whatever it is, to your local church. Please don't give it to us. Give it to your local church. I think that is the biblical model - the community you're a part of, you give there. But there are some who, you've been tracking online and the online teaching and ministry has encouraged you in your faith.
And it might be, you want to give a small one-off gift to say, "Look, I've been so blessed and I want to just say, thank you. And I want to invest in all that God is doing in this church and the church online." That might be something you want to do. Not at the expense of your giving to you local church, in addition to.
So we are gonna pray. I want people to stand up now. Wherever you are, stand up, let's put our hands on our hearts. Your heart's on your left hand side, and we're gonna pray, because this is a moment between you and God. We're gonna sing a song. And as we sing a song, on the screen, you're gonna see a QR code you can scan, which would take you to our website, gives you all the information about how you can give, you can just go straight to the website, gasstreet.church/give.
So I said, you can give a one off gift. You could set up a standing order. Say that you're regularly giving, but all of us, let's be praying "God, what are you calling us to do?" So, Spirit of the living God, we thank you. Thank you for your generosity to us. Thank you that you always lead us into life, into favour, into blessing. Thank you Lord, that you care about us. You never leave us nor forsake us. You are good to us. Every good and perfect gift is from you. Thank you, that as Nick Drake was reminding us last week, all that we have is not ours. It's yours. And when we live life like that, you promise to provide for us.
And Lord, we thank you for what you've been doing through Love Your Neighbour, through church online, for what you're gonna start to do through church on site as we gather again. Lord, we pray that you'd come and revive us. You'd come and empower us. You'd come and lead us into promised land. Lord, may we be a people who walk purely, holy, blameless, before you. May we be a people who are on our knees, crying out for revival.
Not willing to settle for anything less than a wild, radical sovereign move of God. And Lord release generosity amongst us, wild, radical faith and expectancy. Lord, we don't wanna get comfortable. We don't wanna get safe. We don't wanna invest money in things that won't last. Lord help us to be a generous people.
Show us what that looks like. And so let's begin to worship. As we do, I want to encourage you just to think and pray about what you are giving might look like. And then we're gonna gather back in a moment and pray for one another. Let's go for it.