Wildfire Issue 6

C h u r c h i n t h e Pe a k Page 5| Emerge - Pamela talks about

Page 6| Belper - Mark updates us on how the Belper group is going and gives us a few things to pray for

Pages 7| Update from Ghana Sarah updates us on what’s been going on in Ghana

Nov 2011

whats been going on at Emerge since Newday

C H U R C H N E W S : E N C O U R A G I N G FA I T H , FA M I LY A N D F R I E N D S

GET

READY

By Dave Harper On Wednesday July 6th 2005 at 12.49pm it was announced that the 2012 Olympic Games would be held in London. Great celebrations broke out and plans began to be made to get ready. Stadiums had to be built, locations found, facilities prepared for a host of events not least the drama and challenge of the opening ceremony after the success of Peking in 2008. And above all each British athlete began the long preparation to be at their peak come July 2012 with the dream of a medal to motivate them on through the long and gruelling training regimes.

Now with only a few months to go prepara1- Wildfire Church In The Peak

tions are well on, stadiums are ready, tickets have been sold, plans for transporting an expected influx of 2 million to the city of London to and from the games have been laid down, it’s a massive logistical operation to get ready for a huge and momentous event in the life of the nation. Excitement will grip us (most of us anyway!) on July 27th with the opening ceremony intended to represent the best of British creativity and culture.

Getting ready for an event which has a definite date and detailed programme is challenging but at least you know what you are preparing for! Getting ready for the promise of revival in our nation is no less certain since the One who promises is faithful but the date and the outworking are unknown.

Intentionally. Faith operates in the realm of the unseen not the seen. Faith believes because God is able to fulfil all he has promised and because his word is sure. Paul says to the Corinthians “we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen”. (2 Cor 4:18) C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2

C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 1

The Olympic Games are glorious in terms of the feats of human endeavour but in the end they will end and we all move on. Paul puts it like this “for the things that are seen are transient but the things that are not seen are eternal”. We look for and live for something more glorious and more enduring than human achievement, we live for the glory of God been revealed in the earth, that the light of His glory would break into our broken world and Jesus Christ might be revealed.

Preparing for revival cannot come through well- meaning and well- intentioned human desires but always rest on the sovereign initiative of God who prepares us with longings and desires , an ache for the lost , stirs us to call out to him in prayer, and speaks to us through prophecy. Amos understood this when he said “For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). God has been speaking to us to get ready for what He will do and so how do we prepare? How do we get ready?

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Firstly, we learn to wait in expectation.

When Jesus was preparing the early disciples for a coming revival he told them to ‘wait for the promise of the Father’ (Acts 1:4 ESV).

Waiting doesn’t mean we just sitting around waiting for something to happen! Frank Damazio in his book Seasons of Revival explains that waiting in expectation ‘means to wait for something in suspense, to wait in hope. It means to continually remain in one place – maybe permanently – to receive something, you have faith that it will come to pass. This is expectation that is kindled by a promise’.

We must pray that God will give us a spirit of expectation for what He wants to do.

Simeon was ‘waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him’ (Luke 2:25-32). He was waiting with anticipation and had the assurance that he would see the messiah before he died. Moved by the Spirit he went to the temple and found the infant Jesus and knew he was the fulfilment of this promise. The Holy Spirit gives a spirit of expectation, we must ask for it to grow.

Secondly, we are studying revivals both in the bible, for example in the times of Hezekiah, Ezra, and the Book of Acts and also in church history which inspire faith and give instruction. By revival we mean an outpouring of the power of the Holy Spirit on the church, and the surrounding community resulting in not just conversions but also social change. The Book of Acts is an excellent resource for ‘getting ready’ and using a commentary such as ‘Straight to the heart of Acts’ by Phil Moore (see Amazon) or John Stott’s commentary (BST series) would be a way to help prepare.

Thirdly, the early church made much of prayer. They had seen how central prayer was to Jesus’ life so when told to wait they began to pray! ‘All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer’ Acts 1:14. There was a unity among them for what had been promised and a persistent and prevailing period of prayer. The one constant in the history of revivals is that when God is about to move in an extraordinary way he sets his people to pray. For example, in Ulster in the winter of 1857-8 James McQuilkin along with three friends agreed to meet to pray every Friday evening. They took some peat for a fire to the old school house and prayed but it wasn’t until New Year’s Day in 1858 they saw their first conversion, and gradually through the year the meeting grew to 50. They prayed ‘for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon ourselves and upon the surrounding country. This was the one great object and burden of our prayers. We held right to the one thing and did not run off to anything else’. The prayer group was ridiculed for praying in this way ‘but we kept right on praying until the power came’. It did come, and by the close of the following year 100,000 people had been converted in Ulster.

