EVERYTHING WE DO TOGETHER IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THOSE OF YOU WHO pray, SERVE AND give
THANK YOU
Our vision is to play our part in the evangelisation of the nation, the revitalisation of the church and the transformation of society. Here’s a short update on what we’ve been able to do this year together as a church, thanks to all your support.
social transformation through love your neighbour
Sustainable Support for those in need
HTB Love Your Neighbour Food Bank Hub
Since March 2020, the HTB Love Your Neighbour Food Hub has delivered over two million meals and supported over 125,000 people through our food bank partnerships across London. In our third year, the Food Hub has transitioned from door-to-door deliveries during lockdown to offering crisis assistance in our community, including emergency food support for Ukrainian refugees. A new social supermarket launched this autumn.
Refugee Response
Afghan Welcome at HTB
In September 2021, HTB responded to the Afghan Refugee crisis by welcoming and supporting hundreds of refugees from Afghanistan in our borough. Every guest received essentials, winter coats, clothing and shopping vouchers. Our outpouring of support continues with weekly cooking programmes, sewing programmes and kids’ activities.
Love Ukraine at HTB
To serve over 1,200 newly arrived Ukrainians, HTB Care for Ukraine offers emergency food parcels, essentials, toys, clothing, SIM cards, English lessons, employability programmes and community meals. Hundreds of volunteers have participated in this weekly programme which supports those Ukrainian refugees in Greater London.
HTB Community Café
At St Luke’s Earl’s Court, HTB welcomes Asylum Seekers in Greater London to our Community Café. At this event on Monday evenings, we host weekly suppers and conversational English classes for hundreds of asylum seekers
Crosslight Debt Advisory Service
Individuals seeking the support of HTB’s advice service, Crosslight Kensington – are facing huge challenges. After the hardships of the pandemic, the current unprecedented cost of living crisis is forcing many into impossible situations. Half of those seeking help have had to go without food before coming to see us, and many have suffered mental health problems. As a result, demand for our service has increased 64% year on year and our work is needed now more than ever. In the 12 months to July, we held 1,000 appointments locally. Thanks to your support, many more people are able to face the future with confidence.
Spear: helping young people thrive
Through our Spear programme in North Kensington, HTB runs a year-long programme for 16–24-year-olds. This intensive six-week group and 1-1 coaching programme are followed by 12 months of support. It aims to tackle the barriers holding them back and get them into sustained work, education or training. Last year, 64 young people completed the programme.
Caring for prison leavers
Caring for Prison Leavers (CFPL) provides vital care, support and community for people leaving prison. Through the six-month Bridge Programme, we aim to encourage and empower people to grow in their Christian faith and character, break free from the cycle of reoffending, and connect with church communities. The CFPL Connect Programme additionally provides a monthly space for the community for all prison leavers.
Caring for the homeless
At HTB Shelter everyone is welcome in this safe, welcoming, and warm environment. More than 50 guests join us on Wednesday mornings to enjoy various services including debt advice, housing support, clothing, pastoral and well-being support, and a full English breakfast. A two-course dinner is also provided on Wednesday evenings, with overnight accommodations starting in December. On Thursday mornings, guests receive a hot meal and participate in various community programmes. We are also working towards being able to offer mobile showers and medical support in the Fall.
Rework: breaking down barriers to employment
Launched in 2021, Re-Work at HTB is a thriving programme where participants receive employment coaching across six online sessions. Trained volunteers equip them with the mindset and skills (CV and interview skills) they need to transform their lives and secure employment. Over 70 people have enrolled in Re-Work with one participant saying ‘thank you for that push and all the help to bring my confidence in myself out. I can see a clear difference!’ We are delighted to be the first church to launch and continue with a regular customised Re-Work programme for Ukrainian refugees.
Shine: supporting women at risk
Shine Women’s Programme
On Fridays, we offer Shine Women a nine-week programme which encourages and empowers women and reinforces their worth, strength and purpose. We celebrate the women with an afternoon tea graduation and these graduates can move on to participate in our monthly Spotlight lunch club.
