The Newfrontiers family of churches have an internship programme called 'FP Impact' which involves working for a local church whilst attending a theology course at a base centre. It is for those who are 18+ years old and there are various bases around the UK. It's essentially a 'working-for-the-church gap year'.
I started my FP year at the end of 2008 until summer 2009. When I started the FP course, I did not even realise how changed I would be by the end of the year. At the time, I was part of a small church plant in Cardiff and had been going there for about 2 or 3 years. As far as I can recall, at the beginning of my FP year, I was starting to hear about Bethel church in Redding California and was very excited and encouraged and blown away by what was going on there as i'd not heard of anything like that before. I also began hearing interesting things about the church in Toronto, Kansas City and Mozambique. (TACF, IHOP & Iris Ministries)
During that year I went to various conferences in which I saw people getting healed of different problems, encountering the fragrance of God, powerful visions, angelic activity and many positive and challenging viewpoints from different types of churches. I also got to go to some Newfrontiers prayer and fasting conferences that were huge and inspiring.
This is an excerpt from Feb 2009 of my first memorable encounter at a conference in Cardiff where there was no hype and people were just getting healed. The Prescence of God felt peaceful and weighty and I smelt incense when no incense had been burning. "Last week was a very significant week in my life.
So much happened last week that i couldn't quite find the words to describe what happened and i'm still not sure what i'm supposed to share and not share on here. I just knew i wanted to explain what happened to some extent.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday i was at a conference that was on at city temple church with a guest speaker from California called Bill. I haven't seen a preacher/speaker quite like him before, and had heard people raving about him lots before. So i was a little on the defensive when i saw him, as i was concerned there was something dangerous going on people kept talking about him so much.
Anyhoo, so having seen him speak on those 3 days i can totally see where people are coming from now, as God really really used him. His teaching was really meaty, proper good biblical truths, completely centred around Jesus and he was preaching and teaching from experience, not theory. We want all preachers and teachings in the church to be like that!!
I mean, basically, it was not the bill show at all but it was the God Show. 95 people got healed on Wednesday evening of various things; backs, legs, knees, ankles, heads, thumbs, shoulders, coxixs, eyes, hips, necks....etc And alot of these that got healed weren't even prayed for (God doesn't need us to heal people, He just likes to involve us sometimes). There were about 4 people at the front and would say stuff like "i got a word from God for a right hip, dry socket. i'm not sure what that means" and the person would stand up and the guy at the front would say "ok, check it out, do something you couldn't do before". Specifically, this woman with the 'dry socketed right hip' who came in with a walking stick ended up after 10-15mins of trying her legs out pretty much jogging around the room and up and down the stairs!
Another person on stage got a word for 'right ankle' or right foot or something like that, and this woman near me gasped. So they asked her to stand and she did and the person at the front said "ok, check out your foot/leg it should be healed" so the woman checked it out and burst into tears and said "i've had pain in my right foot/leg for 2 years and ....there's no pain!"
There were loads of people like that, it's one thing to hear testimonies of these things happening but quite another to see them happening to normal people in front of your eyes! And the wonderful thing which i noticed quite strongly, was the lack of hype. There was absolutely no hype. it was just normal. They didn't try to make more of what was going on by exaggerating stuff, it was just so normal and honest."
Then in March I went to Mexico for a week. I'll be honest, my heart still feels like it's there and I get excited and reminisce whenever I met Mexicans! I met many groups of christians that were so beautiful in heart and spirit, and I saw God heal people and pour His love out on them. It was such a privilege to go to the church in a village outside of Guadalajara, in amongst some brick fields. It may not have looked like much to the natural eye, but the church there is a glorious, shining city on a hill that has and will continue to attract people to it! I did not know much Spanish at all, but though there was a language barrier, it was obvious to see God doing amazing things there and 2 years later I still want to learn Mexican and go back!
When I got back from Mexico, I found out that my Nanny had passed away. I did not know her as well as I would have liked and had but a few memories of her making marvellous christmas meals, watching The Borrowers BBC series at hers and playing on a bear-shaped rope-swing in her garden. It was the first close death I experienced and I don't really know if i've grieved to be honest. The funeral was the 2nd i'd been to, and it felt strange to be at her graveside, awkwardly throwing in flowers with an unresonant thud.
So that year was a mammoth year in terms of experiencing and witnessing all kinds of new things, some stinkin' exciting and others stinkin' challenging. The challenge for this time 2 years on is to keep the wonder and awe of what Jesus is up to and not cease to be amazed at His wonderful grace and beauty.
No comments:
Post a Comment