Blog:
One year of Living Hope Church

Posted by Jack Carter
on 7th September 2025

This was originally posted by Living Hope Church on their own website here.

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We’re so grateful to God for all that he has done in establishing the foundations of Living Hope Church this year! From families in our launch team moving over from West Leeds to this side of the city, to God answering our prayers for ‘more workers to be sent out into the harvest field’ in East Leeds from our earliest weeks, we have seen his hand and his favour time and time again. God has gifted us with an amazing church family who love him and love others so well and this year has been so formative as we’ve shared our lives, shared our homes, the food at our tables and our prayers and dreams for this community.

God put it on our heart to be a church that is visible, a city on a hill, a light in the darkness (Matthew 5:14) and it’s brought us joy to live out this call this year in lots of ways. We’ve hosted a Light Party, given Lovember gifts in Crossgates shopping centre, had Out & About Sundays in the local park, mulled wine and mince pie open house Christmas parties for our neighbours, a ‘Make January Better’ event, our ‘Looking for Life’ Easter event and follow up Easter Sunday gathering and, this summer, had fun with Living Hope Church on tour where we’ve gathered in green spaces near where our church members live to engage with and bless those in the vicinity. We are loving making new friendships and connections where we live and thank God for bringing so many people into our lives.

We spent the first term digging into our church vision and values (click here for more details) and then moved onto a series in 1 Peter, the letter from which our church name had sprung, and have more recently been exploring and applying the practices of being a disciple in our ‘Follow Me!’ series. In Living Hope Kids, we spent the first term learning what God says about who we are and filling treasure boxes with reminders of these truths. We then spent some weeks asking God to grow us in gratitude and are now midway through a theme simply called ‘Jesus is amazing’ where we’re asking questions and discovering more about the person of Jesus through bible stories.

In May we had a wonderful church weekend away in the Yorkshire Dales, with the most glorious weather and time of blessing with God and each other. We booked all twelve cabins in faith at a time when we could fill less than half of them and in God’s kindness, by May, we had filled them all! We’re grateful to God that he has grown us in number to the point of needing to find a new church venue. It’s been special having the first year of Living Hope in our home but we are excited about the opportunities to be visible on Crossgates High Street as a church for East Leeds.

Looking ahead, we’re excited to be renting a space to host ‘Who Let the Dads Out’ monthly on a Saturday morning, a group for men from Living Hope to bless dads and their young children in this area.

As we continue to build on the foundations that God has given us, we remember the one on whom we’re building and who this is all for. Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Ephesians 2: 20-22

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