All women are invited to our Spotlight Women’s Lunch Club where guests listen to inspirational stories of hope, enjoy a community meal, and participate in workshops and pampering events. Our aim is for each woman to know that they are in a safe and secure space, have value, and leave filled with hope for the future.
Love Christmas
The HTB Love Christmas campaign is aimed to spread love, hope and kindness to those in our local community. In December 2021 over 1,000 HTB volunteers packed 15,500 ‘bags of kindness’ and helped deliver them to local neighbours, care homes, refugees in hotels, and prisons, and those experiencing homelessness. We are looking forward to blessing our community again this year.
Investing In A Rising Generation
Kids
HTB Kids runs groups for children aged 0-10 every Sunday across our sites at 8 services. We also host a weekly play café for parents and their little ones at Brompton Road, Earls Court and Dalgarno Way each week.
At HTB Dalgarno Way we also run a weekly after-school club on a Tuesday afternoons and have seen lots of new families come along to the Church from the local area.
One day a week we also work with Love Your Neighbour to put on children's activities for refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine where we make crafts and play games and sports with the kids.
Youth
Our HTB Youth team have been continuing to engage with young people through our in-person and online ministries. This includes our online gaming ministry which allows us to interact with young people globally, and our discipleship groups, (PoDs), which are running both in-person and online. In April we launched monthly ‘Youth All In’ events, where we’ve seen a steady increase from 115 young people at our first event, to 144 at our most recent gathering. ‘Youth All In’ is our space to come together as a whole youth group to build community, worship together, and have a load of fun! It was amazing to gather with 800 young people and 200 team members from across the Network for our first in-person Focus Youth since the pandemic. We’re also thrilled to be commencing another Youth Alpha Course this term, following a local School’s Missions week. All this runs alongside our weekly school sessions where we run mentoring, lunchtime/after school clubs, and our nine Sunday Youth Sessions across our sites
Students
HTB Students had an amazing Summer Term – as our students got through their exams and deadlines we made time on Tuesdays and Sundays to pray, worship together and hear from God as well as celebrate an amazing year together with 80 students attending an end-of-term beach party. At the end of September, we will be welcoming thousands of students back to London. We want to play our part in helping them to make the most of their time at university and in this city by encouraging them to have loads of fun, step more into their identity and grow in their relationship with Jesus. We are particularly excited to welcome students at the 4.30 pm service each Sunday as well as our Tuesday night gatherings.
Creating OPPORTUNITIES for Community
Sundays at HTB + The HTB Live Stream
We run 10 services across our 6 sites in person on Sundays. The services have been an amazing time for our congregation to reconnect, worship and pray together, as we welcome our congregation back on site this year.
The HTB Live Stream broadcasts the 11.30 am service from HTB Brompton Road and now reaches 1000+ viewers live each week, and many thousands more through YouTube on demand. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to be the first to know when new content is added.
Alpha at HTB
So far this year we have had over 1,000 guests register for Alpha at HTB. Alpha is back both online and in person, and we’re seeing our largest number of guests since the pandemic began. We are also running Youth Alpha, as well as Alpha in Ukrainian, Spanish, and Farsi this term. We can’t wait to see what God will do this term on Alpha.
Discipleship + HTB Groups
In the last year, the discipleship team have moved into digital with our resources and brand-new leadership training initiative: Pathway. We've had 40 new Groups register, ran groups live for thousands online and returned to hosting in-person meetings, socials, events and Malshanger retreats.
Worship + Prayer
We meet online weekly for prayer at KC7:30am and twice a term for Kingdom Come; our last Kingdom Come saw over 350 people praying for our church, nation,and the world at HTB Brompton Road. In July our Worship Team released a brand new worship single, ‘Amen.’
Courses at HTB
We offer courses to help you deepen your faith, strengthen your relationships, and receive support for whatever stage of life you’re in. HTB Courses have been running online and in-person this year. The Marriage Courses continue to prove popular at HTB with over 3,000 Couples registering for a course.
