Wow, wow, wow! The presence of God is just awesome! The weekend of Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th October 2009 was marked in Leicester as the annual Jesus Culture conference for the UK. Jesus Culture is a ministry made up of leaders from Bethel Church in Redding, California, and the team hosted conferences and events across America and other parts of the world to mobilise, equip, activate and send young revivalists into their cities for the advancement of the Kingdom.

Before the camp started we met together to pray and seek God about what He wanted to say for this year’s camp. God’s word fuelled our theme of “We are Family”; add some wacky adult leaders, enthusiastic teen servers, disco lights and a pinch of glitter and you have Focus 2009.

M:Powered is an annual conference for young people aged between 13-16. This year, M:Powered re-established itself as a Summer camp. With this switch back to the summer, the M:Powered team reviewed the structure of the week and explored new ways of engaging with God and with each other.

After listening to the scholarly and inspired teaching of Dr. John Mastrogiovanni, I would highly recommend marking the date in your diaries when he returns to the UK.

On Saturday 4th June, twenty five 7- 9 year olds hungry for God met together at Nettle Hill for another Discovery Camp. What an honour and privilege to be part of what God is doing among these precious young lives! They have a receptivity to the Holy Spirit which is very refreshing, so what a delight to minister and share the goodness of God with them....

On a beautiful weekend in April we were very pleased to have Rachel Hickson with us at King’s Church in Loughborough. It had been around 6 years since she was last with us in Loughborough – that time just with the women at an event known as ‘Burning Passion’ organised by Sandra Duffty. This time everyone had the privilege of hearing her.

It was Friday 20th March when a band of 115 young people descended upon Cefn Lea, Mid-Wales. An excitement permeated the air as we met new and old faces from across the country and across different networks. This was the first time we had met together in years and the anticipation of what God would do was almost touchable.

A Different Kind of Day
By Jane Williams
 
The moment I arrived at the Family Day in Derby on Saturday 7th February 2009 I knew I was in for a different kind of day. There was a roomful of chairs around circular tables – with mints and water, glasses, a loaf of fresh bread and a small bottle of wine in the middle. There were pens and papers on each table, some with information on, others blank (we wondered what these were for). On the edges of the room there was tea and coffee on a ‘help yourself (and a friend)’ basis. It was a friendly start with lovely touches of thought and care at every turn. There was a good amount of time to chat to new and old friends, or browse at the bookstall or the posters the congregations who were there had brought with them.

Hello everyone

Well here we are coming to the end of our short Asian trip; it has been a challenging one but clearly God has been with us. Whenever we travel, there is always a cry and a prayer, ‘Oh Lord, help us to make a valid and weighty contribution to those we touch’.

We departed the UK immediately after two days of elders praying and fasting together. We began our journey to Bangalore, now known as Bangaluru (Indian name change). On arrival at Heathrow Airport we were greeted with the news that we had been upgraded to first class, we thank the Lord for a flat bed on our night flight; it was a real blessing.

On arrival the next day, our first trip to Bangaluru, we were met by Samson Paul. Some of you may remember him and his mother and father, Angelina and Arthur Paul, who were with us at the last elder’s conference. Clearly they have been diligent for years in proclaiming the gospel of Christ in that region. We discovered that only a few days earlier, violent attacks against the Christian believers had subsided and this was a blessing for them and us.

In late August a team from the UK travelled to Sri Lanka to serve the community of God's people in and around Colombo. Here are two accounts of the trip.

Having travelled thousands of miles to a country a world away from our own, we were understandably excited and even a bit nervous - unsure of what God had in store. First impressions were outstanding, what a gorgeous country, so lush, green and unspoilt; not to mention the glorious heat that met us stepping out of the airport. As we travelled deeper, into what could only be described as an endless jungle, we continued to be amazed, not only by the landscape but also by the generosity of all those we met.

I have just returned from a great time away with some of the students in Yorkshire. I can’t quite remember when God first started talking to me about it, but it had certainly been on my mind for some time that the transition from living at home and doing A levels, to moving away to university and independent living was a huge step for young people, and one which some coped with less smoothly than others. It was one of those long car journeys, I think we were travelling from Nettle Hill to Leeds, and I was chatting to Becca Bluett-Duncan.

What is church? How does it work? And how does it grow and multiply?

The Simple Church School of Covenant College is a part-time programme for those wanting to be trained and equipped within all aspects of simple church and simple church planting.

Those involved with Covenant College recognise that this kind of church expression is rapidly growing in the UK and across the world. Simple Church represents an exciting vehicle for the rapid advance of the Kingdom of God in our day, and we recognise a specific need to train and empower those on this journey.

Pioneers 2008 took place recently in Loughborough and we had a really exciting and blessed time!

Right from the first night there was a real strong sense of community amongst the team with people forging great friendships straight away. One of the great aspects of Pioneers is the wide age range which encourages a real family feel, the younger ones looking up to the older ones and the older ones looking out for the younger ones.

Loughborough was chosen as the venue for Pioneers this year due to the continued work by King’s Church into the Warwick Way estate, and so each day we spent some time there and organised various things with the local kids. The kids warmed to the team extremely quickly and the team got stuck in right away, playing with and talking to them. We ran a kid’s holiday club for two days and then spent additional time just playing on the estate; it was great to see how the relationships between the team and the kids on the estate flourished over only a short period of time.

This year’s theme for Discovery was Superhero's, based on Acts 4:29-31, where the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit to go out in boldness. We had an amazing time encountering God; the kids were filled with the Holy Spirit, some for the first time. Two of the kids got saved, we saw LOADS of healings and nearly everyone who came left with the gift of tongues.

All students who are just starting uni this September are invited to come along to this 'introduction to student life' week near Harrogate. It will be an invaluable time of meeting up with other freshers from around the country and gleaning some inside info from current students.
 
This is a fantastic, not to be missed opportunity. . . . For booking info click more
 

Deeper is going abroad… A team of nine young people are flying out to Sri Lanka on the 19th August for nearly two weeks. This time will be full of opportunities to serve in the community, whilst serving in one of the orphanages just outside Colombo. We’ll also be getting involved with the annual youth camp and outreach work in the city of Colombo. We are working with Lalith and Hiranthi and the congregation over there to support them with any work that needs to be carried out.

We’re really excited to see what God has in store and really believe that our eyes will be opened to realise how big God actually is!