News: Views

11 Nov

[17-01-11] Keep Loving Your Uni
It’s cliché, I know, but it only feels like yesterday when I stepped out into the sun at the end of my exams and into the recently graduated world.
[23-11-10] 40 days until 2011
In 40 days time it will be a new year, two thousand and eleven.
[13-07-10] Work Matters
Over the summer we're looking at a series called 'Work Matters'.
[09-06-10] Why Does Everyone Need Their Own Lawn Mower?
This question prompted the idea of a database of the items people have available that they don't mind sharing with the rest of church.
[04-05-10] Lobbying Andy Reed
On 1st March I joined around 100 members of the Speak Network, a Christian network of students and young adults who campaign and pray about issues of global injustice, to visit parliament to lobby our MPs about government support for the arms companies.
[01-02-10] A New Year. A New Decade
At the start of a new year and a new decade Rich Wilson shares something of God's heart for Open Heaven.
[04-12-09] Grace for Growth
Growth begins and ends with grace.
[02-12-09] God and Dualisms
At the leaders' weekend earlier in the year, we heard quite a lot about how dualistic thinking works in our lives.
[01-12-09] A Big Thank You
Over the last few weeks we referred to Nov 22nd 09 as the day we would come together to raise thousands and thousands of pounds.
[06-05-09] Stories from Encounter
The Encounter Weekend continues to be one of my highlights in the year.

Update on our 08-09 Goals

We've been pursuing our strategic goals for 08-09 for over two months now, so I thought it would be good to update everyone on how they're going.

1. Presence - A New Boldness
Last month, we had a welcome meal at our house for people who wanted to join the church. One of the things we do at them is go round and hear a bit of everyone’s story – why they are there, their journey with God so far etc. As we went round hearing the stories, a sense of awe and excitement was building. One person after another talked about God’s direct intervention in getting hold of them, with a number talking in terms of having come to faith in just the last few days and weeks.

As the stories came to an end, my spirit was whispering ‘this sounds like the start of a move of God’. I don’t believe what’s been happening in recent weeks is disconnected from our first goal of pushing into God’s presence. It’s also not a co-incidence that ‘Club Mission’ has got such favour at this time. The Union is providing a room for us to chat to people and pray with them at FND! As the team gather to pray and worship at the start of an evening, it is pushing into God’s presence that is the source of tremendous boldness to engage in the God-conversations and offer prayer for felt needs over the course of the night.

In order to pursue this goal of pushing into God’s presence together, we're asking everyone to study a 40 day devotional called ‘The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind’, which will be our theme for the whole of next term. We have made a bulk order in so we can sell them at Sunday gatherings at the bargain price of £6.50. Chris Ford and Vicky Wilson will be distributing them. We are aiming to start at the end of November as each study can take 2 or 3 days to complete!

2.Provision - A New Resource Centre
We've had an encouraging email through from the planning department about St. Peter's, allowing us to make the key changes we need to in order for the sale to go through. So hopefully it’s only a matter of weeks before the sale officially goes through. This will mean that Elim has purchased the building and our Joint Building Share project can properly start.

3.Preparation - A New Church Plant.
Pete, Miri and the team are doing a visit before Christmas to finalise the exact location. A fortnightly France cell has started for all those committed to going or supporting, so let Pete know if you want to join that. Meanwhile, Pete has joined the leadership team and was commissioned at our last Joint Gathering.

All of which is really exciting, but let's keep pushing into these things in prayer.

Posted by: Ness Wilson on Tuesday Nov 11th, 2008

Comments

Logged-in members can post comments on openheaven.org news articles.

Back