Other courses, such as The Bereavement Journey, The Money Course, The Parenting Course, and Waiting for Children, are also running with great take-up. For information on courses currently running check our courses page.
PLAYING OUR PART Across the Uk and Globally
Global evangelisation through Alpha International.
In 2021, 1.2m million people were given the opportunity to explore and develop a personal relationship with Jesu through Alpha. Alpha ran in 27,500 churches and organizations, in 130 nations. Inspired by Nicky Gumbel’s 2033 vision we are developing Big plans to accelerate the growth and impact of Alpha globally.
New church plants through CRT
The Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT) has a vision to accelerate church growth through planting and revitalising churches, training new church leaders, and supporting church plants across the country. Last year, we celebrated 22 church plants, and this year we are celebrating a further 21 (view our film). We are expectant to see how God moves through these diverse plants; from City Resource Churches to Estate plants and rural revitalisations. This year, our first four cohorts of the Peter Stream were priested and 8 more were ordained, and on September 21 more will begin training. The Caleb Stream is set to have an intake of over 20 in September, and to further support churches, we will be launching our Accelerator Programme for Kids Ministry and Operation Teams.
Investing in relationships around the globe
The Marriage Course, which first ran live at HTB in 1996, continues to daw in couples seeking to strengthen their relationships. The Marriage and Pre-Marriage Courses have been translated into over 35 languages, and now have a global reach, with over 6,400 courses impacting 93,000 people in the past year. 99% of guest couples report that the course has positively impacted their relationships.
Reaching millions with the Bible
The new Bible in One Year (BiOY) has had over 1.4 million global users in 2022 in nine different languages. Since 2015, there have been over 8.8 million users around the world. This year, we’ve started two new translations in Italian and Vietnamese, and we’re continuing to invest in our app-based user feedback (particularly with young people and new Christians from Alpha). A new hard-back leather-bound version of the Bible with commentary will be released in the UK this autumn.
Alpha in Prisons
Since restrictions were lifted, our Alph prison team are re-entering local prisons across the country. 2022 has been one of the busiest years, with many new prisons running Alpha: over 30 new courses now run in prisons. We have lots of training days coming up and we’re looking forward to hosting our Prison Ministry conference on Friday 21October at HTB.
Leadership Conference
LC22 took place online on 2 and 3 May with 95,000 people across four time zones with translation into 17 languages. John Mark Comer, Tracy Ifeachor, Siya & Rachel Kolisi, Jonathan Roumie, Christine Caine, and Nicky Gumbel all share on the theme of transformation. Plans are already underway for LC23, which will be held in Royal Albert Hall on 1 and 2 May 2023. For more information and tickets click here.
Raising up young leaders
The HTB Leadership Development Year is a year-long programme for 18-30 year-olds looking to deepen their relationship with God, develop their gifts in leadership, and discover their calling. The programme includes a day of Bible teaching and leadership development alongside 3 days of ministry training each week.
Focus
After two years apart, Focus 2022 saw over 8,000 people come together from across the HTB Network, including 1,541 attendees from HTB. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone again from the 27 to 30 July 2023. For more information and tickets click here.
Training new church leaders
St. Paul’s Theological Centre, as part of St. Mellitus College (SMC), continues to see God at work within the College and our students, and our communities. This year, SMC saw over 700 students access our programmes, with 294 undertaking ordination and 138 sent out to serve curacies across the country. There is something for everyone at SMC, as we seek to play our part in the revitalisation of the Church.
Love Your Neighbour Nationally
Love Your Neighbour is a network of churches across the UK, working in local communities to support individuals and families in need. These churches, including our hub at HTB, aim to provide crisis support, such as food provision and employment and debt support, to alleviate the causes of poverty and draw those in need into the Church community.
In April 2022, Love Your Neighbour launched Love Ukraine. To date, we have reached over 1,200 Ukrainian people in the UK with emergency support, and are supporting churches throughout the network with their Ukrainian response. We have also launched our Love Your Neighbour pilot Hub Accelerator program to help churches and local communities increase their effectiveness and capacity for social transformation.