Empower at St Pauls Church Gardens aka Sheffield Peace Gardens

Yes, I'm being pedantic.  It's been the Peace Gardens since redevelopment after the Church was demolished in 1938.  But I get a bit fed up with former faith ventures being assimilated into civic space and squishy liberal values.  Just thought I'd say it.

So, Empower.  Mary and I left Sheffield to go to Leeds in early 2006.  By then the momentum in the city for church leaders to meet together was rapidly evaporating.  In years before that - probably a legacy of the House Church movement, Billy Graham and John Wimber - the lively churches used to do stuff together regularl.  These were often in the University Octagon theatre.  We've been to some excellent events.  True, they were pretty middle class affairs, but those were the churches making the running.

When we came back to Sheffield, towards the end of 2010, I sought out old connections.  Things had moved on.  But a small group, half typical churches and half black majority, was venturing a quarterly praise and prayer celebration.  We liked it, and became Empower regulars.

What do I like about it?  Well, you'll have gathered it's diverse and grass-roots.  The worship is led by a team committed to supporting the vision, and they do well.  The events go from place to place (that is, church to church), so the ministry takes a wide swathe of the city in its interest.  And it isn't stuffy.  You can creep to the refreshments table at any point.

A warm welcome for all

 Gathering for an outdoor event was a 'first', and the evening couldn't have been nicer.  Mary and I arrived a few minutes after the worship got underway, and found a bit of shade.  Folks were aimiably sitting around enjoying the fine weather.  The celebrants for England's 6-1 win were back down Division Street, so not intruding.  With my critical ear for the music, I winced at the over-driven speaker system.  Somebody should have assembled a bit more kit and allowed us a kinder sound, especially as the band were giving it their best.

The Street Pastors were much in evidence, partly stewarding it seemed, but also engaging in lots of conversations and handing out lollipops.  This ministry has emerged in the city fairly recently, and it's doing well.  There are Hospital Pastors in A&E at Northern General, too.

From the stage, various leaders led in prayer around six areas of public life.  They used the template widely adopted by 'Gather' and 'Together' groups: politics/government, education, health, business, faith, and arts and media.  The mix was good.  I've never prayed for the on-line gaming industry before (even though our grandson Ben aims to make it his job).  Our old friends Ray Booth and Martin Lawton wandered by and said, "Hello."  But after and hour and a half, sadly, support began to drift away.  We stayed for the final shout: "Jesus Christ is Lord!".

A great way to spend the evening.  It's one of the things we'll be sorry to leave behind when Mary and I land in Warwickshire.  Nike, Jon, Mousa, Laura and Jonathan - keep building up the work.

Music and Worship

Rob was due to be in Leeds for a gig ('lounge concert' is the current fave description).  He offered to our Jesus Centre events team that on his way north, he would do us an evening, too.  The posters went up, the Parlour Cafe volunteers were put on stand-by, and Clive wired up some speakers. 

Meanwhile, John and Jennie said they'd like to come up and treat Mary and me to lunch (which doesn't happen very often, from any benefactors).  Third, it was due to be a full weekend of Burn activities, including a Friday evening event, 14 hours of worship on Saturday, and an afternoon's outreach in Fargate.

I thought I did well with the Friday morning: up at 5.30 to unload the food order; our household prayer time; an hour at 'Hallam Active' to keep my trainer (Nathan, not Andy, as previously posted) happy; rush to see Ian, our new Jesus Centres' treasurer; and finally an hour with Kat, Zeb and Zane, before John and Jennie arrived - slightly late.  Nevertheless lunch was pleasantly relaxed.  Then they chipped off to have a walk in the Peaks (despite a biting wind), while Mary had her customary afternoon rest.  I got in some preparation on our year's scriptures on discipleship, ready for giving teaching the next time we're in Coventry.  In the Jesus Centre main hall, the Film Afternoon found Colin Firth struggling to overcome his nervously-induced speech difficulty.  I was surprised no-one gave a "tut".

John and Jennie skipped joining us for tea, as the weather had sent them scrambling for warmth into the Fox House pub.  Rob was in full swing when I arrived at the Cafe.  We had a good local turnout, and as an encore he sang about his Grandma being in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  It emerged that Liz's mother had been in the equestrian team.  You couldn't make up some things!

Rob and Jean had a leisurely breakfast in our kitchen, then went on their way.  Three birthdays today; so I texted Mick and my mate Dave, then rang Faye (six).  The afternoon gave Mary and I a chance to see James and the team at the Burn, while Steven hoped to catch up with their city centre spot.  Woodseats Baptist Church is an unprepossessing stone chapel adjacent to the Chesterfield Road. 

