Hope City Church facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Hope City Church
Location	International
Denomination	C3 Church Pentecostalism, Evangelical, Charismatic
Website	www.hopecity.church
History
Founded	1991
Founder(s)	Dave Gilpin and Jenny Gilpin

Hope City Church (formerly a multisite church until 2021). It is a charity consisting of 6 autonomous UK churches based in the United Kingdom. It was launched in Sheffield in 1991 by Dave and Jenny Gilpin who left Australia after viewing the Hillsborough Disaster in Sheffield.

History

Hope City Church was founded in Sheffield in 1991 by Dave and Jenny Gilpin, who had been a part of an Assemblies of God church in Brisbane, Australia. After seeing the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 on television in Australia Dave and Jenny went to investigate the possibilities of starting churches in the UK. After a three-week speaking tour of small churches across England in December 1990, they returned at Easter 1991 to pioneer the church, which was first called The Hope of Sheffield Christian Church. It has been described as "a church that was born out of tragedy – and a church, which is based around one crucial four-letter word: hope." The Church was once noticed when it undertook a big advertising campaign, which included the use of large billboards and the sides of buses to promote the organisation and assert that it was not a "traditional" church.

Hope City has also planted churches in Liverpool, beginning in historic venues such as the Black-E and Epstein Theatre. It has planted in Leeds, Newcastle, Sunderland, Birmingham, Lancashire and in Accra, Ghana, Frankfurt, Germany, Darmstadt, Germany, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, London, and its most recent location York. They now have 3,000 members in 11 locations. The Church has also used venues such as clubs like 'Tiger Tiger' in Newcastle as well as St James' Park.

Hope City has been linked to the movement of evangelical-style churches in Australia, most successful being Hillsong Church.

In 2010, an additional church was established in Accra. In 2012, a new Hope City Church in Frankfurt, Germany was established.

In 2020, the Senior Pastors of the church resigned. After which the locations of Hope City Church became autonomous churches under their own local leadership. In a statement sent out to the church in January 2021 the Trustees stated that, "It is our intention that from Easter 2021, Hope City Church, which up until now has been one church in multiple locations within the C3 movement, will become a family of churches within the C3 movement." Each church remains under the governance of the Trustees of Hope City Church.

Facilities

The church bought an old tool factory in 1998 in the United Kingdom and called it The Megacentre. The building contains a play centre, a nursery and conferencing facilities.

In 2009, Hope City Church bought the former Archive building of Leeds central library on York Road which has been converted to contain a 400-seater auditorium and community and conferencing facility for Leeds. In 2018, the Leeds building was sold to a developer who plans to convert the space into 52 apartments. The Leeds congregation have since relocated their services to meeting in a city centre hotel.

Organisation

Leadership

Founders Dave and Jenny Gilpin were the senior pastors of Hope City Church until their resignation in June 2020. Hope City Church is governed by a board of trustees.

Ministries

Hope City's ministries included: Whizz Kids, She Is, Hope City Sons, Creative, This New Republic, Whitefields Leadership College, as well as Project 180.

Community

In 2002, Hope City Church started a Night of Honour in Sheffield, which concluded in 2012. The event celebrated community heroes, children and community service. The church also ran other community projects out of The Megacentre.

Young Adults

The Church hosted 'Young Adult' nights for their 18-30's age group across their locations, with 'This New Republic' Conference taking place annually.

Creative

The church produced shows for both the annual Night of Honour and their 20th Anniversary celebration, both at the Sheffield City Hall.

Waverley Development

In 2018, Hope City Church joined a steering group responsible for designing a brand new country park on the Waverley development in Rotherham. The group is part of the 'Well North' project funded by Public Health England and is part of Hope City Church's plans to relocate to the Waverley area and build a 1500-seater facility. A £10million project that aims to deliver a wide range of benefits for the Sheffield City region. More than 600 houses have been completed at Waverley and about 3,400 are set to be added over the next 15 years. Plans for the development also include a £50 million town centre featuring a town square, bus station, hotel, shops, a gym, health centre, pharmacy, offices and parking for 577 cars. The leisure, business and retail scheme could create 700 jobs. This project is no longer going ahead.

City Hearts charity

City Hearts is a charity that houses and helps both women with life controlling issues and victims of human trafficking in the UK, and runs education programmes in Ghana, Africa. City Hearts (UK) was set up by Hope City Church but became financially and legally separate in the summer of 2020.