Hope City Church

Hope City Church

Hope City Church is a large multisite, contemporary church with roots in both Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions The church holds services and weekday connections in 10 locations and describes itself as ‘One Church, Ten Locations’. The current membership across all 10 locations is over 2200 people with 1500 people attending over the weekend meeting . Around half of this number is based in Sheffield and the remaining half spread out across the other locations. It is apart of the C3 group of churches on going from Sydney, Australia.

Hope City Church is a multi-congregational, pentecostal church founded by Pastors Dave Gilpin and Jenny Gilpin. The first congregation was established in Sheffield, England, and subsequent congregations have been planted in Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Birmingham and Accra, Ghana. Hope City Church run an annual national conference called Fabulous. The Hope City band have released two studio albums to date - 'Devoted', distributed by Integrity Media and 'We Are Ready', which was produced by Eliot Kennedy. The Hope City Media Department have produced two series of Hope City TV (aired on UCB TV in the UK and Europe, and on Shine TV in New Zealand).

History of Hope City Church

Hope City Church was pioneered in Sheffield in 1991 by Dave and Jenny Gilpin. Dave and Jenny Gilpin were apart of an Assembles of God (AoG) church in Brisbane, Australia. The AoG in Australia had seen a numerical growth of around 1300% between 1977 and 1997 and have … around 700 churches.

After seeing the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 on television in Australia, Dave and Jenny Gilpin were released by their church to investigate the possibilities of pioneering in the UK After a 3 week speaking tour of the small churches across England in December 1990, they returned at Easter 1991 to pioneer, The Hope of Sheffield Christian Church.

Church, as it was originally known, began at Easter 1991, and met in five different venues over 2 years - including Ponds Forge International Sports Centre - before settling in a more permanent location in 1993.

In 1994, the Hope of Sheffield Christian Church was pioneered and released to become an indifferent church in 1996. In 2003 Hope City Church pioneered in Manchester and was released in 2007 to become Audacious Church under the leadership of Glynn and Sophie Barrett who were Associate Pastors in Sheffield for 11 years.

In 1998, the church bought a derelict tool factory in the heart of the city which they called The Megacentre and changed its name to the simpler Hope City Church.

From 2004 to 2009, Hope City Church pioneered over in Liverpool, Leeds Newcastle and Birmingham. In 2012 a group of 5 young adults with the pastor of the Liverpool congregation were sent to Accra in Ghana to pioneer Hope City Church in Africa. In 2012, a group 6 young adults along with two members of the senior leadership team were sent to Frankfurt, Germany to establish their first mainland European congregation outside of the UK. At Easter 2013, Hope City London was launched at the Charing Cross Hotel in the Strand.

Facilities In 1998, the church bought a former warehouse and factory owner by Spear and Johnson as its back of operation. Comprising 3 stories and over 54,000 square feet, the building has been converted in a 700 seater auditorium, an indoor children’s play centre, a nursery, a conferencing facility as well as the base for City Hearts. In 2007, Hope City Church leased The Elaine Norris Centre in Liverpool providing sports and recreational facilities for the Kirkdale area of Liverpool. It is also used as the place of worship. In September of 2013, the Sunday service will move to the Einstein Room in the centre of Liverpool. In 2009, Hope City Church bought the former Archives building of Leeds Central Library on York Road. The 45,000 square feet building has been partially converted and a 400 seater auditorium is being converted into a community and conferencing centre for Leeds. In 2011, Hope City adopted a building owned by the community Church in Chorley, Lancashire.

Leadership The Church is led by a senior leadership team comprising of the Senior Pastors Dave and Jenny Gilpin along side Colin and Beth Blois who are the Lead Pastors in Sheffield, Chris and Gosia Denham who are the Leeds Lead Pastors, Dave and Lisa Stoner who are the Liverpool and Lancashire Lead Pastors as well as Louise Davies who is the City Pastor in Sheffield. The directors of Hope City Church who ratify the discussions affecting the financial integrity and prudence of Hope City Church include Paul Benger from Christian Life Church in Chesterfield, Roger Davies (former Hope City Liverpool Pastor), Dave Gilpin (Senior Pastor) as well as members from both the Leeds and Sheffield congregations. The Lead Pastors of each location are as follows:

Sheffield – Colin and Beth Blois Leeds – Chris and Gosia Denham Liverpool – Dave and Lisa Stoner with Clive and Sarah McMullen Lancashire – Dave and Lisa Stoner Newcastle – Simon and Rachael Taylor Birmingham – Simon and Olivia Bolton Accra – Andy and Karen Gorman Frankfurt – Steve and Siobhan Bullock London – Dave and Jenny Gilpin

