CELEBRATING

100th Edition SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF THE STORY SO FAR rapevine G

Welcome to the 100th edition of Grapevine magazine. Over the past 99 issues, we have chronicled the story of the amazing way God has faithfully developed His work of ministering through ECC and its members to build His church, both at home in the local vicinities and abroad, with signs and wonders following the preaching His Word.

Copies of Grapevine go out to many places at home and to other countries, as a witness and testimony to the power of Christ to save and change people’s lives; to heal sick bodies in miraculous ways, and to answer every kind of prayer in our lives today. The Bible tells us that ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever’ (Hebrews 13:8).

Although we now print 1,500 copies bi-monthly, with 32 pages in full colour, originally the magazine began, in winter 2000, much more modestly: as 12 pages in two colours (one of which was black). It was given the name ‘Grapevine’, as it was intended to convey to the ECC congregation and beyond, with its biblically symbolic title, news of all that was going on both inside and outside the church, of things natural and supernatural. So it has included the accounts of the day-today activities in ECC, with numerous baptisms, weddings, dedications, activities of the members, and all the things that make up church life.

Grapevine begins

So, on the natural side, our first issue recorded the wedding of Felix and Esther Iyekekpolor, who are still active in ECC but now with two daughters - one of whom is at university.

On the supernatural side were two testimonies - the first of hundreds that would follow in each subsequent edition. One concerned a supernatural healing of a woman who had had one leg shorter than the other for many years, and had to have all the heels for her right foot specially made up by 5/8ths of an inch, so she could walk evenly. But, when her leg grew out, she needed to have 12 pairs of her shoes changed back to normal, as her legs were now the same length!

The other testimony was the touch of God upon a couple whose marriage was in trouble. The wife wrote: “During the morning service, I felt the almighty presence of God upon me. I could not stop crying and went forward for prayer. I asked the Lord for my marriage to be restored. I went home in faith, trusting God and allowing Him to be Lord of everything in my life.”

The husband wrote: “I attended the evening service at ECC on the same day as [my wife]. I was at this time brokenhearted and, although I felt aware of my own wrongful actions, I was confused and fearful. I did not know what to do in order for things in my marriage to be right again. As the anointing of God fell upon God’s people, I felt the need to repent and ask forgiveness for everything I had done wrong. As I allowed the Holy Spirit to fill me, I felt a presence around me, and then I felt Jesus put His arm around me and say: ‘Do not worry, I am in control.’ At that point all my fears and problems seemed to disappear. I felt calm and peaceful. The Lord revealed to me how He wanted me to put Him first, before my wife. He also showed me I was repeating old life patterns, and that His way (God’s way) is the best way. The chains of bondage have broken in Jesus’ Name. I am now free, and God has changed me and made me a better husband. Thank You, Jesus!”

Since these first testimonies, there have been countless healings, answers to prayer, lives changed and restored… too many to be captured in the magazine, but a snapshot of them are recorded in each of the editions to date.

Amazing testimonies, plus launch of the 24/7 Prayer Centre

Our 4th edition, in Spring 2002, recorded the dramatic testimony of one of ECC’s members at the time, Christopher Hyman, who wrote how his life was changed by his escape from the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York.

He was having a meeting at the awful moment the hijacked planes were deliberately flown into the Towers, eventually causing the buildings to collapse, with the loss of thousands of lives.

He described the dramatic events and how he realised the hand of God was upon his life, down to the very point where his meeting, originally scheduled to take place on the 95th Floor that day, had been rearranged the day before to a lower floor. It was the 95th Floor that the plane hit, immediately killing everyone present.

In the summer of 2002, our Issue 5 covered the launch of our 24/7 Prayer Centre, which has been operating ever since, and is now in its 17th year. This issue reported how members of the congregation had given a total of £20,000 to enable the conversion of the boiler room, which once housed the cumbersome oil-fired heating system. Our recent conversion to a gas-fired boiler, now located in a different room, meant that the previous heating system was now redundant. All the equipment was stripped out and the whole room completely renovated to accommodate the prayer intercessors and the telephone lines on which people would call to ask for prayer over the telephone.

The primary purpose has always been to establish an unbroken communion between ECC and God. All the many yellow prayer request cards that are prayed over in our Tuesday evening prayer meetings go to the Prayer Centre for continued prayer.

