Awesome healing story at TKC...

On Sunday morning at TKC I heard a story.  It was a true story told by a 15 year old called Jenn.  It was one of those stories that stops you in your tracks, that takes your breath away, that reminds you again just how awesome God is.

Jenn had just returned from Newday - an event run by Newfrontiers for young people.  This year 6500 people attended including a group of about 60 from TKC.

Jenn was part of that group because earlier in the year she attended a Youth Alpha course at our church, met with God on the away day and signed up for Newday.

That is wonderful in itself.  But then another extraordinary thing happened.  One night at Newday, in the evening celebration, Adrian Holloway prayed for the sick and those with illness. Jenn had suffered with a form of dyslexia for years which had meant that reading was a significant challenge.  So significant that she had never read publicly and required additional tuition.

So she prayed, with her friends. Prayed that God would heal her.

How would she know if anything had changed, if God had done anything?  She picked up her Bible and read, out loud to her mates, for the first time....ever.  She read clearly with no hesitation and no struggle.  God had done something wonderful.

On Sunday morning at church Jenn shared her story and then, as the preach began, she stood up in front of 250 people and read the Bible. She read the verses that we were looking at together. It was one of those moments, one of those stories. God is doing some amazing things.

For more info on Newday check out http://www.newdaygeneration.org/Groups/108677/Newday.aspx

Adventures in Kenya

Last year, at TKC, Edward Buria (Kenya) and his wife Frida spent a weekend with us along with some other great people from Kambakia Christian Centre in Meru. A friendship began that weekend and we as a church were so blessed by having them with us.

Over the year I have stayed in touch with Edward and I am delighted to say that he will be back with us again at The King's Church Mid-Sussex, with some other guys from Kambakia. He will be preaching on Sunday 4 July 2010.

However, before then, I have the privilege of visiting Kenya myself. I, with a good friend (Peter Marson), will be flying out on 23 May to spend 10 days with Edward and the church in Meru to see some of the amazing work they are involved in.

I am grateful to God for this relationship with Edward and want to be very open to hear from him when I am in Kenya. Being part of a global family of churches like Newfrontiers is sometimes hard to grasp, however, what it actually comes down to is relationships. Where you know God is joining hearts and joining vision to see his Kingdom plans come to fruition. I sense that is happening here and am excited to see what God might do!

Nehemiah's Prayer

My last post was a long time ago. I have a good reason - a new 3 and a half week old now resident in the Partridge house. In my last post I spoke about Habakkuk's prayer, now I turn my attention to Nehemiah.

Nehemiah is a hero of mine. Passionate about the state of Jerusalem, unwilling to be a distant spectator, he prayed, prepared and planned to re-build the walls of Jerusalem. He faced significant opposition and distraction, yet he mobilised a massive labour force to rebuild the city. In chapter 1, before he takes any action, he prays. And his prayer gives us a great model for our own prayer life.

1. He looks at God

He starts off by recognising who it is that he is praying to. Before making any request or speaking about the state of Jerusalem, he focuses on God.

'O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God....' (Neh 1 v 5)

He gets everything in perspective first. The God that he is praying to is great and awesome, bigger than any obstacle, greater than any project.

If we start our prayers focussing on the issue, the request, the need or the obstacle we may never get to focus on the God who is bigger than them all. Nehemiah does not make that mistake, he firstly focusses on God.

2. He looks at himself

He then recognises that he, his family, and his nation have not lived as God has required. The problems in Jerusalem are not his fault, he is not to blame, he lives 800 miles away. But he does not abdicate himself from all responsibility. He recognises that his life has not honoured God and therefore, he and his family, are in some responsible for the way things are.

'I confess the sins, we Israelites, including myself...have committed against you' (Neh 1 v 6)

3. He looks at the promises

Next up, he recalls the promises of God over the Israelite nation.

'Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses...' (Neh 1 v 8)

He turns the promises of God into his own prayers. God you said..... Have you ever struggled to know what to pray? Copy what Nehemiah does. The Bible is full of promises of God that we can turn back to him in prayer.

4. He focus' on the main thing

He knows that any project he embarks on in Jerusalem is not for his fame or reputation, nor is it for the fame or reputation of the Israelites. It is all for the fame and reputation of God.

'....who delight in revering your name' (Neh 1 v 11)

What's our motivation? Jesus - his fame and glory - that's it! Nehemiah was a man desperate to see the name of God honoured and glorified.

5. He makes his request

And it's quite a simple one.

'Give your servant success today by granting him favour....' (Neh 1 v 11)

Nehemiah didn't ask about resources for Jerusalem, or workers, or for insight as to the task ahead. He just asked about the next hurdle, the next step. He needed favour before his boss, the King. Sometimes we may just need to ask God for the next thing, not everything.

