We’re very pleased at how well Tuesday’s Alpha at the Biltmore went. The Biltmore is a beautiful restaurant, suave and sophisticated but enough about me, the Biltmore is a pretty special place. Altogether there were 15 of us, we were served our complimentary food and drink and enjoyed a little dinner party for about 40 minutes. Then Graham, the senior pastor gave his powerful testimony of how Jesus transformed his life. It was a great night. The coming weeks should be splendid.
What a terrific day Sunday was! Initially we were only baptising five but three more felt they had procrastinated enough and wanted to be baptised also. On top of that we said “Hello” to our new pastor and his family and “goodbye for the summer” to some students with a Church Lunch and book stall. With sixteen baptisms in three months, I sense growing momentum among us. Exciting stuff.
On Thursday the 5th June, at 12.00 noon, two mini buses full of students from churches all around the city of York set off for London. The event? Passion London. There would be a well known American Speaker/Pastor/Evangelist there, Louie Giglio but for most they just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see three great musical acts for £5! Normally, it would cost at least three times as much to see Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin or Dave Crowder Band as individual acts but £5 for all three it was an unmissable opportunity.
Six hours later and we were there! There were huge queues outside the Apollo theatre in Hammersmith London, hundreds long. Some of us arrived a little later than the 7.00pm start time because we wanted to grab a bite to eat. It was an overwhelming experience walking into the theatre with nearly 3,000 people all worshiping with one of the best worship leaders around, Chris Tomlin.
Passion had requested that everyone bring a bath towel and three pairs of socks for man, woman and child. These were to be given to the needy in London. About 1300 towels (and three times as many socks) were collected! My favourite act of the evening was probably Dave Crowder Band. Even secular music critics rate his music highly. I really like the simple, yet beautiful, poetry of the following lyrics from “He Is Our King”:
“And what was said to the rose to make it unfold
Was said to me, here in my chest
So be quiet now, and rest
So be quiet now, and rest.”
You can hear the whole of “He Is Our King” on the Dave Crowder Band myspace page. For the What? Who? Where? And Why? of the Passion Conferences, it’d would be best just to direct you to their website, here. It was an unforgettable night, I got home to York at 5.00am! There’s a few pictures below and a youtube video of Dave Crowder band here. I shot the video with my phone so it won’t win any oscars for cinematography, considering this it’s pretty decent anyway.
We had decided to go ahead and arranged a baptism even though there were only two candidates.
The weather was perfect and during the morning more decided that they too should obey Jesus and be baptised. Some responded to my appeal from the baptistery, which meant they went home wet!
The weather forecast was so awful that for safety considerations we could not continue with the plans for the large platform and loads of PA equipment in Parliament Street. Storms of high winds with snow and sleet were foretold. So we moved the event to the forecourt of St Michael-le-Belfrey church.
On the morning the expected storms with high winds did not take place, we had snow instead. As I was booked to go to BBC Radio York to go on Julia Booth’s programme to review the Sunday Papers, I went by the nearby baptismal site and got a shot of it covered in Easter Day snow.
The bad weather did come. Just before the baptisms it was cold windy sleet. The storms stopped for the baptisms and then returned when we were finished.
The event went well though. We had some of the preliminaries indoors with the York Gospel Choir and the candidates making their vows and declaring their faith. Then we all trooped out for the baptisms.
I was such a joyful event. The sun shone, the Minster bells sounded out and cheers rippled through the crowds as those baptised emerged from the pool.
Because of the hurriedly changed arrangements we had no platform or crowd control. The tank was crowded round with spectators and press cameras.
I saw a photo of the event on Christian Selvaratnam’s blog. He had to hold the camera in the air as there were so many people, and were so crowded together. Nice shot though.
Below are just a selection from those Natasha took for us.
Some more web coverage:
- The BBC news for North Yorkshire
- The York Press
- The Yorkshire Post
- One Voice York
I am sure you will find more if you search.
Click on any of the thumbnails to open them.
Last night saw four teams pit their wits against each other in a joint St Laurence’s-Elim Quiz night.
The teams were:
The Pink Princesses (and Jany the Destroyer)
The Tornadoes
Ancient and Modern (Standard Version)
Unique (2)
And the winners were Ancient and Modern (Standard Version) with a whopping 88 points! Runners up the Tornadoes had 80 very closely followed by Unique with 79.5.
The winning team went away with free books from the Barbican Book Shop and the runners up got a bag chocolates.
Highlights of the night included: The Disposable Cups Challenge - As a team we had to build the highest tower using only disposable plastic cups, in only two minutes. The Pipe Cleaner Challenge - Each team was given a packet of pipe cleaners to make a model of St Lawrence’s Church, in 10 minutes.
I think I speak for everyone when I say it was a great laugh!
Here is an assortment of photos of the old St Laurence’s church now replaced by the large Victorian version.
The internal scene is believed to be inside the old church, but we are not sure.
This morning we presented two of the three baptised last Sunday with their certificates.
Samir (pictured on the right) who was baptised during an Easter open air service in the city centre was also presented with a certificate.
Samir’s certificate also bears the signature of the Archbishop of York as he had agreed to baptise candidates from all the churches which took part in the event with their own leaders. This was to be the first time in known history that the primate of England was to conduct baptisms with leaders of other churches.
Steve Redman did such a good job at reviewing this event on the One Voice website I won’t bother reinventing the wheel and just redirect you there! I have added some text from the City Council website here just to give you a bit of info about the office of Lord Mayor. Enjoy!
“The Lord Mayor is Chairman of City of York Council and the first citizen of the city. It’s an appointment made by the council each year in May, at the same time appointing a Sheriff, the city’s other civic head. York’s Lord Mayor is second only to the Lord Mayor of London in precedence and its Sheriff holds the oldest office of Sheriff in England and Wales.
The Lord Mayor chairs meetings of full council and together with the Sheriff, represents the city on ceremonial occasions, welcomes international visitors and attends events organised by local people and community groups.
The Lord Mayor also hosts formal and informal functions at the Mansion House which is the Lord Mayor’s residence during their year of office. The Mansion House is also available for tours and private hire.”
