Sunrise Summer 2018

SUMMER 2018 £2.50 Where Sold

The Magazine of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, United Kingdom

LET THE FIRE FALL

PASTOR (MRS) FOLU ADEBOYE @ 70

-Pastor E. A. Adeboye

‘It has been you, Jesus!’

Divine

Victory

FESTIVAL OF LIFE COMES TO SCOTLAND! PRAYER WALKS FOR PEACE ON LONDON STREETS

GENERAL OVERSEER

FAITH

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FAMILY

COMMUNITY www.sunrisemagazine.org

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CONTENTS 4 LET THE FIRE FALL - PASTOR E. A. ADEBOYE

ISSN NO: 2042-6542 EDITORIAL BOARD

6 FROM THE CENTRAL OFFICE 7 EDITORIAL NOTES 8 PASTOR (MRS) FOLU ADEBOYE @ 70 10 BIOGRAPHY OF PASTOR (MRS) FOLU ADEBOYE 12 PASTOR AGU IRUKWU ON PRAYER 14 MOUNT CARMEL PRAYER VILLAGE

Editor-in-Chief: MODUPE AFOLABI Managing Editor: YINKA ODUWOLE Editor: ANDREA ONDUKU Photographer (RCCG Events): KUSH Designed by: IFE SAMUEL Published by: The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Central Office, United Kingdom facebook.com/rccguk twitter.com/rccguk youtube.com/rccguk instagram.com/rccguk

15 FESTIVAL OF LIFE, GLASGOW 16 DIRECTORY OF RCCG PARISHES IN SCOTLAND

All Correspondence to: Sunrise Magazine, RCCG Central Office, Redemption House, Gunnels Wood Park, Gunnels Wood Road Stevenage SG1 2TA

18 HOW REVIVAL CAME TO GLASGOW 20 THINK ON THESE THINGS 22 EDUCATION 26 INTERVIEW: YOUR MONEY COUNTS

The views expressed by contributors to Sunrise are not necessarily a reflection of the official doctrinal positions of RCCG. The publisher, editors, contributors and related parties are not responsible in any way for the actions or results taken by any person, organisation or parties on

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the basis of reading information, stories or contributions to be found in this publication.

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30 BUSINESS 32 POWER OF PRAYER 36 FAITH 38 FEATURE: MAKING EXCELLENT CHOICES

Tel: +44 (0) 208 171 1030 Email: info@sunrisemagazine.org Web: www.sunrisemagazine.org | www.issuu.com/sunriseuk

40 RELATIONSHIPS 42 MATTERS OF THE HEART

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46 INTERVIEW: REMARKABLE STORY OF JANICE FEELY 48 WHY DESTINATION WEDDINGS? 50 GROW YOUR BUSINESS

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52 CHURCH PLANTING

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55 BOOKS YOU JUST MUST READ 56 RCCG EVENTS

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78 VOLUNTEERING AT RCCG CENTRAL OFFICE 3

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Let the

fall

By Pastor E. A. Adeboye

What happens when the fire of God falls? 1. Yokes are destroyed.

2. The one in whom the fire falls becomes empowered so that whatever their hands touches begins to prosper.

Isaiah 10:27 says that the anointing destroys the yoke. When the fire of God fell on Samson, all the ropes binding him were burnt. They were not just cut, they were burnt. Hebrews 12:29 says our God is a consuming fire. When the fire of God comes down, yokes seen and unseen are destroyed by the fire of God. www.sunrisemagazine.org

Samson found the jawbone of a donkey and it suddenly became a weapon of war. When the fire of God falls, the one on whom it falls receives power. In Acts 1:8 the Bible says we shall receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon us. In Acts 3:1-8 after fire had poured upon Peter, he took a lame 4

GENERAL OVERSEER man by the hand and because his hands had received power, he was able to transfer that power into the layman, and the layman now began to walk.

themselves.

In Exodus 12:31-36 when the fire of God fell in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh sent for Moses in a hurry.

The one who had said ‘Who is your God? I don’t know him and I am not going to let you go’, now said, ‘Go quickly, go and worship your God and bless me also.’ I can see Moses saying, ‘I thought you don’t know my God and you are now asking my God to bless you’.

3. All external enemies are destroyed.

Samson took the jawbone of a donkey and suddenly all the enemies that didn’t run, laid down dead. The Bible says in Psalm 68:1-2 that when God arises, His enemies will be scattered. Deuteronomy 28:1-7 says clearly that if you are obedient to God, you won’t have to fight. He said that the enemy that comes against you in one way will flee before you in seven ways.

7. You will begin to sing a new song.

Humanly speaking, Samson had a song before the fire fell, but after the fire fell, he began to sing a new song. The psalmist said in Psalm 40:1-3 ‘when I cried to the Almighty God, he brought me out of the miry clay and he put a new song in my mouth’. The Bible says in Psalm 126:1-3 that when the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, their mouths were filled with laughter and their tongues with singing. 1 Samuel 2:1-10 says when the Lord answered Hannah, she sang a new song.

4. Household enemies will be disappointed.

It was the relatives of Samson that bound him and handed him over to the external enemies. They thought that Samson would never come back home, but God disappointed them. David said in Psalm 23:5 ‘thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies’. Whether your enemies like it or not, it shall be well with you.

When the fire falls, what it does depends on whom it falls. When the fire falls it either turns what it fell upon to fire or turns it to ashes. You put a piece of wood in fire; the good part of the wood will also become fire; the bad part of the wood will become ashes. When the fire of God falls, if you are not a child of God, if you are not on the side of God, if you are living a life of sin, it is a dangerous thing to ask the fire of God to fall. If it falls on you and you are not one of His children, it will only destroy you.

5. Destiny will be restored.

When the relatives of Samson brought him bound to the enemy, they thought his destiny was over.

The Almighty God had a purpose for the life of Samson and saw to it that the plan of the enemy to truncate the destiny of Samson was foiled. Nobody comes to this world without a reason. God sent you to this world for a purpose. Your dreams will be fulfilled.

6. You will begin to have the last laugh.

The Philistines were rejoicing; they would have said ‘we got our enemy’, ‘he is finished’ but not long after that, Samson was the one saying, ‘I have wiped out my enemies’. In Daniel 6:1-24 the enemies saw the way Daniel was rising and so they plotted against him to put an end to him permanently. They threw him into the den of lions, rolled a big stone over the den and celebrated that he was finished. I am sure they must have gone home that night rejoicing, but by the following morning, Daniel came out alive. The king sent for the enemies and made them to go into the den

Website: www.eaadeboye.com Twitter: @PastorEAAdeboye Facebook: www.facebook.com/PastorEAAdeboye

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FROM THE CENTRAL OFFICE

I WILL SING!

