Over a hundred Christian leaders gathered together at High Leigh in September to celebrate a century of Christian conferences hosted there. We were blessed by beautiful music, wonderful company and an inspiring testimony from our guest speaker Anthony Ray Hinton.
High Leigh first opened as a Christian conference centre 100 years ago in November 1922. Since then, 2.5 million Christians have passed through its doors finding hospitality and community there.
Select leaders from churches across the UK gathered for a special 24-hour event at High Leigh to mark the anniversary. The event’s keynote speaker Anthony Ray Hinton gave a powerful address where he shared his testimony of spending 28 years wrongly convicted on death row. Hinton shared how for the first three years of his incarceration he was angry with God, but he came to realise that God had a purpose for him there. Hinton showed love, forgiveness and kindness to his neighbouring inmate, a member of the Klu Klux Klan who had murdered a young black man. This prisoner had been consumed by hate – all his life he had been taught to despise people of colour. Anthony turned the man’s anger into understanding – he was executed after spending 15 years befriended by Anthony.
In an interview at the event Anthony asked about how he felt about the police that arrested him, knowing he was innocent and the judge and jury that sentenced him to death with no clear evidence. He said that he could not hate them, as hate causes pain for the person hating and he could only live with love, forgiveness and seeing the best in people.
Later a panel discussion explored the question of where God is in the Ukraine war, and how to give perspective to church congregations when the media often seems to encourage a culture of fear.
The day also included powerful worship music throughout, thanks to Tim Hughes and Gas Street Music. After our Gala dinner, we were privileged to have a performance from the Emmanuel Apostolic Gospel Academy Choir, who performed a special song written to mark High Leigh’s centennial. The day was concluded with a BBQ meal, with people from diverse traditions and organisations getting the chance to network and enjoy each other’s company.
Guests told us the event was a rare and rich occasion to bring together numerous church denominations and celebrate the unity we share. We pray that as it has this past century, High Leigh will continue to be a haven of blessing to all church traditions for many years to come.
