Gather Leeds are an established group that mobilises unity in a city full of diversity. With a vision to mobilise greater connected mission in Leeds amongst those working in business, politics, health, education, arts and the social sector, intercultural engagement and Church communities to see God’s renewing power transform and restore their city
With a name inspired by the Gather Movement, they are no strangers to holding city gatherings which convene the diverse Christian community that inhabits their city around a God sized vision. Back in 2017 they had their first city mini Summit style event. During the Coronavirus they ran smaller Zoom gatherings in the first lockdown and then held larger online evening gatherings that brought 100 people together in February 2021 at the height of the 3rd lock down. These online gatherings were repeated in 2022 and 2023.
This year they took up the idea of Your City, Your Summit and gathered again face-to-face on the 25th February 2025.
Dave Paterson shares a bit more about their Gather Leeds Mini Summit giving us insights on what they did and what they discovered for the city…
WHAt happened at the summit?
We opted for a Mini Summit format to keep the event around 2 hours and on budget. The evening was combined with a launch of our city Leeds Lent Prayer Diary and we invited the Lord Mayor for the occasion.
As people came in we had some really nice food provided by a catering company called Real Hope and people had the chance to browse around stalls as they ate.
The program included short talks from the Mayor, Mark Cowling (accompanied by Dave King) from the UK Gather Movement team. I (Dave Paterson) shared a bit of an overview of what Gather Leeds is about and Catherine Beaumont introduced the Leeds Lent Prayer Diary, which features around 45 different city projects to help people pray for a different initiative every day. The meeting was closed by businessman and founder of City Vision Tony Hodges who encouraged us to keep coming together like this and to be thinking strategically more on how we impact the city.
Following all this, everyone broke out into discussion groups. The conversations were split into a dozen categories covering vocational spheres such as the role Christians play in health, business, education / youth, arts / media, politics and government. There were also key conversations on evangelism, the environment and intercultural engagement and we covered our impact in geographical areas by having groups focused on East, South and North / West Leeds. Group discussions lasted 35 minutes and afterwards we spent 20 minutes feeding back from each group.
what did the summit achieve?
These gatherings really help us increase connectivity amongst the Body of Christ in the city with a drive to see us bring more of God’s kingdom.
We had 100 people in attendance and it’s really good to regularly come together and hear what different people, organisations and churches are doing to engage with the world around them. We really get a sense of the new things which are happening and can celebrate how God is moving. We were able to give a short overview of the make up of those organisations and Churches that were playing a role in acting as connectors in the city and thus point out that as a larger city we do not just have 1 point of contact or organisation that acts as the primary mover to bring people together. Instead, we have a number of different stimulators who do this. We were able to give a brief overview regarding the make up of Churches in Leeds. This included the growth seen in international churches and the fact that Leeds now has 3 churches that are in excess of a 1000 people, something not seen previously. Perhaps to people’s surprise this includes the Catholic Cathedral that itself has seen significant growth amongst international communities..
We were able to catch some great ideas and stories from the table discussions by hearing feedback from each of the tables. There were new ideas around evangelism regarding reaching unreached people groups with examples of developing disciple making groups that constantly invite non Christians and have the potential to multiply, as seen in places like India. We heard about churches in Lincolnshire working together by opening up alternative places where ambulance workers can bring people instead of them having to go A and E. Other conversations included people in the arts and media conversations stating that some creatives don’t always find it easy to connect with Church and feel somewhat isolated when engaging out in the world of arts and media. On the Environment, both micro local level and larger scale issues were highlighted, including the decrease in butterflies in a church yard, and that as the climate warms and environmental challenges increase, the church needs to provide hope in what could be very difficult times.
what are the next steps after the mini summit?
I think all of this helped me see the need to revamp some of our Sphere network groups. We’ve found that keeping momentum in these groups can be really tough especially when you don’t have a person taking the lead or people are not able to give time towards the group. So I think we need to find ways to activate these groups and sustain the momentum. I’m pleased to say our business conversation went well at this event and this network has now restarted having not met for well over a year. There’s also ongoing work around geographical areas needed and we are pleased that this gathering helped to facilitate good conversations on intercultural engagement and for the geographical area of East Leeds, which acts as a support to their existing groups that meet regularly under the names of the Intercultural forum and East Leeds Gathers. The Summit also helped to promote the Leeds Lent Prayer Diary, a wonderful resource that is nearly 20 years old and mobilises prayer for different projects throughout Lent.
We really feel that sphere and geographical networks are so important for city movements. This Mini Summit has also inspired us to get more connected with other cities so we can learn from one another and maybe think about gathering Sphere networks nationally as well. In summary, this event was just as much about supporting and developing those activities which already exist as it was about setting up things that are new.
If you want to find out more about Your City, Your Summit, visit our Summit Page for more information.