Community From 1999, the Megacentre in Sheffield has been providing services for children through its facilities, school assistance and general pastoral care. From 2002 Hope City Church created the ‘Good Works’ charity Hope City Enterprise which included special Night of Honour in Sheffield; Leeds and Liverpool which celebrate the unsung heroes of each city such as the Champion Child award and the Best Community Service award. In 2007, City Hearts was pioneered by Jenny Gilpin to help women affected by life controlling issues as well as victims of human trafficking. Today, City Hearts oversees four homes dedicated to its catch phrase is ‘loving people to life’.

Creative A strong thread of creativity runs through all that the Church does. They have created four series called Hope City TV for Christian media which has been aired since 2009 by UCB TV in the UK and Europe, on Shine TV in New Zealand. Their websites including hopecitychurch.tv and davegilpin.com have been recognised by the Premier Media Awards in 2009 and 2010 for content and layout.

Music So far Hope City has released two albums. The first, written and directed by Ryan Gilpin, 'Devoted', was released in 2009 by Integrity Media. The second, 'We Are Ready', was recorded at Steel Works Studios in Sheffield and produced by Grammy Award Winner, Eliot Kennedy in 2010. Other live recordings of Hope City include the 20th Anniversary celebrations of Hope City Church held at Sheffield City Hall in June 2011 with 2000 guests in attendance. Harrogate Synphony Orchestra played orchestrated versions of songs written by members of the Creative Arts team and orchestrated by Ryan Gilpin.

Services

References External Links

Growth of Hope City Church

In 2002, with a vision to build congregations in cities across the North of England, a team from Sheffield started Hope City Manchester. After great growth and success in Manchester the congregation was released in 2007 to become Audacious City Church (run by Live Audacious]) under the leadership of Glyn and Sophia Barrett who had been Associate Pastors in Hope City Church for 11 years. In October 2003 the initial plan is to launch out into Leeds, but an unexpected turn of events lead to Hope City Church being given an existing congregation in Liverpool. In 2010, the Liverpool congregation moved its Sunday morning services to the historic Black-E in the centre of the city In October 2004, another team from Sheffield began making the Sunday afternoon trips and Hope City Leeds was born, and in September 2007, Hope City Newcastle was started, and now meets in a city centre bar!

In September 2008 Hope City Church unveiled their '2012 Vision' - part of which was to see 10 congregations in ten cities by the year 2012 - eight in the UK, one in Europe and one in Africa. And in October 2009, the fifth UK-based congregation was launched in Birmingham. In March 2010, Hope City Accra began its pre-launch meetings in the capital city of Ghana - with the official launch taking place in September 2010.

Senior Pastors

Dave and Jenny Gilpin are the Senior Pastors of Hope City Church - overseeing all congregations and based in the flagship congregation in Sheffield. Dave Gilpin was born in Birkenhead in the UK, but lived most of his life in Australia. Jenny Gilpin was born and raised in Australia.

Dave and Jenny have a son called Ryan, who is the worship pastor at Hope City Sheffield.

Music

Worship is an important part of the life of Hope City Church and new songs have sprung up out of the experiences and life of the church. Hope City's debut studio album 'Devoted' was released in 2009 under the leadership of music director Ryan Gilpin, and was published and distributed by Integrity Media.

Released in 2010, Hope City's second album 'We Are Ready', was recorded at Steelworks Studios in Sheffield and produced by Eliot Kennedy. Eliot Kennedy is also the driving force behind SHAPA - Sheffield Hope Academy of Performing Arts - which he is launching alongside Hope City Church.

Media

Hope City Church is passionate about having a strong design and media presence and its Media Department have produced two series of Hope City TV to date. Both series were aired on UCB TV in the UK and Europe, and on Shine TV in New Zealand. In 2009 and 2010, the Hope City Church website was awarded 'Best Large Church Website' in the Christian New Media Awards - run by Premier Christian Radio.

Community

Part of the calling of Hope City Church is to serve the communities that the congregations are a part of. This is done through the work of the Megacentres in Sheffield, Liverpool and Leeds.

Hope City Church runs an annual awards ceremony called Sheffield's Night of Honour, that honours the unsung heroes of the city of Sheffield.

External links

• Hope City Church
• Dave Gilpin's Leadership Blog
• The Mind Map