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"So.... what is it you do here?"  I'd been waiting for the line.  After 3 or 4 people said it in the first few days, I'd started looking out for it.  Agapé UK have moved, which is quite exciting in itself, but the opportunities it's providing are REALLY exciting.  We've gone from having an "office" that a few of our operations and other folk worked from, to a Head Quarters that is a centre hub for ministry to be based from and serve our ministry nationally and beyond.  Within days of moving in, we had groups of Iranians exploring faith and studying the Bible on the top floor, we had staff from other projects around Birmingham that we are partnering with 'borrow' a desk for a while and numerous staff meeting up with folk in our "coffee lounge", talking business and talking about Jesus.  It's building such a new sense of collaboration and moving forward together.

But my favourite part of the new building is the front door.  It's not particularly special, but for the first time in our history, we have a front door.  And that means people walk through it.  I was manning the building for the couple of weeks before we moved in and there was so many folk coming in and trying to work out why this office building had a coffee lounge that i just learned to wait for them to ask "so; what do you do here?"  I had some great conversations with folk:  a delivery man who had dabbled with faith many years ago and was now considering it again, a blind man (no; not that sort - a man measuring up for our window blinds) who's a muslim but very keen for us to pray for his mother who was ill, and 2 traffic wardens who were more interested in our parking spaces than our mission (OK; I cheated a bit on that one and actually invited them in).  A front door means we have a far greater access to and potential impact on the community we are now working within.  we are all praying that God will show us what our role will be in reaching out to that community.  You could join us in that prayer if you'd like.  We'd certainly appreciate it.

 It all started a good few months ago when (after a few years of searching) God provided just the right place at just the right price.  It was, I admit, a bit of a state...


 

and there is just no justifying the red walls on the top floor, but it had such great potential.

The whole project took just 8 weeks from start to finish.  We had some great contractors to work with, who were driven by excellence.  Pete, one of our Operations leaders (yellow jacket in the centre) did an incredible job project managing the whole process and miraculously bringing the project in on time and on budget.  Amazing.  A good friend of ours (thanks Mark!) was our designer and pushed our thinking to ensure we not just had a great place to work, but somewhere that really served our mission and what we are trying to do through it, not just in it.  again; amazing.

So; moving day happened. Just a few crates, then!  I'm still not sure how our accounts folk figured out where all the files were heading back to (which is probably why I'm not an accountant).  They're a smart bunch.  

We now have a dedicated area for field staff, miscellaneous folk and friends of ours to work from - it's normally a LOT busier than this

But some of the most exciting things are the new spaces that we have now.  This new conference room (the old red one) can easily fit 40 or 50 people for training events and over-sized small group Bible studies.

We've talked for ages about having a dedicated prayer area, but have never had the space to create it.  We're going to make this a bit of a project to REALLY create a space to pray.  Let us know if you want to book it to have a day retreat sometime. (seriously!)

 It's certainly already proving useful for team working and brainstorming ideas, but a wall that you can write on?  Surely its just asking for trouble.

...and my favourite; the coffee lounge.  Even after only a few weeks in the building, I have a hunch that this space is going to have a significant impact for eternity.  From the casual interactions amongst our staff that build us up, to the intentional one-to-ones, to the surprising run of visitors from the community around us starting to see something different in "whatever it is they do there".  

 If you are a pray-er, do pray that we steward this new space of ours well and that eternity is impacted as a result.  Thanks.