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y favourite Book in the desire to put across: “I will sing of the mercies Scriptures is the Psalms. of the LORD forever …”, he declares in the very All 150 chapters of first line. For good reasons. It is by God’s mercy them. Bible scholars that we are not consumed by the vicissitudes tells us this poetic com- of life. “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are pilation of contempla- not consumed, because his compassions fail tion, prayer and hymns not.” (Lamentations 3:22). is the lengthiest Book in the Bible. The Psalms are some of the most loved and recited piec- Divine mercy is the difference between who es of scripture, popular among both Jewish makes it through and who falls on the road and Christian worshippers for over 2000 years. to destiny. King David knew this, a revelation Written both for public worship and private also quite clear to Ethan the Ezrahite the writdevotion to God, herein is their very essence: er of Psalm 89 when he reminds Jehovah of they were penned as honest, deeply emotion- His promises to David: “But My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with al lyrical letters to a loving him.” God is merciful. We should God. The Psalms are expresdwell in this consciousness, “I will sing of the sive, demonstrative and as many of the things we seek sensitive songs to an affecmercies of the and yearn for are fully within tionate Father who, in spite of whatever may be going LORD forever; with the bounds of His mercy. Bartimaeus the erstwhile blind on in our lives, understands. my mouth will I beggar got a life-transforming miracle through the mercy of Who hasn’t at one time or make known Your God. “Thou Son of David, have the other made that memon me!”, was his desperorable and emotive affirmafaithfulness to all mercy ate cry to our Saviour and Lord tion to be found in Psalm Jesus Christ on that fateful day 23:1 – “The Lord is my Shepgenerations.” as He passed through Jericho. herd, I shall not want.”? There (Psalm 89:1) Two factors may have worked is something about these in Bartimaeus’ favour: his refersacred songs that bring us before God in all of our vulnerability, wheth- ence to David and his cry for divine mercy. er it is in moments of loneliness, discouragement, rejection or even elation. The emotional As we go through the second half of this year, honesty that resonates through the Psalms my earnest prayer and expectation for you is reminds us of our fallibility, weakness and that God’s abundant mercy will find you, whatsometimes helplessness in the face of life’s ever your location. “So then it is not of him that many travails. Authored by multiple writers, willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that David – the Shepherd Boy who became King sheweth mercy.” (Romans 9:16). Irrespective of – is however credited with no fewer than 80 what your present circumstances may be, you of them. Perhaps for good reason too. Who will soon sing of the mercies of the LORD and hasn’t heard the heartbeat of the Psalmist of with your mouth, make known His faithfulness Israel, expressing his moving, enduring love to all generations. Blessed be the Lord forevermore! Amen and Amen. Shalom. and need for Yahweh through the Psalms?

Although Psalm 89 is not attributed to King David, it is a melodious display of profound reflection on the goodness and faithfulness of God in the land of the living. It draws us into a fuller understanding of the mercies of God, or rather, how we should respond to the mercies of the Lord. The mercy of God appears to be the principal message the writer seems to

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Pastor Modupe Afolabi is the Editor-in-Chief of Sunrise and Executive Administrator of RCCG Central Office.

Twitter:@MoAfolabi

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EDITORIAL NOTES

The God who makes things RIGHT

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salm 7:17 (MSG) says “I’m thanking God, who makes things right. I’m singing the fame of heaven-high God”.

Hallelujah! We serve a God who makes things right! In the world today there are lots of things that are wrong. Even in our lives, I am sure some things look to be wrong.

The devil wants us to feel like there is no hope; that things are just upside down. However the TRUTH is that our God makes things right!

Nobody but God! When it looks as if it is over, He makes a way! Never give up! There is nobody greater than Him!! Whatever you are going through, God can help you to come out the other side with smiles.

In this Psalm, David was asking God for protection from his enemies. He praised God for being his Shield and an honest Judge. What sort of trouble are you in? Perhaps there is a gang up against you? God will surely deliver you!

Perhaps you have called out to God but you feel as if He has not heard you because nothing has changed?

Jeremiah 33:2-3 (MSG) says “This is God’s Message, the God who made earth, made it liveable and lasting, known everywhere as God: ‘Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvellous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own”.

God assures us in this passage that He is the one who made the Earth and made it liveable, there is nothing that is beyond His knowledge.

He says that if you call to Him, He will answer you. Are you listening for His voice? Rather than change your circumstance, He may give you an instruction that once obeyed will turn everything around for you.

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Maybe you have given up and have decided to try it your own way? God says that the things He will tell you are things that you could never work out by yourself. You could spend a year trying to sort out a problem that God can solve in a day through His instructions.

There is clarity that one Word from God brings, seek Him and you will always find Him. The clouds of confusion will part when you call on Him. 1 Peter 3:12 (AMP) says “For the eyes of the Lord are [looking favorably] upon the righteous (the upright), and His ears are attentive to their prayer (eager to answer”).

God is actually eagerly waiting for your prayer. He is eager to help you, He wants to hear from you. His eyes and His ears are turned towards those who are righteous, those who are obedient to His instructions.

Whatever your situation, know that God has the answer. Resist the impulse to run away from a task.

Our weaknesses are not a surprise to God. Face that situation in His strength which is made perfect in weakness. Be encouraged!

This edition of Sunrise has many items that will encourage your faith and even bring that much needed solution to the problem you are facing. Enjoy the magazine and pass it on to another who will be equally blessed.

God’s Blessings,

Andrea Onduku Editor

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Biography of

PASTOR (MRS) FOLUKE ADENIKE ADEBOYE

n the serene depths of the forestry town, Ilesha, South-West Nigeria, on the 13th of July 1948, a female child was born to Pa Adeyokunnu, a venerated teacher and Methodist Catechist and Madam Esther Awero Adeyokunnu a homemaker and trader.

The child, destined to be a woman of amiable primness was named Foluke Adenike.

role as she and her husband would later stir the soul of Christendom and the entire world with a revolution that would lead generations and indeed millions of people to Jesus Christ.

Armed with a Grade II Teachers Certificate in 1966, Foluke taught at Methodist primary School, Ilesha, Anglican Primary School, Oke-Igbo, Ondo State, Anglican Modern School

Foluke attended Methodist Girls Primary School and Methodist Girls Secondary School both in Ilesha between 1953 and 1963, and proceeded to the then renowned United Missionary College (UMC), a teachers’ training college in Ibadan, now in Oyo State, Nigeria where she was between 1964 and 1966.

Blessed with a calm and unwavering poise, it was while in UMC that Foluke began to show robust leadership traits that would culminate in her eventual amazing strides in God’s vineyard. At UMC, she was at various times, elected College Superintendent, Food Prefect and House Prefect. As a College Superintendent, for instance, she supervised not only the purchase of food items from near and far but also the cooking and sharing of food amongst students. This seemingly daunting challenge, unknown to Foluke, was a temporal tutelage to put her in the eye of time and indeed prepare her for a matronly www.sunrisemagazine.org

School, Lago, where she taught for another 12 years in addition to being the Head Teacher. But the nascent nursery and primary school with a little beginning would be a mere aisle to God’s theatre where this woman with confounding simplicity would be a major player.

PERSONAL LIFE Born to a father who was both a teacher and a Methodist Catechist, Foluke grew up under strict Christian principles.

While still in UMC, she was a member of the Scripture Union (SU), a students’ group known for conservative and strict adherence to the dictates of the Bible. Thus, from her childhood through to her days in school, the Bible remained her closest and almost eternal companion.

and St. Lukes’, both in Oke-Igbo between 1967 and 1973 and Ansar-u-deen Primary School, Lawanson, Lagos. In 1976 she proceeded to the University of Lagos where she obtained an Associate Diploma in Education.

She still had a good stint as a teacher at Saint Timothy’s College, Iwaya, Lagos and University of Ilorin Staff School, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria before finally setting up Christ the Redeemer’s Nursery and Primary 10

It was therefore not a surprise that when her friend, a humble and calm gentleman, an undergraduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) Enoch Adeboye was celebrating his birthday, the only gift Foluke could send to him was the Holy Bible. In her characteristic candour, when asked ‘Why a Bible?’, she replied, “That was what I had and the only thing I could give, and I was happy to give it.”

This gift was however strange and thought-provoking for the celebrant. Their relationship blossomed over the years before they finally got married in September 1967.

The marriage is blessed with children Deolu, Bolu, Dare, Leke and grandchildren.

HER SPIRITUAL LIFE AND MINISTRIES Even though Mrs Foluke Adeboye’s entire life from childhood had worn the toga of Christianity, she was yet to make Christ her Lord and Saviour. A quest for healing for their sick daughter led Mr & Mrs Adeboye to The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Ebute-Metta, Lagos. For two months, husband and wife refused to give their lives to Jesus as their daughter’s health appeared to be the sole object of their mission. However, one fateful day in July, a pastor preached on the vanity of life and the bliss and serenity of Heaven in a way that stirred something in the couple.

On that day, Mr & Mrs Adeboye jointly answered the altar call and gave their lives to Jesus.