There is a difference between desiring 3- Wildfire Church In The Peak

and believing. Duncan Campbell put it like this“desire for revival is one thing; confident anticipation that our desires will be fulfilled is another”. At a time when darkness covers the nation and thick darkness the peoples this is a time for the glory of the Lord to rise upon us and shine all around.(Isaiah 60:1-2) The state of the nation is God’s opportunity and he is revealing and unveiling its true state. This is God’s time for us to press into his presence, believing his promises and pray to him with confidence, passion and conviction that the Holy Spirit will be poured out with power. We are all included, there are no super- saints, just ordinary Christians who chose to take God at his word and pray it will be fulfilled. The best way to find faith and expectancy is to get in the place of prayer with others. Jesus said that were two or three are together in prayer he is there in the midst. In fact, in the verse preceding this well- known promise of Matt 18:19 Jesus says “If two of you agree about anything they ask it will be done for them by my Father in heaven” So two who are of one faith can change the world!!

The London Olympics of 2012 will commence on July 27th, men and women will strain to compete and outperform their rivals and win the gold medal prize that will give them fame and notoriety. Personally I find such endeavour, commitment and achievement very moving and for that reason hope to be able to watch, albeit on TV as a loser at the ticket lottery, though I suspect the emotion we feel in human achievement is because it mirrors a far more rewarding prize to all who ‘press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus’. (Paul in Phil 3:14)

M O N E Y. . . .

BUILDINGS....

PEOPLE

By Dave Harper We praise God for the continued provision of finance for the ministry of the church.

Regular giving is covering our regular and budgeted expenditure and beyond that there have been generous gifts to Newfrontiers and India including the Dasha clinic for disabled children in Honga village near Belgaum.

Thank you for your generosity in giving and we trust God will bless us as we give to him by giving into the church. We take an offering each term to give away to mission and apostolic ministry. This term, towards the end of November, we will be having a gift day to help support Tim and Becky Davies in their relocation to Dubai where Tim will be working with Steve Oliver in the church there and be part of his apostolic team working into nations Steve is serving. Tim and Becky will be with us on Sunday November 20th when we will hear more.

M E N ’ S M I N I S T RY

By Paul Hay God has been showing me in different ways how important it is to develop good relationships with each other in His family, the church. When we relate well together we become better equipped to serve God as a 4- Wildfire Church In The Peak

We heard earlier this term that our submission for the lido was unsuccessful. We are at peace over this as we had asked for a clear lead from God through the decision of the council and we have had just that! We do believe we will need a larger building when the Riverside lease comes up for renewal in two year’s time and are praying for the right place to be released to us.

Finally, we have been praying for much of this year for God to add to give us another leader who can be a ‘builder’ with the ability and availability to pull together the different elements for the building and running of the church. This is one of the ‘get ready’ priorities and we would ask you to pray for the right person. Our goal is to have sufficient leadership resource, working together in team, to grow the church to 200.

church.

To help men to get to know each other better and to provide opportunities to invite our neighbours and friends to join us I believe that we should start a Men’s Ministry in the church.

To launch this and to discuss events that we can arrange that we would like

to do ourselves and we could invite our friends and neighbours so we are arranging a men’s breakfast launch in January at The Riverside, men of all ages are welcome to join us and help us draw up a programme of events for the new year.

PA R E N T A N D TO D D L E R G RO U P

By Angela Hay After the Brighton Conference this year the Lord reminded me of something that he showed me a number of years ago ago about being Titus women, (see Titus 2 v 3-5) We are a family and we need to meet different needs within the family. The area that I felt the Lord wanted me to look at was the needs of young mums both within the church family and also within the wider community. I felt that God was saying “start a parent and toddler group”

EMERGE

By Pamela Williams After a very successful Newday, Emerge started to meet again on a Tuesday evening at the beginning of September.

The first week saw the return of the famous toasty bar, with many young people from the park joining us on that evening. With the cold darker evenings arriving, young people are not hanging around the park in the evenings, so mostly this term, attendance has been our own church youth, with some of them bringing along their friends which has been 5- Wildfire Church In The Peak

It is a fact that new parents often question what life is all about and once the group is up and running with a good number of non-church mums attending then we could invite them to an informal daytime Alpha course where they could attend the course whilst we looked after their children.

I shared my thoughts with the church leadership who were very supportive so I then spoke to several church ladies who felt that it would be a great opportunity to share God’s love and were really excited by the prospect.

As a result we are now meeting, praying and planning together with a view to

starting early in the new year.

If anyone else feels called to join us please come and have a word with me. We would much appreciate your prayers over this venture.

If anyone is having a pre or post Christmas toy clear out we would appreciate donations of any suitable safe toys in good condition that your children no longer need.

great.

As a church family in community groups, we have been starting to look at Terry Virgo’s Visions and values course. As a youth team it was felt that these are important principles and values, and it is important for our young people to grasp the vision as they are the church of tomorrow. So over the last number of weeks different people from the youth team and elders have been addressing the values with the young people. We have been adapting material and using video clips that are more relevant to the young people. The discussions

have been excellent and the young people have been very open in their comments and responses. There has where appropriate been an opportunity for prayer and ministry times.

We would ask you to continue to pray for our young people, they are an amazing group and we feel it a privilege to be involved in this area of ministry. Being a teenager however can be a very difficult time with many challenges to face so pray for them to be strong, and to stand for what they believe in.

BELPER

By Mar k Ber thelemy The Belper Group launched at Easter this year, and now has 11 adults as part of the regular group, with a further five who have been to one or more events or meetings.