The two tea-station insulated jugs were empty.  I sought out the kitchen and boiled up four kettles, along the way discovering two coffee makers, a cupboard full of biscuits and a stash of Yorkshire teabags.   Some churches know how to do generous.

Around 5pm the Empower band took over.  They lead the quarterly prayer concert by that name, and had been heading up the worship on Fargate.  Here I must allow a sensitive comment: it was the cross on the platform.  First, it had draped across the horizontal bar, something that looked like a tea towel.  Yes, I know it was supposed to be discarded grave-clothes - but in January?  Then the upright was plastered with multicoloured post-it notes.  Yes, I know they were probably some prayers, confessions or burdens that folks had been invited to 'bring to the cross'.  Finally two bright red heart-shaped balloons were floating above it.  Again, probably the remnant of a message that God has shown us the greatest love.  But imagine a first-time visitor...  Altogether, it was odd.  (But our house probably has some equally weird trappings.)

I'm sure it's Rachel who sings - she looks like a Rachel.  Well, after an hour she psalmed, "I feel like I've been singing all day, Lord.  But I've got a little bit left in the jar, and I'm going to give it to You.  'Cos that's what I want my like to be like, and to be for... You..."  Comparing notes with Steven later, I found they'd been equally engaging in the outdoor scene.  They'd given testimonies standing on planters, and then retired to Starbucks where they'd prayed with folks.  Jesus Army - your anointing's passed on.

I was leading Sunday morning.  In fact I don't need to make that point, because now I always do (well, apart from twice - before the end of July).  I led the pre-teaching worship into "I lean not on my own understanding", and folks 'got it'.  There is hope.  I spent the afternoon re-listening to some of the Burn songs I'd noted.  Stevo kindly explained who Kari Jobe is. 

With meetings in Northamptonshire on Monday, I opted to drive to Kings after our evening bible study and a bite of supper.  The weather didn't look too good (it was -4C next morning, and the canal was frozen when I delivered Faye's present).  Steve looked in good shape.  But the house family were worried about Dave, whose ageing parents are giving him increasing concern, and Mavis, a member in her late 80's, who'd fallen and was in hospital.  It's interesting how mortality and eternity can simultaneously draw close. 

Sheffield Praise Day 2014

The roll-out starts on Thursday, when the carpets go down in Ponds Forge's main auditorium.  I'm becoming a veteran at this, but was trapped between driving back up the M1 after two days of meetings and the earlier start arranged for the job.   Jamie was game to give a hand, and it turned out that Pastor Freddie, who uses the Jesus Centre for his Sunday church events, brought a bunch of his guys, too.  So we made cracking progress.  We were finished soon after 10pm, which is a whole lot better than the midnight or later of previous years.

On Friday, while the Untamed bus and evangelism crew were in the city centre again, Carl Beech dropped in for coffee at the Jesus Centre.  He's (until the end of the year) the front man of Christian Vision for Men, and he's speaking at the evening event at our next Men Alive for God day.  You can catch him on Premier Radio's regular Sunday Shed Talk programme. 

Empower, Sheffield's quarterly inter-church prayer event, was booked for 24 hours from 7pm Friday until 7pm Saturday.  I got along towards 9pm and stayed until towards 2am.  In a group with folks from Rotherham, we prayed about the churches' response to the recent abuse cases, trying to get behind the media portrayals.  After midnight the worship lead music went acapella: I don't know if 'St Phily' has a late-night 'no noise' restriction like our Jesus Centre.  Next year we'll see if we can prevent the diary overlap.

Clare had flown in from Gibraltar for the weekend, and we'd promised a chat over coffee, as we'd done at London Day in Trafalgar Square.  She arrived at breakfast time, and four of us - including Mary and Steven - spent the morning catching up.  Meanwhile, the house was buzzing with other folks who'd arranged to stay, and No25 was packed with the techie set-up team 'indoor camping'.

When lunchtime arrived at Ponds Forge, most of the back section of bleacher banked seating was roped off so folks didn't spread out too thinly across the hall.   Sadly, the number attending never justified opening up these seats, and it's clear that the event now runs under with under 1,000 folks present.  The afternoon session concentrated on our five core values: Holy Spirit life and movement, new humanity brotherhood, sacrificial love, a culture of sharing, and mission focus.

 In the evening, we found out why the chairs on the floor has been laid out with a circular perimeter.  From above, the layout formed the Arabic letter nun.  At Praise Day we stand with the persecuted church, and the Middle East was in focus.

Back home, over supper we shared about the highlights of the whole event and the evangelism campaign of the preceding days.  A good number of our Jesus Centre Lounge drop-in had attended and got on well.  The presentations were worthy of a packed meeting, but that's part of a bigger challenge of adjustment.