This day marked a turning point in their lives as husband and wife began to undergo different levels of training: New Believers’ Class, Baptismal Class. Like her husband, Mrs Adeboye became a worker.

Her husband was later ordained as a Pastor in 1975, and both subsequently went into full-time ministry.

However, a new chapter in her spiritual venture was when her husband Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye was made the General Overseer (G.O.) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in the same year she was ordained as Pastor. With time she would be fondly referred to as Mummy G.O., a commitment to her husband’s vision and support of his work.

Although the Adeboyes enjoyed their initial jobs as lecturer and teacher and had been apprehensive over the leadership role, they accepted it with fervent spirit after fasting and prayer and seeing that ‘this cup will not pass.’

Groomed by her parents on the Christian principles of love, compassion and giving, naturally submissive and subservient to her husband, equipped in early church and school life with grace and grit to lead, Mummy G.O. embraced her role as the leader of the women, mother of children and Chief

Hostess of the RCCG. With an insatiable thirst for God and a rare passion to please Him, she keyed into her husband’s vision even as she set out to actualize her own ministries.

The G.O., for instance, on his ordination had prophesied that RCCG would one day run an educational system from Nursery to the University. Pastor (Mrs) Adeboye began the translation of this prophecy into reality as she started Christ the Redeemers Nursery and Primary School at Ebute-Metta, Lagos and taught in this school in addition to being the Head Teacher, without salary for 12 years.

Eager to know and understand a perfect God and to bequeath this knowledge to her congregation and the outside world, Mummy G.O. embarked on numerous educational cum spiritual odysseys both locally and internationally between 1982 and 2003. She obtained in the process a Diploma in Theology from the Redeemed Bible College, Diploma in Accelerated Christian Education, Certificate, Directorate of Education from University of St. Marks and St. John, Plymouth and Certificate in Special education from Columbia University, New York, USA.

pacity she has successfully run for years, RCCG Conventions and Holy Ghost Services, hosting millions of people in a spiritual rendezvous for God. She is the Grand Matron, RCCG Women in Ministry and the Visioner, Africa Missions - a ministry that sends missionaries to other African countries to spread the gospel and win souls for Jesus. She is the inspiration for the Feast of Esther and Holistic Ministry, the visionary behind Courage Magazine, and the founder of Habitation of Hope, a ministry with focus on rehabilitation on destitute children and prostitutes.

This mother of four, with an unquenchable zeal to do more for her God, remains the Vice Principal, School of Disciples, Vice President (Education) Christ the Redeemer’s Ministry, and Director, RCCG Directorate of Teens and Children Education.

Despite these staggering spiritual portfolios, our zestful Mummy G.O. remains an icon on the home front, running a closely-knit family, engaging in fervent discussions and chat with her children and entire household, receiving an ever-flowing stream of visitors with amazing humility and hospitality, never ceasing to remind those around of the Adeboyes’ modest beginning.

The subsequent establishment of Christ the Redeemer’s School and College, Christ the Redeemer’s School Movement under her chairmanship, with the climax being the setting up of the Redeemer’s University for Nations (RUN) remain eloquent testimonies to the fulfilment of the General Overseer’s prophecy and the fact that Pastor Folu Adeboye’s unflinching faith in God and the granite will with which she kick-started the Nursery and Primary School were not in vain. And she will readily ad lib, as in Luke 1:37, that … “With God, nothing shall be impossible.”

Most will indeed agree with her that, although they are ordinary people, they have done extraordinary things. And though 70, she is not tired; she is in fact only beginning, still buoyant, bouncy and sprightly ready to go. One cannot but salute this soldier of God at 70, a caring mother of millions and a leader with an unalterable destiny of greatness.

This respectable Mother-in-Israel inspired other ministries that further delineated her as a visionary and an excellent organiser.

Happy 70th Birthday, Pastor (Mrs) Foluke Adeboye.

She is Chief Hostess at all the church programmes. In this ca11

Our prayer is for the Almighty God to strengthen her, uphold her and keep aflame her passion and faith as she marches on in the vineyard of our Creator.

Source: Order of Service at 70th birthday Thanksgiving for Pastor (Mrs) Folu Adeboye held in Nigeria and Themed “Endless Praise.” www.sunrisemagazine.org

PASTOR AGU ON PRAYER

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Festival of Life, Glasgow Night of Divine Victory, as Revival Comes to Glasgow

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n 1986, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye asked for a birthday gift from God and requested for a miracle for each member of the church. He then received instructions from God to invite everyone to a special meeting - the Holy Ghost Service - and this subsequently birthed the beginning of monthly Holy Ghost Services in Nigeria.

Ten years later in 1996, whilst praying concerning one of the Holy Ghost Service programmes, Pastor Adeboye received another divine instruction to start simultaneous services in the UK. The purpose of this gathering was to serve as a means of bringing together people to pray, shake spiritual foundations and ultimately birth spiritual revival in the UK.

The first London Holy Ghost Festival themed “The New Anointing” was held at the London Arena, Docklands on the 19th of April 1996, with Pastor Adeboye as the sole speaker. In Scotland, Festival of Life was hosted in Edinburgh in 2010, followed by Aberdeen in 2012 and 2014. In 2018, the festival comes to Glasgow as the setting for thousands to render collective worship to the Almighty, thereby transforming lives across the country through the gift of salvation and the love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

A night of interdenominational celebration of our Lord Jesus Christ through Christian music, inspired creative arts, powerful prayers and undiluted word of God, the Festival of Life honours our Heavenly Father and ignites a holy fire

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in Christians across the nation. As we witness the manifestation of the power of the Holy Ghost through this spiritually and socially transformative event and expectantly wait on the Lord to mercifully pour revival upon the land, let us rejoice in Him. We encourage you to trust the Lord for His awesome intervention in your life, your family, your local church and through all the communities in the nation of Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. Let us prayerfully usher revival into the land of the brave. Revival in Scotland and the UK is now!

“Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?” Psalm 85:6

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DIRECTORY OF RCCG PARISHES IN SCOTLAND PARISH | PARISH PASTOR | W0RSHIP ADDRESS Beautiful Gate Glasgow

