Blog

275 people from 7 churches of 5 denominations gathered at St Peter’s this week for an evening’s training ahead of the opening of the Winter Nightshelter on 1 February. The scheme, already run in many towns and cities across the UK, will see 15 rough sleepers housed every night through February and March in church halls across Brighton & Hove. more...

A bunch of us are having a go at this in 2012, with a schedule of exactly which parts of the Bible to read each day, and helpful accompanying notes to help work out what it’s all about! To find out more, or to sign up, visit http://www.htb.org.uk/bible-in-one-year more...

St Peter’s is one of seven churches taking in up to 15 rough sleepers once a week this winter. more...

We’re opening the church on New Year’s Eve from 4-8pm and inviting anyone and everyone to drop in to “Brighton’s Cathedral” to light a candle for the new year. The church will be beautifully lit and decorated and peaceful, and all are welcome for as long or as little as you wish, on your own, with your family or friends, to have a moment of quiet reflection and light a candle for your new year. more...

Equip is St Peter’s Theological School run by Jonny Gumbel 3x/year on Saturday mornings. more...

We’ve been open exactly 2 years, and we’re celebrating with the Anniversary Party here at St Peter’s on Friday 18 November: house bands, licensed bar, Tashes and Lashes theme. more...

The Summer Nights programme has been brilliant this year with Ultimate Frisbee, Volleyball, Paella on the beach and many other social gatherings being pulled together by lots of different people. It really led me to reflect upon what an open and accessible community St Peter's continues to be. The early concept of a Church (meaning the people), "without walls" really stands true. more...

A monthly gig night, student event, leadership community, youth network – just some of the new things we’re getting excited about for the new term, along with lots of people moving to Brighton and getting involved at St Peter’s. We’ll be focusing on the Vision over the next few Sundays, and bringing everyone up to speed with who we are and what we’re about. more...

36 hrs to get as far away from Brighton and back – on NO money. more...

More than 350 were at the Six service last night to hear Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, interviewed by Archie. Just three weeks after preaching at the Royal Wedding before a global audience of 2 billion, the Bishop spoke about his experience of the big day, his own journey of faith, advice for students, the challenges facing the church, and the impact we can make on society. more...

You can go weeks without food. You can go days without water. You can go a few minutes without air. But you can't go one second without hope. You gotta have hope to cope.” (Rick Warren, Author Purpose-Driven Life). Find out the “3 Ps” of hope that everyone can have – my talk from last Sunday http://stpetersbrighton.org/service/hope-0 more...

What more could a church want? The sun was shining, the church was more full then I have ever seen it and then over 50 of us went The scene was set, the pitch marked out with flip flops and jumpers. The oldies were stretching while the youngsters were sipping cool cider (we shall see later on which was the more successful warm-up). more...

What an amazing term it’s been with the young people at St Peter’s. Great discussions at our Sunday afternoon meetings in the hall, a brilliant afternoon out ten pin bowling and eating pizza, and seeing friendships grow amongst the young people and the team. One of the best bits has to be seeing the group getting stuck in with the Six Team and then being up front lost in worship at the service itself. more...

On Saturday morning, last week, the 'Under 30s' challenged the 'Vets' to a gentlemanly game of touch rugby. At 10:30 am, twenty of St Peter's men met up in Preston Park for a game of 7-a-side, along with several friends (from Brighton, and some ringers who happened to 'just be visiting')! With the sun shining brightly - and with plenty of the friends, wives, fiancés, girlfriends (and children!) cheering them on - there were huge displays of commitment, speed and creativity by everyone who had the ball in their hands. more...

We rounded off an amazing week of prayer and vision last Sunday with our Gift day, raising money for the next stage of development at St Peter’s – ministries such as Safehaven, kids, youth, Recovery course, Tots & Toddlers, Divorce and Separation recovery course, Alpha, Marriage course, as well as the building itself. “We just want to make the world dance.” more...

...on a summer holiday. Focus 2011 is our annual week away for the whole church. For 51 weeks in the year, we are doing our best to be a mission station in Brighton, and for one week at the end of July, we shut up shop (almost), go away together to have loads of fun and barbeques, and hopefully come back refreshed and re-fueled. For more info http:/stpetersbrighton.org/focus-2011 more...

Thanks to Tots & Toddlers on Thursday mornings and Over 55s (or thereabouts!) Tea Mornings monthly on Saturdays, we’re seeing wonderful growing numbers of people from outside the church coming into St Peter’s. And the beautiful thing is some of the older generation are helping out at Tots & Toddlers, and it’s the young people who are putting on the Tea Mornings. Now, that’s family.   more...

