"We'd had a
Christian community house in
Manchester, but it had closed
down. A committed core held
the ground, but for a number
of years we found few people
who wanted to get involved and
fewer still who would stick at it.
“Early in 2005, Chris sensed
God saying that we should get
together as many people as
possible at 11.15am on Sunday
mornings and pray for God to
send people. Some of us were
pretty sceptical about the whole
thing, but we did it – partly out
of love and respect for Chris. We
would stand and join our hands
and metaphorically ‘ring a bell’
over the city, calling people tocome to us. We took it seriously
– even apologising to God if we
were late.
“And people started to come –
and carried on coming. We were
evangelising, but they weren’t
particularly coming through
that: they were just turning up!
We baptised twenty-fi ve people
that year and they’ve carried on
coming this year.”
Curby admits, “I’ve learnt
my lesson: now we trust God
and go with what He is doing.
The result is we’re stretched
(four leaders and more than
sixty people) – but we trust God
for that as well. Now we have a
vision for Christian community
to rise up again in Manchester
– and with greater strength than
ever before.”