City of God

City of God for All Nations Stirling

Olatunji Olanrewaju

Akinkugbe Segun

Adewale Richard

69 James Street, The Tabernacle

210 Kennedy Street Townhead

Golden Lion Hotel, 8 -10 King Street

Glasgow | G40 1BZ

Glasgow | G4 0BQ

Stirling | FK8 1BD

City of Joy Fort William

City of Joy St. Andrews

City of the Great King

Nduaguba Chimah

Kalejaiye Oluseye

Adefihan Kola

Plantation Community Centre 4

Cosmos Community Centre, Abbey Walk

13 Smithfield Road

Fort William | PH33 6HW

St Andrews | KY6 9LB

Aberdeen | AB24 5NR

Conerstone

Covenant Restoration Assembly

Crown of Glory

Yaktal Reuben

Ogunbayo Oluseye

Dappa Gaius

29 Palmerston Road, John Knox Room

46 Pilmuir Street

304 Maryhill Road

Dunfermline | KY12 0QE

Glasgow | G20 7YE

Edingburgh Tabernacle

Aberdeen | AB11 5QP

Elgin City Tabernacle

Falkirk Life House

Iyalla Ibiye

Arojojoye Daniel

Samuel Steven

41-42 Inverleith Gardens, Ferry Road

Elgin Museum, 1 High Street

Tamfourhill Community Centre, Cumbrae

Edinburgh | EH3 5PR

Elgin | IV30 1EQ

Drive, Falkirk | FK1 4AH

Fountain of Living Water Ayr

Fountain of Love Aberdeen

Fountain of Love Fraserburgh

Adesina Yinka

Gbenle Chris

Wilfred Emmanuel

Heathfield Community Centre, West Sanquhar Road, Ayr | KA8 9HP

29 - 31 Palmerston Road

12a Cross Street, Fraserburgh Aberdeenshire |

Aberdeen | AB11 5QP

AB43 9EQ

Fountain of Love Glasgow

Fountain of Love Inverurie

Freedom House Bonnyrigg

Makun Omoniyi

Faleye Dotun

Akpaette Daniel

205-217 Drumry Road East

Community Hall, Garioch Sports Centre

21 Dundas Street Bonnyrigg Dalkeith

Glasgow | G15 8NS

Inverurie, Aberdeenshire | AB514GY

Edinburgh | EH19 3AT

Good Tiding Assembly Glasgow

Graceland Aberdeen

Higher Ground Assembly

Owolabi Sola

Onyedikachi Ekekwe

Ogedengbe Iyiola

Suit 110: Jury’s Inn Glasgow, 80 Jamaica Street,

Kaimhill Primary School, Pitmeden Terrance,

Hays Way Westhill,

Glasgow | G1 4QG

Aberdeen | AB10 7HR

Aberdeenshire | AB32 6XZ

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House of His Glory Tranent

House of Praise Dundee

House of Refuge North Edinburgh

Salako Rachael

Ugwuocha Sharp

Ukonga Patrick

131 Great Junction Street, Tranent Town Hall,

145 Kingsway East, Pitkerro Drive Dundee |

539 Gorgie Street

Edinburgh | EH6 5JB

DD4 8AA

Edinburgh | EH4 5BU

House of Salvation Portlethen

In His Presence Motherwell

Jesus House Aberdeen

Komolafe Femi

Martins Leye

Igiehon Mark

Portlethen Academy, Bruntland Road,

Plot 2-6 Jupiter Street, Motherwell, North

20 Holbon Street

Portlethen | AB12 4QL

Lanarkshire | ML1 3XW

Aberdeenshire | AB10 6BT

Jesus House Dyce

Jesus House Inverness

Jesus House Torry

Adebayo Niyi

Aibangbee Giwa-Osagie

Olanrewaju Dapo

Carnegie Hall, Skene Place, Dyce

32-36 Union Street

191 Victoria Road, Rehoboth Tabernacle

Aberdeenshire | AB21 7AY

Inverness | IV1 1PX

Aberdeen | AB11 9NE

Joyful Assembly Thurso

King of Glory Edingburgh

Light House Parish Clydebank

Olowodaran Dapo

Adesola Rufai

Onyekwere Ugonna

108 Marr Terrace,

31-33 Craigmillar Park, Nothumberland Hotel,

Clydebank East Community Centre, Fleming

Thurso Caithness | KW14 8NR

Edinburgh | EH16 5PE

Avenue, Glasgow | G81 1AJ

Living Truth

Livingston Assembly

Montrose Tabernacle

Okosodo Stanley

Victor Francis

Labeodan Femi

Community Room 2, Ellon Academy

159 Nigel Rise,

Melville South Church, Castle Street

Aberdeenshire | AB41 8LF

West Lothian | EH54 6LT

Montrose | DD10 8AQ

Morning Star Edinburgh

Oil of Joy Aberdeen

Open Heavens Christian Centre Dundee

Adebambo Kassim

Kudom Daniel

Aizeboje Rufus

280 Lanark Road

St Machar Academy St Machar Drive

13 Graham Street

West Edinburgh | EH14 5RU

Aberdeen | AB24 3YZ

Dundee | DD4 9AD

Open Heavens Christian Centre

Open Heavens Fife

Open Heavens Glasgow

Longe Christiana

Aderibigbe Ibukunle

Abobare Richard

75a Harvester Way, Westerhailes Edinburgh |

Redemption House, Victoria Gardens

197 Firpark Street

EH14 3JH

Fife | KY1 1DJ

Glasgow | G3 7RH

Perth City Tabernacle

Redemption Gospel Centre Hamilton

Restoration Chapel Stonehaven

Nwogu Blessing

Odebiyi Francis

Ajide Sola

NCOC Annex Building, Glasgow Road Perth

9 Hunter Road, Whitehall Neighbourhood

Stonehaven Community Centre, Bath Street

| PH2 0NX

Centre, Hamilton | ML3 0LH

Stonehaven | AB39 2DH

Rock of Ages Galashiels

Shepherd’s House Arbroath

The Potters House Edinburgh

Renton Douglas

Oyekunle Olatunji

Onanuga Yemisi

Focus Community Centre

The Arbroath Community Centre 40,

32, Niddrie Mains Road

Galashiels | TD1 1DQ

Marketgate, Angus | DD11 1AT

Edinburgh |EH16 4BG

The Throne of Grace Glasgow

The Zoe Parish Paisley

Victory Assembly Banchory

Afolabi Taiwo

Edmund Abekhe

Otitoju Afolabi

Fred Paton Centre. 19a Carrington Street

56 Stock Street

Banchory Primary School Hall, Arbaedie Road,

Paisley | PA2 6NL

Aberdeenshire | AB31 4EH

Glasgow | G4 9AJ

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HOW REVIVAL CAME

to PORT GLASGOW in 1859

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PRAYERFUL EXPECTATION FIRST REVIVAL CONVERTS

esearch any revival and you will always find that prayer was at the centre of it.

From prayer by individuals, to groups of people in their homes to small gatherings at Church to large prayer gatherings, God uses each of these to orchestrate revival.

What is also common is Divine positioning. Various people that will be used in the revival are sent by God from different villages, towns, cities and countries to each play their part in God’s great plan.

Arriving in Port Glasgow, the gentleman from Coleraine lost no time in telling his sons of the great things which God had been doing in his home town, and in urging them to flee from the wrath to come. He obtained permission from one of his sons to hold a kitchen meeting on the morning of Sunday, 24th July to which interested neighbours were invited. The meeting which was quite well attended, concluded without incident, and the Irish gentleman left the house. But soon after his departure, a girl in the house was suddenly taken ill. Those around her thought at first that she had some bodily ailment, but soon discovered differently as she began to cry out to God for mercy. The Coleraine gentleman was recalled, and it was not long before she found peace and had begun to rejoice in Jesus Christ as her Saviour. The Irish gentleman’s son then began to realise the significance of theses happenings, and he cried out, “oh father, what must I do” “Why what is wrong?” he was asked. “Oh, I am such a sinner!” came the reply. As the sense of sin deepened, the young man was bent down to the ground as if by an intolerable burden, and he continued to cry for mercy until peace came to his heart.

Another meeting was held after this, and during the prayer a young man staggered and fell full length on the floor. For a while he continued in dreadful agony of soul; but three or four hours later he was to be seen with his hands clasped, and tears in his eyes, saying to those around him, “Oh, if you knew the precious Saviour I have found, you would come to him too!”

Festival of Life is a prayer gathering that God is using in these last days as a vehicle for revival. Christians gather from many different towns and cities, even countries to pray simply for revival. There is a cry that once again, God would usher in a Revival that would bring men, women and children to their knees seeking salvation.

The Festival of Life holds in all 4 Regions of the UK trusting God that the whole of the UK will be set ablaze with His Revival Fire.

Of course we know that Scotland has been the centre of great revivals before and it can be again. Below is an account of one such time of Revival in Port Glasgow which stands on the south bank of the River Clyde some 18 miles north west of the centre of Glasgow.

An evangelist names Brownlow North held meetings in Rothesay during the year 1858, and in July 1859 he returned to tell of his experiences in Ireland in the early part of the revival there. There were more than a hundred enquiries at the close of this meeting. On the North bank of the Clyde, at Helensburgh, persons with a heart burden for revival started a UNITED PRAYER MEETING, and attendances at this meeting mounted rapidly finally exceeding the thousand mark. Across the water, in the little shipbuilding town of Port Glasgow, a godly Free Church minister struggled in PRAYER FOR REVIVAL, and exhorted his congregation to do the same. Across in Ireland, in the town of Coleraine, where the revival had broken out on the 7th June, THE UNION PRAYER MEETING was requested to make SPECIAL PRAYER FOR THE NEEDS OF THE TOWN of Port Glasgow; and shortly after this, a Coleraine man, who had two sons living in Port Glasgow, felt constrained to make the journey to Scotland in order to seek to win them for Christ.