We try to intersperse the more “normal” group meetings with social events - usually involving food of some sort or other!

Even before starting officially, God made it very clear that this was the right time for Belper - and that we would see Him lifting a great weight off the town. If you know any of the history of Belper, and its relationship with the Unitarian Church, Freemasonry and the occult, then you’ll know how essential this is.

We meet most Thursdays at either Mark & Sarah’s house, or at Rosie’s. This can vary, so we use our website

A P O S TO L I C SPHERES

By Dave Harper Newfrontiers is in transition as we move from being one apostolic team and one family of churches to multiple apostolic teams and multiple families of churches. Church in the Peak will be working with David Devenish who has historical relationship 6- Wildfire Church In The Peak

to keep everyone informed of what’s happening. We’ve also decided, for the timebeing, to have a major focus on praying for the town and our group members on Tuesday evenings. By fixing this time, we all know we’re praying together - even if we can’t necessarily be in the same place.

Points for prayer: 1. A lot of us have been under considerable and definite attack since the group started. Please pray for protection.

2. Please pray for blessing on Belper, the towns & villages around, and the people in them. We’re not here to collect numbers, but to bring good news to the area.

3. Please pray that we’d build good relationships with key people.

To keep in touch with what’s happening in Belper, visit our website at: http://CITP-Belper-group. posterous.com

with the church and has a proven track record as an apostle as he and his team work into the Russian speaking world, the Muslim world, the Balkans and a variety of other nations. We are excited by this development and look forward to working together.

We had hoped that a Bible Weekend with the other churches in David’s sphere

would be possible next June but unfortunately it has proved to be too late in the day for a number of churches who already have fixed commitments for next year. So this will now take place in 2013. However, we would like to have a church weekend away next year instead! It will be our 25th year so a fitting time to celebrate together.

SARAH IN GHANA

By Sarah Smith Things here in Ghana are going well since I returned here in September and God is clearly at work in many areas.

KidZone Ghana continues to go very well with new children attending each week.

Most weeks we have about 40 children but a few weeks back we hit 50 which was quite a squeeze into our KidZone room. One of the new toys is a plastic tea set and along with the miniature traditional stoves that I have bought in the market are proving a favourite.

Each week I am presented with many ‘plates of food’ and ‘cups of tea’. It’s great to be able to give the children a place to play with different toys and also to teach them about Jesus. I love it when I hear them singing the songs we have taught them as they walk home from school.

A new work that we have started is a ladies meeting on Tuesday morning. Some of the ladies who come are already part of our church and others are friends and neigh7- Wildfire Church In The Peak

bours who we have invited. Each week we play a game, discuss a short Bible passage and pray for one another. One of the challenges is trying to run the morning in 3 different languages!

The Monday Clinic at the church centre is providing many exciting stories as we pray for healing. Many who come are now leaving without waiting to see Joe, the doctor, as God heals them! This week a lady came who had been diagnosed with fibroids and ovarian cysts and was booked for surgery in 2 days times. We prayed for her and she was encouraged to have a repeat scan. This scan showed everything to be normal, so the surgery was cancelled and she is now planning to start a family! Also Phillipine, a good friend, arrived at our house with a very sore, ulcerated throat. After prayer she was able to swallow some water without pain and her throat looked completely well.

It’s good to be able to share such stories and together we can thank God for all that he is doing!

J I G S AW P RO J E C T

By Deb Hawor th Jigsaw continues to reach out to the poor, those in need and the homeless in the Derbyshire Dales. Our befriending work helps by supporting people through change and standing with them in difficulty. All of the services we offer through Jigsaw provide opportunities for this befriending.

The Jigsaw Café on Wednesday continues to provide a place where people can be accepted and not rejected. We have a number of regular clients and there is a good atmosphere. The sudden death of one of our clients reinforced the importance of this safe haven. The Café is a place to have a hot meal and a drink, chat about life, the universe and everything and provides easy access to all the other Jigsaw Services including

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referral to other agencies appropriate to the needs of the individual. This means building partnerships with others to make the help that is needed more accessible.

We have some long standing partnerships and are pleased to have recently established links with Age UK. The Jigsaw Food Bank provides one off practical support during a crisis and is made possible by donations to the Tin Bin on a Sunday morning.

The Jigsaw Clothes Bank recycles clothing for the whole family and has regular open days where people come and take their pick from a wide selection of new and, good quality, used clothing, linen and bedding. Our quality test is always “would we wear this ourselves” and if the answer is no then we recycle the goods elsewhere to aid our funding. The last open day in

September passed on almost 200 items of clothing. The next open day is Saturday 3rd December and helpers are always welcome!

Bringing up a family during the current economic crisis is not easy. Money is tight and the pressure is on to eat healthily within a limited budget. The Jigsaw Market Garden has been established to help families in the Dales to make some of these choices easier. We do this by providing free local vegetables, meat and basic items on a regular basis to families; made possible by the generosity of supporters and a working relationship with White Peak Farm Butchery.

Supplies of food are limited so we take referrals from organisations in contact with families on a regular basis.

We have been encouraged by a Green Watch grant from the District Council in support of the Market Garden.