My 5 year old son was so pleased when he came out of his kids’ group this week. more...

We kicked off 2011 asking, How big is your God? Living with a big God instead of a “shrunken” God will have consequences for the way we live this coming year, in our personal, working, relational lives – and as church.  At the end of the services, many people came forward for prayer, wanting to live with a “bigger” God this year.  Check out Sunday’s talk at http://stpetersbrighton.org/sunday-talks more...

Meeting at Brighton station we made our way to the one and only New Horizon Holiday centre in Chichester for the Alpha weekend. more...

“hot sit down meal, best there is, always free” was the description on Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire last Sunday given to Safehaven, our Saturday evening meal with the street community, in partnership with two other local churches. Well done everyone! more...

The Light Party last Friday, the church’s alternative to Halloween, was an amazing evening. The hall was packed with 80 kids and their grown-ups, a mixture of church members and plenty of visitors too. With the Knights and Princesses theme there were some fantastic costumes on display. The children were kept busy making crowns, decorating cakes (and eating them) playing games, dancing to the disco and enjoying the bouncy castle. When all that got too much, the little princesses were pampered at the salon and there were some very busy face painters at work too. more...

So a month after our first men's breakfast we decided we would do it again and 20 of us got together in the church hall to drink coffee, worship and get stuck into the Bible. James Courtis-Pond led us in a study of Luke 15 and the Prodigal Son, and for everyone who got up early, there was an amazing opportunity to hear from all ages, of one anothers experiences of being a son, brother, father and friend, and how our heavenly Father loves us as we are, not anymore or any less then anyone else. more...

The opening night of Alpha is probably the most exciting part of my job: it’s 7pm, we’ve set up a team of fantastic leaders and helpers, the church looks stunning with lighting and music (and warm!) and the food is cooked – now, who will come through the doors, to discuss “Is there more to life than this?” more...

At 3pm on Saturday 25 September, the 4 volunteer cooks for the Safehaven project gathered in the kitchen of the Church hall to prepare the first meal of term! Luckily there had been a lot prayer for us (!) – None of us had cooked in the kitchen before, and there recently had been troubles with the oven – we needed God to provide for us, keep us in check and to keep us on time. more...

A world-class artist, Charlie has exhibited with Nelson Mandela, and, most recently, Rembrandt’s etches. Last Sunday, he was our speaker at the Ten and Six – about his spiritual hunger, his journey of faith, Christopher Hitchens, and loads more. A great prelude to the Alpha course, which starts on Weds 6 October. Have a listen to Charlie at http://stpetersbrighton.org/sunday-talks   more...

Everyone praying, helping out and giving has been the core message these couple of weeks as we've looked again at the Vision for the church in Year 2. Very exciting to see everyone getting set to play their part again in this next phase - and students starting to flock back.   more...

What a day, Archie, Paul, Hannah and myself went to Momentum yesterday to watch Archie deliver the sermon at the main service in the evening. The place is amazing; seminars going on anywhere, students and twenty something’s learning about and praising God everywhere. We met up with the St Peter’s crew that were already there who just couldn’t give the event enough praise. more...

Well it took me 3 showers and much scrubbing to get the smell of smoke off me but it was all worth it. We had around 55 people turn up to Hove Lawns last night for a BBQ and a laugh together. There was more meat then anyone could eat, chicken, beef, pork, and lamb, some of the meaties even brought veggie burgers to share. more...

Volleyball was the order of the day and although the weather conspired against us, it couldn't stop us! In true Brighton style, even though it was raining all day, 25 intrepid explorers made it as far as Yellowave BeachSport Centre last Wednesday for an evening of smiles, laughs and the occasional bit of volleyball. Some of us traveled further then others, some even went to the wrong beach volleyball court but eventually we were there, the sun was setting and the teams were picked. more...

On Saturday the 26 June, 12 How Far challengers plus a couple of the homebase team met at St Peter’s church at 5am. more...

36 hours to get as far away from Brighton and back – without spending any money! more...

Yesterday, after the Ten, we moved out as church for the first time onto the green immediately outside and set up BBQs, bouncy castle, facepainting, craft, inflatable sumo wrestling (!), and games – our first community “Summer Sunday” in the heart of this great city, and with 27,000 cyclists going past at the end of the London-Brighton bike ride. Then all down to the beach for seven baptisms in the sea, young people from the church, publicly declaring their commitment to Christ in the shadow of the Palace Pier. more...