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PORT GLASGOW’S PROVOST lends a hand.

But the gentleman from Coleraine was not the only visitor to arrive in Port Glasgow that week. Provost William Birkmyre, the owner of the Gourock Ropework Company, a Christian business man of the highest calibre, had been following the development of the revival in Ireland with deep interest; and his concern for his employees’ spiritual welfare, quickened and directed by the Spirit of God, led him to consider a bold move!

The revival in Ireland was being spread from place to place through the witness of the revival converts; then why should not he bring one of the converts across to Port Glasgow, to bring the Spirit of Reviv-

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REVIVAL al to his workers? The fact that most of them were Irish immigrants made the plan seem all the more reasonable. Now who, of all the Irish converts would be a more fitting messenger than James McQuilken, the first convert of the Irish revival, and LEADER OF THE PRAYER BAND which, humanly speaking, had been the instrument by which the revival had broken out in Connor six months previously? And so the invitation was sent and accepted; and on July 19th, James McQuilken arrived in Port Glasgow.

REVIVAL AT THE GOUROCK ROPEWORK COMPANY It does not appear that he was able to stay in Port Glasgow more than a few days. But during that time he was, according to a contemporary reported, “the means of greatly stirring the minds of the population upon the subject of religion by his account of the revival in Ireland, and by his hortatory addresses, so that “during the week ended 30th July, between forty and fifty persons in Port Glasgow became know to the ministers and missionaries as having been brought under deep conviction of sin, and in some of these cases there is no room to doubt that a real saving change has been effected”. It was during this week that the Greenock Telegraph first took notice of the revival. “Great sensation has been created in Port Glasgow” it told its readers, “by various parties residing in the different parts of the town holding exciting nocturnal, meetings, and exhibiting symptoms of a so-called religious revival. The proceedings have, it is understood, originated in the visit of one of the converts from Ireland, brought at the instance of the Provost of Port Glasgow, William Birkmyre, for the purpose of converting the work people in his employment at the Gourock Ropework Company, all or nearly all being Irish people.” The editor, who was clearly not in sympathy with such goings-on, went on to quote the opinion of “a certain medical gentleman” that such exhibitions of “Hysteria and excitement” would undoubtedly end in madness, if continued much longer.

John Kelman, minister of the Hamilton Free Church. He it was who, with a heart full of hopes and longings, quickened by the reports from America and Ireland, laid hold of God in INTERCESSORY PRAYER, and urged the people of his church to do the same. In a letter he wrote during the first week of August, Mr. Kelman made these significant statements: “We have been visited here with the blessed times of refreshing. WE HAD LONG BEEN PRAYING much for the gracious manifestation of God’s presence and power among us; and when the intelligence of the revival in Ireland reached us, this gave new impulse to our faith and prayer. God, I have reason to believe, was working among us in some measure before , but at the beginning of the last week He began to manifest gloriously His mighty power to save, convincing, convicting, and filling with peace and joy in believing; and the whole week was a week of wondrous power. The work is not confined to any one denomination.

Persons connected with all four Presbyterian bodies in the town have shared the blessing, as well as some who belong to the Episcopal Church, and some of the Church of Rome, and many who were living in neglect of ordinances altogether.”

THE REVIVAL SPREADS TO GREENOCK The first symptoms of revival in the neighbouring town of Greenock were evident in a meeting held on Sunday August 7th. From this time on, DAILY PRAYER MEETINGS WERE HELD, and public services at which distinguished clergymen connected with the revival movement were speakers. The following Saturday, the local papers held reports of “a crowded meeting the previous evening in the Well Park Free Church, when the Rev. S.J. Moore of Ballymena, Rev. Mr. Canning of Coleraine, and Dr. Denham of Londonderry officiated”. After this, nightly meetings were held alternately in the Free Middle Church and the Gaelic Church, and it was a common sight to see the people waiting in the street for the church doors to be opened. After every meeting, anxious enquirers remained behind to seek God’s pardon and peace.

THE MAN WHO PREVAILED IN PRAYER It seems plain that much of the credit, humanly speaking, for the outbreak of revival in Port Glasgow must go to Rev,

Culled from :http://www.prayforscotland.org.uk

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HOW WILL GOD MEASURE YOUR LIFE? H O W

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t is not the norm for Business School academics to turn attention to matters of how students can identify their personal purpose and find fulfilment in life.

That sort of endeavour is usually reserved for private spaces, for people who practice some kind of religious faith or consider themselves spiritual. That is, however, exactly what happened eight years ago when renowned business thinker and innovation consultant Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School was approached to address graduating students on how to apply some of the academic wisdom for which he had become famous, to their post-university careers and life.

Christensen’s Christian faith was thus brought to bear on the now seminal article “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Some of the thoughts shared in that publication are helpful for reflection on finding purpose and meaning in our lives.

Being an academic, Christensen’s approach is to pose three core questions to his students: first, how can you be sure you’ll be happy in your career?; second, how can you be sure your relationships with your spouse and family will be an enduring source of happiness?; and third, how can you

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W I L L

be sure you’ll stay out of jail, given the moral and ethical challenges business leaders worldwide will continually face? By this line of questioning, Christensen is shifting the young, ambitious student’s focus from buying, selling, leadership and management to the more fundamental matters of life: personal happiness, fruitful personal relationships and an ethical or moral code for lifelong success.

These, he maintains, are more important than all the business and economics theories they have learnt in Business School.

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to remain humble and always be eager to learn from everybody; and sixth, don’t ever fret about the level of personal fame you attain, but rather focus on the persons you help to become better along the way.

“I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.

I think that’s the way it will work for us all. … This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success”, states Christensen. Put differently, one could say the famous Business scholar is asking, ‘How Would You Measure Your Success in Life?’ It is not a reflection to be taken lightly, which is why I take the liberty to flip the question as follows: ‘How Will God Measure Your Life?’ This latter formulation is perhaps helpful because in an age of increasing individualism, it is quite possible to define one’s success criteria and completely leave out a more eternal perspective.

HOW wOULD YOU MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS IN LIFE?

An academic’s guide to success in life would not be complete without theories and their application. There are six such wisdom nuggets recommended by Christensen. First, create a strategy for your life; second, allocate your personal resources of time, energy and talent wisely; third, create a culture at home to ensure your children learn to choose rightly in various situations because families have cultures, just like companies do; fourth, avoid moral or ethical failures by rejecting the lie that your wrong choice will be done ‘just this once’; fifth, remember 20

That is to say, one must answer the

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THINK ON THESE THINGS

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question of purpose and fulfilment only by returning to the basics: Who are we and why are we here? Our lives are projects in God’s hands, quite easy to measure really. We are born. We live. We die. We rise again. We are judged. We are either found wanting or found adequate.

Of course, there is a deeper level of meaning and satisfaction to life than the stark metric measure painted above; yet, the underlying truth remains unchanged: in this world, we are pilgrims and strangers. We are merely passing through. Our foremost assignment while on this planet is to find God and worship Him in spirit and in truth. God is looking for such persons to worship Him, with purity of heart and actions.

“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one”, answered Jesus, “is this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as your-

self.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12: 28-31).

If ever there was a ‘Theory of Everything’ about life, about our relationship with God, about why we are here on Earth and how we should conduct our relationships with one another, it is to be found in this profound answer given by Jesus Christ in the scripture above. I believe that this ‘Greatest Commandment’ will form a Common Rulebook to measure the quality of our lives when we each one day stand before God and the Books are opened. In other words, just how deeply did I love my Saviour while in the land of the living? Jesus stretches the measuring tape by distinguishing between love from the heart, the soul and the mind. And with all your strength.

Should this measure make you uncomfortable, I assure you, that you are unlikely to be alone.

