A Weekend In Crawley!

So we headed down to a place called Crawley for the easter weekend to help out with a new church plant, aimed at the Portuguese speaking community (mainly Brazilians) in the area. The church has been planted by a couple who work out of the Holmsted manor YWAM base, which was the first base here in the UK. Such a beautiful place to spend the easter weekend, especially with the weather we had.

The team spent Saturday doing a mix of evangelism, basically inviting people to the church for the easter service, and also serving some of the local people by helping to clear gardens etc, it was so much fun. I got to sit and chat with a guy who had not been to church for nearly 15 years. He suffers from sinus headaches, and so is going in for an operation in a few weeks, he was really open for talking, and I felt I should ask him if he believes in prayer. His answer to me was that he could not remember the last time he did pray. So I asked him if he was open to me praying for him there and then, for his operation etc, and his face lit up, so I got to pray with him in the middle of the town, it was amazing. I love doing this sort of thing, and I had a revelation during the time that we were in Crawley, that in actual fact, I really do love it, sharing with people the hope that I have, and being able to pray for them, there is such life in it.

On Sunday we spent the morning planning the church service, which they hold in the afternoon. The team ran the whole thing, which was such a blessing for the guys who have planted the church as they normally do everything as a couple. So to have a team who could do worship, testimony, preaching and the kids work was an amazing easter gift for them. It was also a lot of fun for all of us, and I know that the simple act of sharing what God is doing is such a faith building exercise for both us and the people you share with. I am sure that there were a few nerves especially  as a few of the team had never done anything like this weekend before, but we all left having had an amazing time, with stories of God. Such a great way to bond as a team; to be encouraged, and encourage others.

I think that one of the highlights for al f us as a team was simply the amount of food we were given, the Brazilians know how to do a BBQ, full of meat, meat and more meat. Such a great time of fellowship.

Phil Went To A Club!

I want to start this with a question, what were you doing last Friday?

I found myself at a place called Batchwood, which is a club close to the base. I am helping to run some of the outreach from here that focuses on reaching out to the people who go to the clubs, basically handing out water and lollies’. It leads to some really interesting conversations, as the clubbers try to understand why a group of people would come and spend time at the club and give out stuff for free. We do this at least once every two weeks (on Fridays) and I took with me a group from the new DTS (Discipleship training school) that started here at Harpenden two weeks ago, for which I am full time staff. It is always so much fun, and the guys who came with me all came away raving about it, which is always nice!

The guys who own the club always enjoy having us come and spend time, and you get to have some really deep conversations with the bouncers and taxi drivers about who God is and what life is. I reckon they think we are a bit crazy heading down and spending our night round the club, but they really enjoy the lollies. One of the girls who came with me ended up in an amazing conversation with a girl who had recently come down from Durham. She had been going to a church there that does similar things at some of the local clubs in that city. We got to chat with her about where she was at and encourage her. I love it when God brings people together, so we invited her to come to the church that meets on the base on a Sunday evening. The night was full of other conversations ranging from drunk people thinking we were crazy to the girl above, and one of the bouncers asking some really deep things about what it is to be a Christian, but most are short, kind of double take passing chats about why we are doing what we are doing, most people think we are nuts, but at the same time tells us they have a lot of respect for what we are doing.

I always enjoying going, chatting and sharing with people, as it really challenges me in my faith, and where I am at with God, and keeps me pressing into him.

A quote from Phil Jones (one of the DTS trainees) – “I thought that it was a fun way to serve people, and one where it is love that is received. I initially thought it would be fairly pointless, but now I think that doing it consistently will see that love go deeper for the guys who are meet regularly, especially the staff. Even just going once I was asked by a lot of people why I was doing it, which both challenged and encouraged me to want to go again.”

Amazing Miricles

I am constantly amazed by God's faithfulness, and his willingness to be apart of our lives.

This little story started last November, when I was helping to run a week of evangelism in Newcastle. We had a time of praying for people to ask God to heal them, which was incredible in itself, seeing God really touch people, setting them free from so many different things. There was one girl in particular that we prayed for, she had cysts on her ovaries, which she has had all her life, and the doctors had told her were incurable. Obviously there was no way to tell at the time what God had done, but she said she felt peace, so we thanked God.

Its been about 6 months since we prayed for her, and last week I got a facebook message from her to tell me she had been back to her doctor in Spain for a regular check. When he ran the tests he had found no sign of the damage, and he was unable to explain what had happened. Such an amazing story, and one that I will not forget.

The most amazing thing is, I had not really thought about it much since we had said goodbye at the end of that week. But she had obviously not forgotten about the prayer and nor had God. I was completely blown away when I got the message, God is so good. I really think it shows God's joy at being able to be involved with us, and how much he just wants us to take that step and ask. The more I hear about the things God does, the more convinced I am that he really does want to be right there with us, involved in both the good times and the bad.