Start of transformation brings hope. September 2023

At Lee Abbey's Movement Weekend, in Devon, Bishop Alan described the “big, generous vision” of our Big God. He commented that Colossians 1: 15 to 23 repeats that God came to redeem “all things” and brings together two things: individual salvation and universal redemption.

This includes God as a “restorer of streets with dwellings” (Isaiah 58 v 12). Transformation is starting to happen on Filwood Broadway, a few doors away from our community house. An old cinema has been knocked down, after being derelict for thirty years. It is sad, because it was much-loved and played a very important part in the local community. But it has not been used as a cinema for fifty years and had become a symbol of neglect and that things could never change. There are plans to replace the cinema and surrounding waste land, with thirty affordable, council homes and with community and commercial space.

Jeremiah 29 v7 tells us to seek the peace and prosperity of the city, because God has plans to give a hope and a future (verse 11). So, as a community, we pray every weekday morning for the estate and for Bristol. On Fridays, we pray a Blessing prayer for Knowle West. It is brilliant that Filwood Broadway recently won a Levelling Up grant of £14.5 million (the only one in Bristol).

This is not only because of prayers, but also the result of hard work, including by the Filwood Broadway Working Group (chaired by ex-community member, Tim Jones). Phil Nott and I chatted with the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees and showed him the derelict cinema and the state of the Broadway, in 2021. A recent Bristol Council debate, argued that this area has been “neglected for long enough”.

Please pray that this physical transformation, with building over the next couple of years, will be part of a wider and deeper spiritual transformation on the estate. That people will realise that positive change can happen, as we let go of the past, however painfully, and look to the future, to help build Bristol as a “City of Hope”.