Nehemiah was a man of prayer. His model in chapter 1 is helpful to us in many way. Look at God, look at yourself, look at the promise, honour his name, make your request!

Part 2 of the TKC Teaching Series from the book of Nehemiah takes place on Sunday 14 March 2010.

Praying like Habakkuk......

I have just returned from two amazing days in Peterborough. I travelled with Steve Cornford, Reuben Lyons and Luke Williams from the team at TKC and we joined with about 800 leaders from across the UK (and even across the world) for two days of worship, prayer and fasting. They were incredible days!

A couple of weeks ago I preached at TKC from Habakkuk 3 v 2 where Habakkuk prays:

"Lord, I have heard of your fame;

I stand in awe of your deeds, o Lord.

Renew them in our day,

in our time make them known;

in wrath remember mercy."

I feel stirred to adopt this prayer of Habaukkuk in 2010. What we need, more than anything else, is for God to do in our day what he has done in other places and at other times in history.

Being with 800 leaders this morning, calling out to God for him to bring fresh revival to the UK was humbling and inspiring, a privilege and a provocation. I cannot remember being in such an environment, where there was such hunger for God to come again. The passionate prayers of hundreds of people has left me envisioned again to keep reading, keep praying and keep believing God that there's much more for us to see.

With this in mind, I bought a copy of "The Ulster Awakening" by John Weir. An account of the amazing move of God in 1859. I want to keep feeding on stories of what God has done before becase I genuinely believe that he will do it again. Let's pray like Habakkuk prayed...

"Oh God, will you do it again"

This coming Sunday (31 January) I will be preaching at King's Church, Uckfield.

Reflections on Worship Series

We have just completed a four week teaching series at TKC on worship. Personally, I have been stirred and challenged again about what it means to 'Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, mind and strength'.

It is clear that God has been speaking to us as a church about being a 'one thing' people and it has been great to see how this phrase has found it's place in the day to day language of the church.

Our prayer, as a team, was that this teaching series would not just communicate a few theological ideas about worship. But that it would generate fresh passion in our hearts, to live lives devoted to worshipping Jesus.

One particular outworking of this, which I have been so encouraged by, is the men's prayer meeting. Last Saturday morning over 25 of us crammed into our church offices and gave an hour of full on worship and prayer - the volume was deafening, the prayers were passionate, the engagement was fantastic. I firmly believe that our church will be stronger as the guys pray. In some ways its a shame that we are now breaking for a few weeks over Christmas as we were really building some momentum, but I am looking forward to Saturday January 9th when we kick off again in the New Year.

To download messages from the worship series - visit www.tkc.org.uk

Counterfeit Gods

At TKC, we are currently in the middle of a teaching series on worship. Everyone worships something, the question is who...or what. Yesterday (06/12/09) we looked at the danger of fake gods - the fact that our world is full of things that are seeking our time, resources, energy, attention and ultimately our worship.

In my preparation for this series I read "Counterfet Gods" by Tim Kellar. He identified many contemporary idols - money, image, relationships, political ideals and more - which can easily become the thing in which we put our hope, identity and trust Each and every time he points us back to Jesus - and shows us how Jesus answers the deepst questions of the human heart in an way that none of these other "counterfiet gods" can.

Its a brilliant book and will get you thinking about things in your own life that may have attained a position which is competing with Jesus. Have a look at http://icmbooksdirect.co.uk/catalog/index.php for a good price.

Prophecy being fulfilled?

The spiritual gift of prophecy is an amazing thing. When you are in a room full of people and someone brings a word and you just know that God is speaking - it's electric! We, as a church, (The King's Church Mid-Sussex) received a prophetic word a few years ago that has really shaped who we are and what we are seeking to build. Part of that word spoke about us becoming a resource centre, a church which seeks to resource and support others.

So how are we seeking to do this? Well, God seems to be opening a number of doors for us as a team. One way that we are responding to this word is the way we release Steve Cornford to serve other churches. Over the last three weeks Steve has.....

- preached at Community Church Henfield, Sussex(http://www.communitychurchhenfield.org). Steve is developing a growing relationship with this church which involves spending time with the leadership team.

- visited a church in Exmouth, Devon (http://www.thekingswaychurch.org), attended a church family night and laid hands on and prayed for a new leader to lead the church

- spent the weekend with Frontiers church Exeter, Devon http://www.frontiers-exeter.org.uk/, ran a prophetic workshop for local churches, spent time with the leaders of the church in the evening and then preached twice in their church on the Sunday.

- hosted 'Word Plus', a Bible training school that we administrate from the TKC offices, that has 5 modules a year (Saturdays) and currently has over 50 students.

We're glad to release Steve as we believe we are fulfilling what God has spoken to us about. In addition to this, I had the joy last weekend of preaching at King's Church, Horsham (www.kch.org.uk)

Keep checking back to this blog as I'll put further updates about what we as a team are up to.