“I’d heard of people doing drive-in churches in California and Northern Ireland, so we thought we’d give this a go. Initially, the council agreed to let us use their car park, but then our request got submitted to their health and safety team and the police, and they changed their minds. But we knew God had told us to take the church outside, so we engaged some intercessors to pray. We prayed, worshipped and broke bread on the car park, because we felt this was a spiritual battle. Our MP was fighting on our behalf too, and eventually we got permission.

“Three local churches came together to run the drive-in services – that was the beautiful thing about this whole story. We hired a big screen, a stage and a PA system. This was the first time in months that people had come together to worship so there was this glorious moment where people were hanging out of their car windows worshipping God. Ministers from the three churches did ten-minute sermons too, sharing the gospel publicly.

“We attracted a lot of media attention because our service was the first of its kind to be run in England on council-run property – Sky TV, the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, the BBC World Service and other radio stations, and even Songs of Praise all picked up the story. When the first service was broadcast on Facebook Live, we had around 7,500 views.

“The response has been brilliant. One person in Brighton watched it then contacted us to say they wanted to become a Christian. Another local guy was coming down to surf just as we were showing a surf movie on our screen. That grabbed his attention and he ended up meeting up with me afterwards, saying he had loads of questions about faith and God, and wanted to sort his life out with him. There’s lots of stories of people encountering God.

“The beautiful thing about this is that it’s been a glorious moment to unite the church. Unity and prayer between our three churches was key. So was hearing God and responding, stepping out in obedience and pushing through, even when we were told no, because we believed God had given us a mandate for this.

“We’re in a season where the gospel will be on show for all to see. I’m not playing down the virus, but I do think this is a fantastic moment for us to step in with a message of hope.”