Around 1,200 calls a week come in from our local area, from London, from around the UK, and from overseas. We soon started publishing the amazing answers to prayer from these calls, as people often call back to report prayers being answered, and this practice continues in each edition of Grapevine to encourage the faith of other believers. These answers include: people getting saved, healed, provisions provided,

CELEBRATING OUR 100th ISSUE by Pastor Richard Buxton Editor-in-Chief

HEALED OF HYPERACTIVE THYROID by Sylvie Zokou

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Shepherd’s Bush Update by Helena Owusu 10

PRAYER CENTRE TESTIMONIES compiled by Pastor Tom PRAYER DIARY 12 20

WEEKLY MEETINGS WHAT WE BELIEVE 22

FELLOWSHIP & ECC FAMILY NEWS 24

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RETREAT TO ADVANCE by Pastor Alex Morgan 28

STAND FIRM by Kofo Boboye 30

Special montage of front covers 32 5

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A special look back at some of the ECC highlights as reported in Grapevine magazine

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LOCAL LIGHTHOUSE EVANGELISM UPDATE by Pastor Rajinder & Edgar Isleworth Update by William Sam-Aggrey

8pp PRAYER DIARY PULL-OUT

EVANGELISM & PRAYER CALENDAR

SUNDAY SERVICES WHAT’S ON

compiled by Sharon Grant

PRACTICAL TRUTHS by Roy McEwen

PRACTICAL LOVE by Yvonne Boakye

KIDS’ SUMMER CLUB by Fiona Abraham

If you would like an item to be considered for the next edition of the Grapevine magazine, please email your article to info@ecc.org.uk, marked 'For Grapevine'. Articles for half a page should be no more than 250 words, and for a full page should be no more than 600 words. The Editor reserves the right to edit articles where necessary. The deadline for the December/January edition is no later than FRIDAY 1st November.

broken relationships restored, lost people found, and any number of other situations that form the experiences of life in a fallen world.

Whole church community outreach and ECC extension begins

Winter 2002 was our 6th edition, which covered three significant events. The first was ‘The Festival of Hope’ - a church-wide evangelistic outreach in Gunnersbury Park (pictures below). In the days before mandatory Health & Safety laws added such a huge financial cost as to make it prohibitive, the ECC used to conduct summer outreaches by hiring a marquee over a period of about a week.

Many church members were involved in engaging with hundreds of members of the public in all kinds of ways during the day: face painting, bouncy castles, gospel music and short outdoor dramas and sketches. And, in the evenings, there would be a gospel meeting or at other times a play, written and performed by ECC members, always aimed at leading people to Christ, which always happened.

The second significant event reported was the clean-up of the land between ECC and the neighbouring kebab shop. When ECC bought the current building, it did not include that piece of land, which had been sold separately with planning permission. We prayed constantly that we would be able to buy it, but it was sold from one developer to another.

However, in answer to prayer, it was never developed and ECC was finally able to buy it, with a vision to build on it what was later to become the new building extension. This annexe block now houses all the classrooms. Volunteers gathered to prepare the land for this future development, and by December 2005, our 17th and 18th editions would be covering the start of the building of the new Annexe block.

The third significant event was to report the celebrations that took place to mark the fact that the original £500,000 mortgage (borrowed to buy the building) had been paid off in the record time of just seven years.

The summer 2003 edition began to report the miracles that were now happening more frequently in the monthly Revival & Healing meetings. On this occasion, it was a man who could not walk and who, after prayer, was able to run up and down the stairs in the auditorium. Numerous other testimonies shared by people of healings and astonishing answers to prayer followed, and were recorded in different editions, including the healing of high blood pressure, injuries, sciatica, migraines, glaucoma, a hole in the heart, and with cancers and fibroids disappearing, bent backs straightened, frozen shoulders unlocked and operations cancelled after prayer because the condition was no longer there.

ECC begins to send out missionaries

July 2003 saw the 9th edition of Grapevine go to its current bi-monthly publication, now with 24 pages. By February 2005, our 12th edition (pictured left) was reporting the beginning of what would become an expanding missions outreach of church planting from ECC in different countries of the world. Our first full-time sponsored missionaries were Pastor Mark and Cora King, who went to Cebu with their family for what would be a nine-year stretch, to pioneer and establish what in time would become first one church plant, with its own building, and then many churches, run by the local Filipino leadership. Prior to this, Pastor Mark had led short-term missions to Cebu and other countries, but this now was a big step for them as a family - and for ECC as a church.