We're into August now and that means Newday time - the New Frontiers youth festival held every year at the Norwich Showground. Hope Church sent a party up for the week but this blog is really about a coach party of young people that spent an afternoon in Thetford last Friday.
We all assembled in the Large Court and spend some time asking God to show us "clues" about people He planned to encounter that afternoon. Then we all went out into the town looking for these people! One group met a lady on crutches with a serious knee problem. 5 minutes later she was healed, to her amazement. That evening she drove her car again for the first time in months. Furthermore she is only a neighbour of members in our church!
Read your Bibles and you find incidents like this were common place in the earthly life of Jesus and the early church. God hasn't changed since then nor has his desire to break into the lives of ordinary people to heal and to save.
Our church's function in this town is to be a conduit for the blessing of God to people like us.
A great afternoon.
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
Monday, 18 June 2012
Ringsfield Hall 2012
The weekend of 8-10 June saw Hope Church Thetford, plus one or two guests, blast off to Ringsfield Hall in Suffolk for a weekend together. it was just one great weekend. Great people, great food, great fun, great weather (amazingly) and we enjoyed a great God blessing us all.
I don't think any of us there will forget it in a hurry - the nighttime camp fire singing, the times of worship, Grantley's teaching, the treasure hunt, the Olympics, the talent show (top prize went to the Queen Victoria impression - you had to be there) and to cap it all - one girl suffered a badly sprained ankle (confirmed by the doctor) which God healed before we all came home again. Awesome.
I don't think any of us there will forget it in a hurry - the nighttime camp fire singing, the times of worship, Grantley's teaching, the treasure hunt, the Olympics, the talent show (top prize went to the Queen Victoria impression - you had to be there) and to cap it all - one girl suffered a badly sprained ankle (confirmed by the doctor) which God healed before we all came home again. Awesome.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Easter blog
Here's hoping everyone had a happy Easter 2012 despite the iffy weather! Time for an update on how things are going over the year so far.
And I think the answer is: steady, with occasionally spectacular, progress!
We've just completed our first Alpha Course - lots of food (different culinary theme each time), lots of discussion and some guests as well. particularly pleased to see some Brazilian ladies coming along. So pleased were they to be with us that the final meeting that they hosted a Brazilian meal!
But I've saved the most exciting news to the end. One of our new Christian men came to us not expecting to live much longer - he had cancer. Now he hasn't! We went to a regional new Frontiers meeting at Dereham in may at which our apostolic leader, Mike Betts, came believing he'd heard from God that he had to pray for cancer. he did and an amazing healing has followed. Our man was conscious of a heat over the infected part and 2 subsequent hospital check-ups have revealed a stopping of the tumor's growth and now a shrinkage, no longer classified as malignant. Amazing.
But we've much to do now - it's all only just begun! Get in touch if you want to come along or just to find out more about Hope Church Thetford.
And I think the answer is: steady, with occasionally spectacular, progress!
We've just completed our first Alpha Course - lots of food (different culinary theme each time), lots of discussion and some guests as well. particularly pleased to see some Brazilian ladies coming along. So pleased were they to be with us that the final meeting that they hosted a Brazilian meal!
But I've saved the most exciting news to the end. One of our new Christian men came to us not expecting to live much longer - he had cancer. Now he hasn't! We went to a regional new Frontiers meeting at Dereham in may at which our apostolic leader, Mike Betts, came believing he'd heard from God that he had to pray for cancer. he did and an amazing healing has followed. Our man was conscious of a heat over the infected part and 2 subsequent hospital check-ups have revealed a stopping of the tumor's growth and now a shrinkage, no longer classified as malignant. Amazing.
But we've much to do now - it's all only just begun! Get in touch if you want to come along or just to find out more about Hope Church Thetford.
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
It's Christmas!
It's Christmas and the sands of 2012 are fast running out. It's been a while since the last blog but much has happened since early June.
For a start we've now moved up to Thetford! What a hassle but what a relief - to be actually living in the town in which we're planting the church. No more midnight runs back to Braintree on Tuesday nights - yippee!
