NOVEMBER 2014
ISSUE 13
T H E N E T WO R K The tide is turning What a year this has been! It's the year small group...either a connect group when kingfisher reached 21 years of or a ministry group) age, and the year when we rediscovered • Worship (worship evenings and the our forward momentum. So much has album, Proclamations). happened this year in the UK and overseas - there really seems to have • Spiritual warfare (Setting The been an accelerated pace of change. Captives Free course, which is well Back at the beginning of this year, I was on the way to being produced) talking about this year being the start of the next seven years of the life of this Network, and that this new era would be defined by the word MATURITY. As God causes breakthroughs in many areas, and as we come through our Refiners fire season of the previous year, so what he is looking for and what he is expecting to see in us is a growing sense of spiritual maturity; a growing sense of maturity in community, a growing sense of maturity in worship, a growing sense of maturity in terms of the spiritual battle. Maturity is what is called for in this new season.Yes there will still be setbacks and challenges and At the start of this year, we faith-stretching times, but God's had some faith targets we were challenge to us was (and is!) to deal facing: with those times with increasing maturity. There have been some • Social Enterprise headquarters in tragedies this year - opportunities for town (we are now in, with the shop this community to respond with mature already up and running and The pastoral care. There have been those Cavern being set to open at the end who have grieved the loss of loved of the year) ones, those who have grieved the breakup of family, those who have • Lent course (The 'But God' series of struggled with major illness. I have seen forty thoughts-for-the-day) this community, both at Kingsway and Tredworth, rise to the challenge of • Praying towards this year Ollie supporting and caring for those people Bennett being able to become a fullin really wonderful ways. Just quietly time pastor and, somehow for both and sensitively, with healing words and Ollie and Shaun to be paid as fullactions. There have been some faithtime pastors. (Ollie became the full stretching times for people who have time pastor of Tredworth at the lost jobs, had no visible means of beginning of September). We are financial support, who have felt God's launching the financial model the call to move into particular areas as a Trustees have developed for both complete act of faith, and the Tredworth and Kingsway at the community has rallied around and beginning of next year. This will mean brought encouragement and support. that both churches are responsible for their own finances, which We were looking at the includes paying their pastors as the beginning of this year at three money comes in for that. Both themes that were likely to churches have been released to take emerge: control, under the guidance and direction of the trustees, of their • community (everyone who calls budgeting. This has been made Kingfisher their home to be in a possible for Kingsway by Jan Burn
‘Maturity is what is called for in this new season’
stepping down from being a staff member. She will cease to be paid by the church from 1st October. Katie Tucker has also stepped down from being a member of staff at the church, that being from the 1st September.
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Praying towards arranging for both Simon Haq (National Director, India) and Charles Mithowa (National Director, Malawi) to travel to the UK to help launch the International Network at a whole new level. (This is still our intention, and Stuart Gray is currently working with Charles to go through the process of applying for a visa, with a view to getting him and Simon over here Feb/March 2015)
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Stuart and I travelled to Mozambique to open the new centre that has been built there as the result of our 2013 harvest appeal. The building was completed earlier this year and Stuart and I travelled to Mozambique in May, where we commissioned not only the new centre, but the new National Director of Mozambique, Fuloresi Dempster.
This has been a year of change and growth. In addition to Jan and Katie stepping down from being staff members at Kingfisher, I have stepped down from being the pastor of Tredworth and taken up the role of Senior Pastor full time. Paula Braham has become a trustee. Elaine Campion has stepped down from being a trustee. Jan has been invited to become an elder at Tredworth. Where are we now as a result of all of that? In new territory! This is a new day. Let me share with you a prophetic picture that was shared a short while ago. It concerns the Israelites who crossed from the wilderness where they had been wandering for forty years into the Promised Land. As they reached the Promised Land they were probably thinking they had arrived and that it would be plain sailing form there on. However, what confronted them in Continued on page two