The second commandment is a conundrum of sorts. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ The question is, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ Is my neighbour the fellow next door or the people down the road? Is s/he someone of similar ethnicity? People of the same nationality as I, perhaps? Or is my neighbour the whole of humanity?

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This could become a philosophical question having no easy answer, but Jesus once again makes it simple when he asks, while telling the parable of The Good Samaritan: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (Luke 10:36).

How much do I really love myself?

How are you to measure just how much you love yourself, so you can at least show others this same depth of love? A more philosophical poser, perhaps. Yet, there is again a helpful way offered by Jesus out of this dilemma: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31). It is the Golden Rule. How will God measure your life?

Dr Yinka Oduwole

is the Managing Editor of Sunrise and Pastor of The Risen Christ, Knebworth.

Twitter: @YinkaOduwole

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Your Child’s Best Gift “The best gift to give a child is a broad and balanced education.”

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EDUCATION “Education is the key to open any closed door”, “The best gift I can give you as a parent is a solid education.” These are words I heard my father say over and over again whilst I was growing up.

They were repeated words in my hearing, like being on speed dial on the day our school reports got sent home from school.

As a child, I wondered why an education or going to school was a gift, it was more like a chore to me and didn’t look anything like a gift! I didn’t know why my dad laid so much emphasis on my education, until when I became an adult myself and began to enjoy the benefits of having a good education and the doors and many opportunities it has opened for my siblings and me.

Therefore, now as a parent, teacher and educator, I place so much value on having a broad and balanced education and want to pass this on to my children. I would love to encourage you to pass on this same gift, a passion for learning and education. Education helps your child to discover and develop all their God given gifts, talents and abilities.

As parents, we are the first teachers our children encounter in their lives and therefore the importance that we as parents place on education will influence them. It is what your child sees and picks up from home that will inform the attitude and behaviour that they will apply towards their own education in school and beyond.

I believe that every child has the potential to become a success if placed in the right environment with the right teaching and learning tools.

learning difficulty has excelled and is now thriving in one of the top independent senior schools in the country. She has successfully replicated the same for her daughter who will be moving on to a top senior school this September.

For our children to maximise their full potential and excel in their education, there are a number of factors to consider and parental involvement is at the top of that list. As an involved parent, you get to understand who your child is and what makes him or her tick. You know how they learn best, what they are passionate about or what they always gravitate towards. This then helps inform your decisions on the type of education that will bring out the child’s best. Tiger Woods’ love for golf was picked up by his dad who encouraged him into success.

Understanding your child, their personality, gifts, talents and ability are what will help you to propel your child to excellence. Otherwise, we could end up steering our child into the wrong environment and in the end, into frustration. I recently read a book titled ‘The Element’ by Sir Ken Robinson and realised that a child will do his or her best when placed where their element can be discovered and developed. A child will always do their best and outshine others when they operate in their element. Sir Ken describes education as a process that develops all their resources.

Let’s help our children identify these resources that they already have in them and encourage, develop and help them become the best in what they have been created to be. This comes with working together with your child’s school and any other educational institution your child may belong to.

A huge responsibility that lies on us parents is in finding out that educational environment that will help to bring out the best in a child, and then In conclusion, I believe in this saying “it takes a placing the child in this environment for the child village / community to raise a child.” Parents, teachers and support workers all have a key role to thrive. to play in the education of our children. It is a In my recently published book, ‘Parents Choose joint responsibility and when every one plays the Right school for your child’, I wrote extensive- their roles well, we will begin to see a generaly about how important it is for a child’s needs tion of successful, confident, happy and well-balto be taken into consideration when choosing a anced children. school for their child which is one of the most important choices in a child’s life.

- By Shola Alabi

I was speaking to a parent recently who decided to take her son out of mainstream school in order to Home School him because she felt her son wasn’t making the progress he should.

This parent felt that her child’s learning needs and style were not considered by his school when making the choice of the teaching style and tools used during teaching time. The same boy who would have been labelled as having a

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Shola Alabi is a British trained Qualified Teacher of over 17 years, an Education & Parenting Consultant, a Private Tutor who owns two successful Education Tuition Centres in London and Essex, the founder of the Raising Successful Children (RSC) Hub, an online membership platform for parents and also the author of 3 parenting books.

Visit www.sholaalabi.com for more information

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RCCG Mandate ▯ TO MAKE HEAVEN ▯ TO TAKE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE WITH US ▯ TO HAVE A MEMBER OF THE REDEEMED CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF GOD IN EVERY FAMILY OF ALL NATIONS ▯ TO ACCOMPLISH No. 1 ABOVE, HOLINESS WILL BE OUR LIFESTYLE ▯ TO ACCOMPLISH Nos. 2 & 3 ABOVE, WE WILL PLANT CHURCHES WITHIN FIVE MINUTES WALKING DISTANCE IN EVERY CITY AND TOWN OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND WITHIN FIVE MINUTES DRIVING DISTANCE IN EVERY CITY AND TOWN OF DEVELOPED COUNTRIES ▯ WE WILL PURSUE THESE OBJECTIVES UNTIL EVERY NATION IN THE WORLD IS REACHED FOR JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8) www.sunrisemagazine.org

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Your Money Counts T

interview with | mark lloydbottom

he following statistics from The Money Charity for April 2017 give a good picture of where UK household debt currently stands: Consumer credit debt rose by £290.98 per adult from April 2016 to April 2017. That’s an average credit debt of £7,349 per household, up £543.70 over the year April 2016 to 2017. Credit card debt specifically stands at £2,521 per adult. Total UK household borrowing grew by £886.84 per adult from April 2016 to April 2017.

This is obviously a huge problem and it is not getting any smaller. What can we do? Is there a way out of debt or a way to avoid it all together?

To find some answers, Sunrise enlisted the help of Mark Lloydbottom, who is the Founder of ‘Your Money Counts’, a UK based Charity equipping Christians and Churches to know and apply what the Bible has to say about money matters.

He spoke to our Managing Editor Yinka Oduwole.

Q. Mark, thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. Please tell us a little about yourself.

I was brought up in the Midlands by my mother. My father absented himself when I was 2 so my mother brought myself and my brother up, there was never any money in the home. I can remember looking at my mother’s bank statements one day and worrying that there was only £10 in her bank account. All of my clothes when I was young until I was about 16 were bought from a shop simply called ‘The Nearly New Shop’.

As I went through life, I qualified as www.sunrisemagazine.org

a chartered accountant. I am married, have 3 children and I’ve owned three businesses, written about 24 books and seminars, and here’s what I learned a long the journey – I found out, because I love numbers, that there are 31,102 verses in the Bible and over 2,300 verses that talk specifically about the handling of money and possessions. In other words, there is more written about the handling of money and possession than any other subject, other than God Himself. I believe that God knew that the way that we handle our finances would always potentially conflict with the outworking of our faith. God loves us and wants us to handle money properly. One of the things that the world does is that it tells us that we must spend because we deserve it. We look at the advertisement, we look at our mobile devices, and they are so full of advertisements telling us that we need to have this, we need to pay out for this, we can have something without paying for it for two or three years.

So the world teaches us and our children how to handle money. Surely as those who love the Lord Jesus Christ, we should look closely on what the Bible has to say and we find out that God’s economy is massively different from man’s economy.

Q. Why do you think so many Christians are struggling and are feeling helpless because they are in so much debt?

Romans 12:2 says ‘’Do not be conformed to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.’’ We must ask God daily, God, how can I today be transformed, how can my mind be 26

renewed and how can I not be conformed to the thoughts and practices of this world. The world makes it very easy for us to buy stuff and get into debt, first of all because we are not content. Apostle Paul talks about the importance of contentment, the world says ‘buy this because you deserve it. If we live our life with our finances as God has commanded us to, we will be at peace with ourselves and we will not be at risk of getting into debt. If you are already in debt, the first thing you need to do is to make this statement and outwork it: ‘I will not get into one more penny of debt’.