The church has now consolidated to a size and depth that we can now sustain a weekly Sunday meeting - so every Sunday afternoon finds us at the Carnegie Room, the biggest hall in the town. Numbers usually vary bwtween 20 and 30 but we expecting to gather much more folk by this time next year.
Some of our teenage girls have become Christians - which is wonderful. We're trusting God for a bigger harvest next year.
As for what's next - as Noddy Holder would yell, It's Christmas!
For a start we've now moved up to Thetford! What a hassle but what a relief - to be actually living in the town in which we're planting the church. No more midnight runs back to Braintree on Tuesday nights - yippee!
The church has now consolidated to a size and depth that we can now sustain a weekly Sunday meeting - so every Sunday afternoon finds us at the Carnegie Room, the biggest hall in the town. Numbers usually vary bwtween 20 and 30 but we expecting to gather much more folk by this time next year.
Some of our teenage girls have become Christians - which is wonderful. We're trusting God for a bigger harvest next year.
As for what's next - as Noddy Holder would yell, It's Christmas!
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Letton Hall 2011
Letton Hall 3-5 June 2011 - our first weekend away together as a new church! All told there were 37 of us there at various times over the weekend with most staying the whole time.
We laughed a lot, cried a bit and encountered God as a church. he reminded us that being jusified by faith means that our acceptability before God is a settled issue. No more striving and no more doubts! We were also provoked into taking God's promise for us to be a multicultural and multinational church more seroiusly - we need to start making plans on that one. Finally we were stirred to look to our future with God with real faith and not with fear.
The only sad note of the weekend was your correspondent's record on the go-kart track - played two, lost two!
We laughed a lot, cried a bit and encountered God as a church. he reminded us that being jusified by faith means that our acceptability before God is a settled issue. No more striving and no more doubts! We were also provoked into taking God's promise for us to be a multicultural and multinational church more seroiusly - we need to start making plans on that one. Finally we were stirred to look to our future with God with real faith and not with fear.
The only sad note of the weekend was your correspondent's record on the go-kart track - played two, lost two!
Monday, 16 May 2011
Hope Church Thetford - launched!
Wow - what an afternoon!
Our new church is officially launched. The Carnegie Room looked festive with balloons, banners and nice table cloths on the tables. Food and drink were in abundance as around 100 people gathered to support the occasion. Excellent words and prayers from Grantley Watkins (on behalf of Newfrontiers) and Tim Lovejoy (on behalf of the local Thetford churches) and then Maurice Nightingale (a regional leader of Newfrontiers and old friend of mine) deputised for the indisposed Mayor and cut the red ribbon! A special cake was presented and I (and Dan Morgan) were presented with commemorating trophies while our wives received flowers. Oh - and we worshipped God helped by Mikey and the band down from Wymondham and I gave a short word explaining what this was all about!
A great afternoon - let's have many more as our numbers grow and we start to look and act the part.
Our new church is officially launched. The Carnegie Room looked festive with balloons, banners and nice table cloths on the tables. Food and drink were in abundance as around 100 people gathered to support the occasion. Excellent words and prayers from Grantley Watkins (on behalf of Newfrontiers) and Tim Lovejoy (on behalf of the local Thetford churches) and then Maurice Nightingale (a regional leader of Newfrontiers and old friend of mine) deputised for the indisposed Mayor and cut the red ribbon! A special cake was presented and I (and Dan Morgan) were presented with commemorating trophies while our wives received flowers. Oh - and we worshipped God helped by Mikey and the band down from Wymondham and I gave a short word explaining what this was all about!
A great afternoon - let's have many more as our numbers grow and we start to look and act the part.
Monday, 4 April 2011
JC21 - the third meeting!
Well, we're starting to get a lovely trickle of new people coming along now. And some hail originally from other countries - Portugal, Poland, Lithuania and South Africa are represented to date. This is great - fulfilling exactly the vision we believe God gave us of planting an international church right in the centre of Thetford.
And let me say a big hats off to the ladies who faithfully bake terrific cakes and other goodies for us Sunday after Sunday. Our church is growing in all directions at the moment!
And let me say a big hats off to the ladies who faithfully bake terrific cakes and other goodies for us Sunday after Sunday. Our church is growing in all directions at the moment!
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