Launch Sunday

SPEAKER_1 (0:04)

Welcome to the City Lights Church Podcast. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing today, we hope this message inspires you to follow Jesus. You can find out more about City Lights Church at city-lights.church.

Andrew Scott (0:23)

Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much to our team. So good to see you this morning. If we haven't met before, my name is Andrew. And along with my beautiful wife, we are delighted to lead City Lights. Today is a very special day for us, as you've heard from Pastor Steph. Today is the day that we're celebrating the official launch of this venue and also part of a new season in our church as we embrace that everything that God has for us as a church for the sake of the city of Brisbane. So I want to say thank you so much. It's with a deep sense of gratitude that I'm standing before you and honouring God and celebrating everything that we've done. Something that Beck and I never forget is that Jesus has changed our lives. For me, when I was 15 years old, I had an encounter with God that literally changed the trajectory of my life. And I wouldn't be standing here before you without the encounter with God that I had as a teenager. For Beck, as a 21 year old, never been in her life to a life giving church, walking into church in Sydney for the first time, and just noticing that people were different, that there was joy, there was life. And so at the very, very beginnings, the very origins of this church, there were two main reasons, the two big whys for why we started this journey that we're delighted that you're part of. And that is number one, Jesus. We believe that Jesus changes lives. And our heart is that everybody in the city of Brisbane through our church and through other churches would encounter the life changing power and presence of Jesus. And the second reason is we wanted to build a church in a place of authentic relationships. One of the phrases that Beck came up with very early on was this phrase, creating spaces where people belong. And who knows that that is more than a location, more than a place. That's a feeling. That's an intangible sense. When you walk into a room, the way that we're wired as humans, when we walk into a room, we don't just see physically, but we sense, we know we can discern atmospheres. And as part of this journey for creating those spaces where people belong and encounter Jesus, we realised that having a physical space and a physical place was also really important in that journey. You know, we met in a bunch of different random places when we started, places that you meet when you don't have any money. Like we met in the lounge room. We first started in a lounge room in my parents' house, in a cafe, in a public library. We used this small room. There's a picture coming up here of another church. Let us have a small room here. This is one of our first ever gatherings. And from 2019 to 2020, I spent nine months trying to find a venue. Nine months! And do you know what I did after nine months? I asked my wife to help. And do you know how quickly she found something? 24 hours.

24 hours, we, after 24 hours, we found the Promenade Studio. And this was an answer to prayer. We had some things that we were believing God for, air-conditioned room, kids' spaces, kitchen, cafe area. And that was an answer to prayer. And a bunch of you were there. We launched in 2020 We started off very beginning with half a room, and then we took a step of faith back. We took a step of faith and like paid, I don't know, $180 extra to open up the both. You know, it sounds funny, but when you are walking by faith and you don't have, you know, a huge bank balance, you take each step that's in front of you, and we launched at that time, and a bunch of you were there, and we've got another photo coming there, 2020 October. Our first Sunday morning chairs. There's a murmur for those that were there. No one's missing the green chairs.

And for you, there's so many memories, so many people that came to that location for the first time. Some of you encountered Jesus at that time. Some of you were baptized at that time. Our very own Jasper. Amazing man of God. Give it up for Jasper. We're so proud of you. Where are you, Jasper? Up the back there. We're so proud of your life. And you're a great blessing to our church.