CELEBRATING OUR 100th ISSUE meaning in such a way, and I would like to encourage everyone to make the effort to enjoy fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ who are of a different nationality. You may even be from a country which has a ‘bad history’ with another country, but there are no divisions between brothers and sisters in the Lord. Jesus taught about the Feast we will have in heaven, when ‘people will come from east and west, north and south, and will take their places at the Feast in the Kingdom of God’ (Luke 13:29). How wonderful it is to be able to gather now with people from all nations as a pre-experience of that Feast.”
Grapevine expands with the addition of Prayer Diaries Also in August 2008, Issue 33 was expanded to 32 pages, as the daily prayer diaries were added as pull-outs in the centre pages. Each day there are five prayer points, all based on Scripture. These prayer points are included in the daily morning and evening prayer meetings in ECC. By featuring them as the centre pages, they can be easily removed and kept in our personal Bibles, enabling the church to now pray at home in line with what those attending the prayer meetings were also praying. So together, the church is able to pray and intercede for these prayer points, seeking personal, church and national revival.
Polish church joins ECC As we move to edition 40, in October 2009, we reported on our Polish church, Elim Springs, moving into ECC, where it has been a part of the ECC family ever since. Elim Springs reaches out to the large Polish community around us, and is building a vibrant, growing church.
From humble beginnings ‘Elim Sound’ goes global Another major ministry from ECC that has since gone on to become part of the global Elim ministry, was first reported in February 2011 in our 48th edition. A couple of years earlier, our Pastor Sam Blake had met with a three other worship leaders from different Elim churches, dreaming together about how to equip the wider Elim Movement on a local, national and international level regarding creative and inspirational input with worship.
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GRAPEVINE magazine • Issue 100 • OCT/NOV 2019
Having arranged to meet with Rev John Glass, Elim’s General Superintendent at the time, Pastor Sam wrote: “We then proceeded to play him some of the songs that we had written, and the awesome, magnificent presence of God came and dwelt with us there in that office.” John Glass gave them unqualified support and Elim Sound, as the ministry was named, was born. The following year, in 2010, Elim Sound were commissioned at the Elim Annual Conference of ministers, and from there the ministry has grown to encompass a world outreach. Releasing worship CDs; running a worship leaders’ course in our national Regents Bible College; running worship workshops; training new writers how to compose worship songs for inclusion on new CDs, and now training leaders in different countries around the world, time has demonstrated this was indeed a God-given vision.
A God-given personal dream fulfilled One testimony, related in April 2010, our 43rd edition, has a direct connection with this magazine. Hakeem Kasumu, who grew up as a Muslim but came to know Jesus as his Saviour, was asked one Saturday in a Men’s Breakfast meeting, what his vision was for God’s work in his life. He explained to the group of men that he wanted to possess his own printing press and print Christian literature. It seemed an impossible dream back then, as he was working at Tesco’s at the time. An opportunity came to buy a printing press at the impossible price of £500,000. The bank laughed at him when he asked for a loan. Registering his own company in faith, and getting men at ECC to pray for him, Hakeem wrote: “To cut a long story short, God took charge of the whole process from beginning to the end.” The finance materialised, the final purchase price was less than 40% of the original price, and he was able to buy the printing press and now continues to operate it, printing the Grapevine as part of his business. He ended his testimony: “If you have a dream, continue to trust in God that in the fullness of time He will come through. He will come through.”
A vision of a ministry to Kenyans sees explosive growth Outreach from ECC has taken many different forms and, in the same year, another great work began, which was subsequently described three years later in June 2013 in Issue 62. One of our Kenyan ECC members, Jane Kiguru-Wamae, shared how she had felt the Lord had spoken to her with these words: “Gather the Kenyan community; call them and the nation to repent and come back to Me; advocate for healing, unity,
