Pastor Agu with the Hope Leadership Team at FOL London.
we will experience in our missional journey… Let us pray and fast, taking control in the spiritual realm, that we might see a continuous transformation of souls in our communities and our nation for Jesus.’ HOPE’s prayer countdown to 2014 starts at the Festival of Life in London’s Excel centre on 18 October 2013 and runs through to 31 January 2014. More than a million copies of HOPE’s Mission Prayer Focus, published by UCB, are being distributed in print and online by HOPE’s partners. The prayers are also available as daily emails from www.ucb.co.uk/prayer. What does HOPE look like? HOPE focuses on key mission moments – a rhythm of mission through the church calendar, using the Christian festivals to connect with people in the neighbourhood around the church: Lent and Easter – Pancakes, Passion Plays, Easter-egg give-aways, shoe shine stalls Pentecost, the Big Lunch and summer festivals – events to build and bless communities Harvest - celebrations and suppers to start courses like Alpha or Christianity Explored Remembrance – with churches taking a lead in 2014’s World War 1 Commemorations Advent, Christmas and New Year – ‘Silent Night’ carol services in sports stadiums Young people are giving a lead to the year of mission through HOPE Revolution Mission Academies (www.hoperevolution.com/mission_academy) with finance from the Church of England’s Youth Evangelism Fund to encourage creative, new and inspiring ways of engaging young people with the Christian faith. HOPE is based on a few simple principles: demonstrating God’s love as local churches work together meeting needs in our communities; continuing to love and serve people whatever they choose to believe; inviting people to go
further in their spiritual journey by sharing the gospel with words in culturally relevant ways; and giving people opportunities to respond to the gospel, then connecting people who do respond into church life. Projects like ‘The Manna Project’ run by Jesus House in London provide a point of contact with people in the community. By using a voucher and donation system, Jesus House is able to reach the local community with the love of Jesus in a tangible way while fighting the poverty that ruins lives. Jesus House has also adopted one of the HOPE ideas by serving pancakes to Brent Cross shoppers in the run-up to Easter. The church – which doesn’t normally mark Pancake Day – teamed up with a mobile creperie to provide pancakes for £1 with a range of toppings. Church members were on hand to explain Lent and Easter, chat about God and pray for people. Several shoppers came to faith right there in the car park! Ade Adedoyin, Head of the Community department at Jesus House, said: ‘Pancake Tuesday is a perfect opportunity to use a much-loved date in the calendar to kick-start the run-up to Easter.’ Roy Crowne added: ‘It takes a lot of humility to say “If we want to reach these people this is what we need to do to reach them”. Although getting heavily into pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is not something they would normally do decided to do this to share Easter hope. They read of the idea in the HOPE for Easter resource and caught the vision.’ As Pastor Agu Irukwu says: ‘Our faith and mission will only become authentic at the junction where our love for God is expressed in our love to our neighbours, without compromising the commission to proclaim the gospel unashamedly.’ Find out more at www.hopetogether.org.uk or contact the HOPE office (office@hopetogether.org.uk 01788 542782) for more information.
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