Last Sunday was the first Sunday after Trinity, known in the church calendar as the start of Ordinary time. more...

Brighton Freakshow more...

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90 turned up and crammed in for our first occasional breakfast last Saturday in the hall – yummy (healthy) food, worship, talk and ministry. I don’t know what it is about women getting together (!), but there was a buzz around the place that can’t be accounted for simply in terms of sunny weather, children left at home for a morning, and decorous touches (everyone went away with a homemade heart-shaped lapel brooch). more...

Grace and Peace were the themes of our services yesterday with a particular focus on the cross at the start of Holy Week. St Paul talks about the “power of the cross”, and it was easy to see what he meant as through the day people experienced afresh the love of God in worship and ministry. In the evening, dozens of people went forward after the talk with pieces of paper on which they had written private prayers, fears, burdens or sins, and dumped them in a basket at the foot of a wooden cross. more...

Last Sunday was Vision Sunday and to celebrate all that God has been doing in the first four months we've been open, we reviewed the original "Follow Brighton" video (the hair was shorter then!), and put together a photo montage, set to a Fat Boy Slim track, of loads of great stuff that has been happening. Then at the end of the service, we cleared away the chairs, celebrated with a couple of songs, and brought out trays of Bucks Fizz and cakes for everyone. See the original Follow Brighton video more...

Archie, Jonny and Tara were in London last Friday to meet HRH Prince of Wales, who came to visit St Mellitus, the C of E’s newest theological college, where Jonny trained. He was particularly taken with church planting in London and beyond (St Peter’s is HTB’s first church plant outside London), “the fact that you able to plant churches and encourage congregations in some of these previously unused churches is enormously encouraging…I think that is truly wonderful and inspiring…I hope you have great success in the future.”   more...

The first evening of the Alpha course is about the most exciting thing in church life for me - I love seeing who turns up, what made people come along and what we can do to help them feel welcome. But last Wednesday was even more of an adventure than usual as we'd never done Alpha at St Peter's before; we had very little idea of who was going to turn up and how many. As well as friends inviting friends and family, work colleagues and neighbours, we did some advertising - in the Argus, the Leader, and some free online listings. more...

We're focussing on Prayer at the beginning of this new year, in particular praying for our favourite city, Brighton. Someone once said that prayer is "the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence". So alongside the new Alpha course, the Teams, Helping People and Sunday services, we want to realise "the power of the bended knee" this term. more...

Check out the worshipcentral album recorded live at St Peter's last month with Tim Hughes, Al Gordon, Ben Cantalon, Nikki Fletcher, and a whole bunch of us - live, raw and unplugged. Free as a download. more...

In these early stages, it would be fair to say we don’t have a very complex structure for looking out for each other – the model is basically, erm… look out for each other. more...

We've had an extraordinary few days with over 300 people joining us in the week, on top of our three regular Sunday services. 35 attended the first night of Alpha last Wednesday, although week 2 is really the ideal time to join the course, so do come along if you'd still like to :-). Plenty of buzz and discussion, "exploring the meaning of life". Meanwhile, a further 35 were at the first get-together for the Helping People team, led by Jonny and Tara Gumbel, discussing all sorts of ways that we can make a difference to the community and society around us. more...

We really had no idea what to expect on our first Sunday.  Beyond our 50 or so team, who would show up at the three services (8.30, 10, 6)?  In the event, we had 600 through the day - many of them in the morning were friends supporting us as a one off - happy mayhem in the children's church!  We loved every minute of it - the cafe with homemade cakes, the buzz of expectation before each service as the place filled up, the presence of God amongst us as the worship took off, the making of new friends and building community throughout the day.  In the evening, taking the ch more...

This week sees us beginning to let people know properly that St Peter’s is re-opening – posters on the 8 noticeboards around the church and banners on the security fencing.  Best, last week the team wrote postcards to 450 of the many, many people who signed the petition to keep the church open, thanking them for their support and letting them know we are re-opening in a few weeks’ time, with the times of the services and our new website.  When they were ready to go, it was very moving as we all held up a handful, prayed for each addressee by name and then went ou more...

There are work parties going on every weekend in October in the church hall at St Peter's - alongside the professional work being done in the church chancel itself: heating, lighting, sound etc - all making the place fit for purpose in time for our reopening services on 1 November - a date fixed in people's minds in Brighton as the day of the Old Crocs (vintage cars London-Brighton), which goes right past St Peter's, and also, of course, All Saints Day. more...