Thrive is the new annual gathering for the Salt & Light Advance family of churches. Gathering together as a wider family of churches is important! We catch sight of a bigger picture. We see that he’s called us to be a movement, together impacting our part of the world. We are inspired, taught and equipped and filled afresh with the Holy Spirit. We have the opportunity to deepen old friendships and create new ones. We eat, pray and worship together.
Check out our Thrive 2024 resources to get a feel for what we did in 2024.
Who is Thrive for?
Thrive is our annual Advance gathering for all those keen to play their part. That includes leaders (leading within the church), leaders and activists (leading beyond the church) and all those keen to play their part in seeing local churches thriving and helping their communities thrive.
Speakers and hosts
Anderson Moyo hails from Zimbabwe but has lived in Sheffield for over 20 years since moving to plant Sheffield Community Church, part of the Salt & Light family of churches. With his wife Lydia they are passionate about reaching people with the Gospel and seeing them become devoted disciples of Jesus. Anderson is an excellent communicator who handles the Word of God with skill and humility and we’re delighted he is speaking at Thrive this year.
Lynn Swart has a wealth of experience behind her - worship leader, church leader and founder/director of NewDay United, serving some of the most disadvantaged people of her native country of South Africa.
Lynn has a significant prophetic gift, is a gifted speaker and has trained and coached many in faith and leadership in the UK over the years. Lynn is part of Ivy Church, Manchester and is a woman of faith and real joy.
Jo Hargreaves is a a psychotherapist, writer and speaker, with an approach to therapy that integrates theology and therapy together. She loves working with people, viewing everyone holistically – spirit, soul and body.
Jo is part of the team leading Alive Church, a multisite church in and around Lincoln and part of the Ground Level network of churches.
Jo can be found online as The Faith Filled Therapist.
David Walker has a passion for equipping God’s people to be fruitful and faithful disciples in their everyday lives.
He moved into church leadership 15 years ago, from a background in business. He now leads a church in Reading and works for LICC as their Imagine Work Champion - focussing on helping Christ’s people to thrive in their workplace.
The London Institute of Contemporary Christianity was founded by John Stott to help Christians make a difference in their place of work.
EVENT HOSTS
Rich and Anna Ellwood are the new team leaders for the Salt & Light Advance family of churches. Rich and Anna have recently returned to the UK from Brussels, where they spent many years establishing a thriving and multicultural local church. As well as leading Advance, they now lead the team at Witney Community Church.
Programme
Friday 21st February
10.00am Doors open
Main session
Lunch - provided
Afternoon sessions, including choice of seminars
Dinner - provided
Evening Session
9.30pm End
Saturday 22nd February
9.30am Doors open
Main session
Lunch - provided
Afternoon sessions, including choice of seminars
Closing session
4.30pm End
Offering
God has initiated a new season in our family of churches - a season of working together more closely and more intentionally with a variety of joint initiatives and projects as we seek to journey together with shared vision and purpose. God is calling us into a fresh season of fruitfulness and thriving - it’s a good day!
From 2024, we will no longer be taking offerings at biannual celebrations, rather focusing our giving into a single annual offering opportunity at Thrive.
Please could you pray and reflect on how you could generously contribute to an offering which will be taken during Thrive. The offering will be to aid this fresh season of building together as we seek to train leaders, disciple young people, support churches, impact other nations and see our towns and villages touched with the love of God.
Each church that’s part of the Salt & Light Advance family is encouraged to contribute a proportion of their income into the S&L Advance budget to help cover everyday costs. This fresh season of building together that we’re entering in will need further finances to really give it a boost. Please consider giving generously and joyfully to this offering.
Booking
Bookings open on Sunday 20 October.
Early booking discount deadline: noon, Wednesday 18 December 2024.
Full details of ticket options, costs, early booking discounts and concessions are found on the booking link below, as well as terms and conditions.
Volunteers: Thrive 2025 is going to run slightly differently to previous Thrives, so we’re looking for a good team of volunteers. Would you like to get involved behind the scenes, with a team, and benefit from a 50% or 100% discount? Volunteers will serve drinks and food, clear venues and manage the car park. Full training given. 50% volunteers will work 2-3 hours per day, and otherwise be free to join the event. Look out for volunteering options when you book.
Youth: We welcome Y12/Y13 youth to attend, free of charge, to participate in Thrive main sessions and seminars. More information to follow. (Other than nursing babies, we ask that children are not brought to Thrive. More on this below.)
Car parking: There is an adeqaute amount of free car parking on-site, but please help us maximize our occupancy by car-sharing if at all possible. More on this below.
FAQs
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For many years previous Salt & Light leadership conferences ran as Friday to Sunday residential events. However, often leaders had to leave the event on Sunday morning to go back home to run church services, as Advance is a group of smaller churches in which Sunday gatherings often rely on key leaders.
From 2024 we decided to run Friday and Saturday, with the Friday evening and Saturday designed for as wide a group of people as possible. All are welcome to all of the event, but recognising the challenge for some of taking a day off work, we’re expecting greater numbers for the Friday evening/Saturday.
NB. Friday is included in the Day ticket for Day 2 (Saturday)
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We are aware that finances are challenging for many people at the moment, and have kept prices as low as possible for the event to breakeven.
If you need additional financial support, please contact your church leadership. They will be pleased to invest into your development.
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We are offering discounts to those under 30, and free places to those 17-18. Why prioritise these groups and not others who may appreciate a concession?
Recent conferences have been mostly attended by older people, and you will understand that it is vital, for the future of what God is doing among us as a family of churches, that we engage better with younger leaders. Concessionary ticket pricing are only one part of how we are doing that.
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Thrive is one of our four main annual events. We welcome children and youth to the two Celebrations and to Wildfires, but unfortunately it is not feasible for us to offer childcare at Thrive, and we ask that children (other than nursing babies or Y12/13 youth are not brought to the event.
We know that many parents put considerable effort into carving out this child-free time, arranging for family or friends to look after children, or arranging playdates.
We are formalising what some have done in the past – to allow sharing of a parental ticket so that parents attend one at a time on a single conference ticket.
If your child is nursing they may attend. Please be aware that, while we know it can be unavoidable, if there is disruptive noise we may need to ask you to leave a session to allow others to concentrate, and will facilitate a livestream in another room.
We strongly value relationship, and believe that the best experience and learning is to be had in person – the conference is more than just listening to talks. If you really can’t join us in person there will be the option to livestream from home if necessary, available as a ticket for £20 on the booking page from January, and we plan to make all talks freely available in the weeks after the event.
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With 94 spaces on-site we anticipate adequate onsite parking for delegates, however, this is dependent on effective car-sharing. Please help your fellow delegates by car-sharing if at all possible.
Outside of Mon-Fri 8.00am-6.30pm there is also some on-street parking.
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For general terms and conditions, including discounts and accessibility, please visit https://advancechurches.uk/event-tc
For event-specific T&C please see the ChurchSuite sign up page.