Recent events

I have been quite busy recently and the blog has been a bit neglected. This is not good as it is a helpful vehicle for news and views. Anyway some recent things for me of great significance were firstly. In October we held our Copenhagen 2008 leadership conference. This is now our fourth I believe and in my view they get better each time. We had around 75 leaders and other folk serving churches from Denmark, Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, Canada, Poland, Germany, Holland, UK, Switzerland, Lapland and Turkey. I am sure there were more I have missed!
Once again the teaching, worship and prophetic ministry were of high quality. The thing however of great note to me is the depth of relationships forming across the nations.

This event links well to the one just after in my home town of Lowestoft as the churches we serve in Europe as a team we are now seeking to bring together into common mission and resource with the churches in the East of England we also serve as a team. In this way we end up with one larger area of influence which we can serve more effectively by supplying ministry to the churches we have, gaining momentum into new plants both in the UK and Europe and even further afield. Also the momentum of more churches and people in common mission helps propel us into the nations with greater impact as we play our part in the new frontiers family of churches.

Last weekend saw our first ‘Together at the East of England’ event. Some 1300+ booked in for this. Amongst the highlights for me

1- Turning on the radio in my car and hearing worship songs being broadcast to my home town from the event. Apparently the numbers listening grew through the weekend.
2- The sense of togetherness across the region
3- Some great healings in a number of the meetings. I was especially encouraged in the session Julian Adams and I did on ‘enjoying the Spirit’ which we did. Several people got healed as folk in the session laid hands on those who indicated they had any pain of illness. This was so encouraging as it was the whole church doing the stuff not just a few on a stage
4- 16 first time responses to the gospel and 21 recommitments in the youth meeting
5- Great worship and prophetic input
6- The great encouragement passed on to us by so many people

In the entire whole thing was great I felt, though no doubt we can improve on some areas as we were trying things out for the first time. I reflected that over 25 years ago now I was in a youth group of three people in a church in the Town. I stood in this large gathering and thought I would never have believed that in my home town we would see such vibrant representation of what God is doing in our little part of his church in New Frontiers in the East of England.

This weekend we have John Ifeanyi with us. John is an evangelist from the Bristol New Frontiers church plant. I am looking forward to his visit

Next weekend I and a small team go to serve the Klippan church in Sweden for their annual church camp. They have around 100 coming this year. This church is growing steadily each year and it is a joy to go back again for the camp and see the progress being made.

I feel we are seeing such advance on all sides. It is steady rather than fast. But in the end this is often easier to consolidate into church growth and advance for the future.