Reading the Bible, we see all sorts of heroes of the faith who ran their race and whose fruit is still multiplying today. We get the privilege to be the disciples of the 21st century, which means we are still running our race, and we want to run it well. We want the fruit of our lives to be multiplying in generations to come. So before we look ahead to 2018, we wanted to take a look back at some of the fruit of the year in 2017.
Watch the Year in Review
2017 was a great year with the theme We Are The Light. We were declaring that the light of God would come into our lives and that, as a church, this was going to be a year of radical consecration, family dedication, and church multiplication. At the start of this new year, we wanted to look at certain moments and memories that really stuck out to us as a church family as features of 2017. As well as the growth of the global church of Christ (300 million downloads of the Bible app alone!), God is moving here in the UK.
1. Passion for prayer
In addition to the 21 days and 10 days seasonal times of prayer and fasting, we launched 40 days of intercession at the start of the year to see a new level of passion for prayer in the church. Our average daily prayer attendance in 2016 was 7. Throughout the 40 days it was 88, with a high of 123.
2. Developing disciples and leaders
As well as launching 50 leaders at Destiny Training, starting 11 new small groups, training 12 interns on the Internship programme, we held packed conferences for the men, women, and leaders, and moved to London for our G12 UK Conference where Pastors Wes & Adriana hosted over 800 delegates.
3. Focus on the next generation
The Kids Ministry saw much change with the launch of new age groups, a new venue, a new curriculum, and a new Kids Pastor in Pastor Vasti. The Youth Ministry saw growth with weekly Elevate Saturday Services and 50 attending the annual summer camp.
4. Growth in the local church
The church connected with 386 new people, 39 people completed Life Class and we baptised 22 people. At the women’s outreach Sunday after the conference we saw almost 500 in attendance at the Theatre with over 100 men at the event at the H&G. Sunday service attendance grew by 3%. Our digital presence continues to grow with for example over 25,000 reached via Pastor Mel’s testimony video.
5. Worldwide ministry impact
We have seen our senior pastors launched into a new level of apostolic ministry with powerful ministry trips to Colombia, Singapore, Israel, and South Africa; specifically ministering on the topics of family and brokenness. We also continue to support many of our worldwide partners, for example the great work in Burkina Faso and the launch of the Millennium Centre in Israel.
6. Building our teams
It has been an encouraging year in the building of our teams. Where there is team there is conquest. We now have over 300 people serving in various positions across the church. As well as the school and kids teams growth, we launched a new Care & Community Ministry Team, restructured and grew the Events Teams of the church, and strengthened our Governance Team. In the office team we continued to build the internship programme with 12 interns, and recruited 5 new members of the office team.
7. Finishing strong & running the race
We were reminded this year of the importance of running your race well and ‘finishing strong’. The passing and funeral of Douglas Orchard was a moving reminder of this and we honour his life and the lives of others like him; loved and appreciated members of this church. Douglas modelled a life of a Christ-like character, was faithful in service and calling, and kept going through each season from the early days of the church to now. It is faith and faithfulness like this that churches are built on. We are more aware than ever that we "are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,” cheering us on as we run our race.
8. Strengthening The King’s House School
The school has worked very hard this year managing growth, change and pursuing excellence in the governance and management of the school. The school team has also seen change with 3 new teachers, 2 new interns, 1 new support staff member and a new headteacher. The school has also joined the Independent Schools Association.
9. New life and new families
There were 7 dedications this year and 6 weddings (a huge acceleration following the senior pastors' recent wedding and testimony)!
10. Dreams for buildings
We feel a real urgency in our spirit around seeing the provision of facilities to aid us in our vision. Pastor Cesar shared a word from Haggai and challenged the church to build the house of the Lord. Pastor Wes then challenged to church to believe to quickly raise £2m as an initial goal. In response to this we have seen £309k already, taking our building fund to close to £600k.
It's been an incredible year and we're excited to see what God does next, in 2018 and beyond!