Q. Ok, Mark. Where should we place the blame now - the body of christ Is it that the Church, I am talking about the capital ‘C’ now, the body of Christ, is it that we have not been speaking or teaching enough about finances from a biblical perspective?

I think, Pastor, that to blame the Church would be to pass the buck.

Let’s go all the way back, this is a message of stewardship that has not been taught for over a century.

Most Pastors are not taught finance and stewardship in Bible school, and secondly whenever the subject of money comes up it is normally in the context of giving, and Pastors I’ve met are sometimes reluctant to talk about giving because the mindset of Church members.

q. But the whole of the Western economy right now is built around debt.

The more debt you can get, the better your credit. So is this Biblical?

One of the core reasons for the glob-

INTERVIEW

▯ mark lloydbottom al financial crisis in 2007 was the amount of debt. Now in 2018, there is more debt in the Western world than there was at the time of the global financial crisis. This means we haven’t learned the lesson.

Q. But is all debt bad?

The Bible does not preclude debt but every reference of the Bible to debt is in the negative. The Biblical perspective is that the borrower is slave to the lender. Taking a Western view, it’s okay to buy a house and use a mortgage. What I would say practically is, do not stretch to borrow the maximum. Instead, always take into account that interest rates might go up by 1-2% and what we don’t want to do especially in the early years of the house purchase or mortgage is to put ourselves in a situation where we have negative equity. Always borrow well within your comfortability. Don’t necessarily look for a mortgage broker who says well you can stretch because that might well cause stress.

If you are in debt, first of all look at how you can reduce your expenditure. Do you need those 3 mobile phones? Try various strategies, many people purchase a car on finance.

Cars these days outlast the length of the financial agreement, so take your monthly payments and when the last payment has been made,

don’t replace the car, keep on making those monthly payments into a savings account and then may be in 18 months or 2 years time you take the part-exchanged value of the car, take the savings you’ve made and you now have an upper limit on the amount of money you are going to spend on the next car.

Q. What should a Christian family that has unsustainable debt be doing for starters? Should they be going to look for financial adviser, or what other simple things could they be doing?

The first step is to pray, to repent and to ask God to help you. Secondly, you need to resolve that you are not going to get any further into debt.

Thirdly, you need to try and create a finance plan where income is greater than expenditure. Now when you are creating a finance plan, strangely we always counsel people that they should not just repay debt but also start to save. And people say to me, why should we start to save when we are in debt? There is a very simple answer. We are first of all going to create a debt reduction plan but secondly what we are going to do is we are going to armour ourselves and make sure that come the next time there’s a financial need, you will have something to enable you to not go deep into debt.

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There is a system for debt reduction, which is called the snowboard method. It talks about focusing on repaying the smallest debt first. When you have repaid the smallest debt you have a small celebration, then you take the money that you were repaying on that smallest debt and you roll it over onto the next payment and hence the principle of snowboard.

Make sure you have accountability partner who loves the Lord and would pray with you. It can take 2-3-4 years or more to downsize the debt.

Q. How can we teach our children good financial habits?

Next time you buy shoes, get hold of the shoebox and put two dividers in the shoebox so that you have three compartments. This is something you could do with your children, they can decorate it and in those three compartments on the outside of the box put these three words: first one – give, second one – save, third one – spend. Put a little hole at the top so money can go in. Let’s just imagine you gave them £1, they put 10p in the giving, 20p in the savings and they’ve got 70p to spend.

Vist: www.yourmoneycounts.org.uk for more information, book details, Bible study guides and to contact Mark to teach a taught course in your church. www.sunrisemagazine.org

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THE 21 CENTURY EMPLOYEE ST

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n 1 Chronicles 12:32, the Bible brings to our attention a distinct group of men called ‘The men of Issachar’. These men had two vital characteristics: They understood the times and they knew what Israel must do.

If there has even been a time that the church needs to cultivate these two qualities in relation to finance, the working environment & entrepreneurship, it is NOW. Look around you. When BHS collapsed in 2016, 9,000 employees lost their livelihood. This year alone, Marks & Spencer, Rolls Royce, House of Fraser, Home Base, Mothercare, Sainsburys, Toys R Us and ASDA (to name a few), are all in financial trouble, having to close branches, downsize and restructure in order to survive.

You will notice a common theme in

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all these companies; the first set of people to be ‘sacrificed’ is the ones who have helped build & sustain the business, (i.e. the employees.) The Directors and shareholders somehow get their interests protected.

Therefore, one of the new realities that we must come to terms with is that the 21st century employee can no longer single-mindedly serve their employer without taking active steps to establish different income streams and create their own wealth. Does this mean we should not be faithful at our place of work?

Definitely not, but it does mean being dependent on a single source of income, (i.e. your salary), makes you perpetually vulnerable in the workplace and a potential workplace casualty should you lose your job. Also the majority of us are part of an aging population with a real danger of experiencing poverty in retirement if we don’t make some 30

drastic changes in our attitude towards money.

So now that we understand the times, what must we do? Here are 5 tips to get you started.

1. You’ve heard it said that ‘poor people work hard for their money, but rich people make their money work hard for them.’ In my opinion, banks are great for safeguarding your money, but if you want to ‘grow’ your wealth, you must put it to work! Commit to consistently investing a percentage of your income every month. (I would suggest 10%).

Among other things, you can invest in shares, bonds, stocks, or even other businesses.

I understand that the average millionaire has at

BUSINESS least 7 sources of income at any given time, so take the hint!

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Being dependent on a single source of income, (i.e. your salary), makes you perpetually vulnerable in the workplace and a potential workplace casualty should you lose your job.

2. Start a small business, (AKA a side hustle). I speak at numerous business and entrepreneurship seminars and I am often told by delegates that though they would like to own their own business, they don’t know where to start. That’s usually because most people look at all the things they DON’T have to start the business, rather than what they DO have. So here’s a tip. Ask yourself, what are your gifts? What do you know how to do, what knowledge and experience do you have? What are you passionate about that you can monetise to create wealth for yourself & your family? Write them all down and see what you come up with. You may need a business mentor, who can help you make sense of it all, but the initial work has to be done by you. Remember, you don’t have to be great to start, but you do have start to be great.

3. Once you’ve done that, the real work begins- the market research. Market research is vital as it gives you vital information about your proposed business.

Is there actually a market for this product? If so, who wants it? How much are they willing to pay for it? Do I need an office or can I run it from my kitchen table? What kind of professional assistance do I need? Who are my competitors? and so on.

Whatever market research you do should be customerfocussed. After all it is the customer who will determine whether you have a business

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or not, so here’s the kind of questions you should be asking: who are my customers? Where are they, (both geographically and online), what do they do?

What do they need? How can I communicate to them in a language they understand, that my product can meet their needs? etc.

4. Then decide what kind of business structure is right for your business idea; Sole trader, partnership or perhaps investing in a franchise would be best for you. Then find out how much you will need to start your business and the best way to source the finances.

5. Lastly, I’d like to ask you an important question; do you see your job simply as a place to earn or also as a place to learn? If you view it as the latter, you will find that the knowledge, skills & experience that you acquire from your job can be vital stepping stones to setting up your own business. No matter how ‘dead end’ a job may seem, every job has something to teach you, so learn as much as you can. Be faithful and diligent in your workplace because we reap what we sow and therein lies the secret to your future financial success.

By: Bebe Clement Bebe Clement runs a group of small companies & is the author of ‘How to go from employee to entrepreneur’, available on Amazon for £12.99 or £10 direct from the author. For further information, contact bebe@bebeclement.com

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THE PRIVILEGE AND THE POWER OF PRAYER

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h! Not again! Many people, including practising Christians, tend to view prayer as a chore.

“We have to pray, so we can remain in the good books of God,” so think many believers. A lot of times, our perception of who God is, determines to a large extent, our attitude to prayer. So, what is prayer? Why do we have to pray?

What is the best attitude to have towards our call to pray? Who benefits when we pray? Do all prayers get answered? We will try and attempt to answer some of these questions in this article.

Personally, I am a firm believer in the efficacy of prayer. I have experienced God’s awesome display of His faithfulness on numerous occasions, and to such extent as to make me become convinced beyond any reasonable doubt, that there is a God in Heaven who wants us to pray. Not only does God want us to pray, it is obvious that He delights in our prayers. I have experienced God’s response (or answer) to most of my numerous prayers with such accuracy and precision that would make unbelief depart from my heart with shamefacedness. Dear friends and brethren, God wants us to pray.

Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, once told His Disciples in the Book

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of Luke Chapter 18 verse one:

reckon that would make HIM a liar.

But we know that God is NOT a “…a story to show that they Man that He should lie! (Numbers should always pray and never 23:19). give up.”

Therefore, because of the foregoJesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour ing, I am encouraged to always gave us an insight into the necespray, with the full assurance that sity and importance of prayer. We I have a God who promised to do ought to pray, we should pray and something when I call upon Him. we must never stop praying no matter what is going on around us In other words, prayer can be likand in our individual lives. He gave ened to a call for help from Man to us the assurance that if we refuse his Creator. It is the helplessness to stop praying, then God would of Man crying out for the help of eventually arise and respond ap- the Divine. It is the cry of a Soldier, propriately to our items of prayer. desperate for support, calling for the allied forces for assistance.

WHAT IS PRAYER, AND WHY DO Simply put, prayer is the tool of WE HAVE TO PRAY? communication between the CreMy first incentive to pray is drawn ator (God), and His most beloved from the Word of God in the Book Creature (Man). of Jeremiah. In Chapter 33 verse THE PRIVILEGE OF PRAYER 3, God invited His people to do something incredible: Prayer is a privilege that Heaven has given to us believers. It “Call to me and I will answer you is a privilege because through and tell you great and unsearchprayer, we rule or administer the able things you do not know.” world, in cooperation with the In one sentence, it was God Who Creator. It was reported that John first invited us to pray! Prayer was Wesley once said that, “It seems not Man’s idea to start with. It was God will do nothing except men God’s idea from the very begin- pray.” Over generations, and even ning. He asked His people to “Call in Scriptures, we have seen this upon Him”, and promised in the truth demonstrated. For instance, same breath that He would defi- when God wanted to terminate nitely answer. If He was planning the seventy-year long captivity not to answer us when we pray, of His people in Babylon, which why would He ask us to do so. I was prophesied through Proph32

PRAYER

In the Book of Luke chapter two, we read of two peop;e: Simeon and Anna, who were devout people, praying and fasting so that the Consolation of Israel (Jesus Christ) might come at the appointed time. Through their devotion to prayer and fasting, the Promised Messiah arrived, right on time in the land of Israel. Apostle Paul indeed mentioned to us in the Book of First Corinthians, chapter three, and verse nine: “For we are labourers together with God…” This is the reason why someone once said that Prayer is perhaps the most important work of the Kingdom. Apostle Paul told us in the above scripture that, we are “labourers together with God!” Oh, what a privilege! What an honour!

It is clear that we labour together with God in every work that He is doing in our world today. And if it is true that God does nothing except we pray, then through the privilege of prayer, we are able to

affect everything that goes on in When we say somebody is helpless, it means that the person has our world. become weak and no longer able THE POWER OF PRAYER to defend himself or herself. He From our above discourse, it is or she therefore needs a greater glaring and clear, that prayer is power to come to his or her aid, very important for us as believers. and supply the strength needed As we seek to serve our Master, we to bring about the much-desired cannot afford to relegate prayer victory. into the background of our lives.

From the above scripture, we can Prayer must be an important part gain understanding by believing of our daily lives. God needs us to that when we pray, our prayers pray. God wants us to pray. Prayer lead to the release of power from is an absolutely powerful instruon High. We need this power in ment of office for every believer order to obtain victory over the as we live out our Heavenly calling forces of darkness that assail us every day. Apostle James wrote from time to time. This is why it is in the fifth Chapter and verse sixsaid that, a prayerless Christian, is teen: a powerless one. “…The effectual fervent prayer of In our next instalment of this ara righteous man, avails much.” ticle, we will aim at looking into (NKJV) the attributes of prayers that avail much. Meanwhile, let us start to Another Version puts it this way: change our attitudes to prayer, “…The earnest (heartfelt, continand begin to realise that Heaven ued) prayer of a righteous man needs our prayers in order to influmakes tremendous power availence the activities on Earth. May able [dynamic in its working]. you be blessed!

(AMPC).

We mentioned earlier on in this article, that we can describe prayer as the helplessness of Man crying out for the help of the Divine.

- By Pastor Akinola Soyore RCCG Victory Centre, Plumstead

“

Prayer can be likened to a call for help from Man to his Creator. It is the helplessness of Man crying out for the help of the Divine. It is the cry of a Soldier, desperate for support, calling for the allied forces for assistance.

“

et Jeremiah, He moved Daniel to begin to pray. Daniel interceded in prayer for some considerable time before God raised Cyrus up to deliver His people.

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NOMINALISM: THE BANE OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

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he word nominalisim has its origin from the Latin word “nomem”, which means “name”.

Simply put, the word means “in name only.”

Nominalism occurs when people identify themselves with a cause of a thing without a clear understanding of it or serious commitment to it. In the Christian faith, nominalists are those who adhere to the external forms of piety and godliness while denying its power and failure to live up to the teachings and instructions of Christ.

A person can know the Bible in and out or even preach it but refuse to align their lives to it. Thus a nominal Christian can be defined as one who is religious but not godly. He claims allegiance to God but his life and character indicates otherwise.

He is highly influenced by the world and the world system, a person who bends with the wind and compromises the truth of Jesus Christ at the slightest threat of persecution, and lastly one who likes comfort and convenience more than the cross.

THE CAUSES OF NOMINALISM Institutionalism: Dr Tite Tienou (an acclaimed scholar), defines institutionalism as a process by which an informal movement becomes an established body.

In the established body, newness is transformed into routine, creeds and codes. When this happens, allegiance to the body is measured by conformity to recognized and often external factors rather than vitality of life and faith.

Empty Traditionalism: Here people declare themselves to be Christians because it has become a custom or tradition. These Christians claim Christianity either because they were born into Chriswww.sunrisemagazine.org

tian homes or because they went to schools that had Christian ethos.

Others think that because they have been in and around church all their lives, christened, baptised, confirmed and married in the church, it makes them a Christian. “Traditionalism makes people to be Christians out of habit and not commitment.”

Jesus had a word for the Pharisees about this in His time (Matthew 15:3, Mark7:13) as did Apostle Paul in Colossians 2:8.

A.W Tozer speaking on traditionalism said “The power of custom, precedent and tradition {means that} not Christ but tradition is the Lord in this situation”.

Negative Ethics or Moralism: While it is true that a genuine Christian will not engage in activities which the Bible calls the works of the flesh, there are moralists who abstain from such things and are yet very unconverted at heart.

Legalism The dictionary defines the word legalism as the principle of strict adherence to law, especially to the letter of the law rather than the spirit.

Legalism seems to indicate a belief that people can be transformed inwardly by working on their outward behaviour first. As a result many people tend to conform to the outward expectations without an inner transformation wrought by the Spirit and by the Word of God. Ultimately, negative ethics and legalism may be good devices of social control but they are not adequate measurements of spiritual vitality” (Dr Tite Tienou).

The Galatian church was once faced with a problem such as this and Paul had to address the matter. Ultimately Paul told them that a man is not justified or saved by observing the law but by faith in Christ Jesus.

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Confession that lacks heart Conversion= lip service= nominalism.

Another thing that causes nominalism is when people are made to confess the Christian faith without been genuinely born again. In other words “there is a learned confession without a corresponding conversion.” This often happens particularly in big meetings and crusades where people respond to altar call not necessarily because their hearts have been torn by the word of God but because they see friends getting up and do not want to be seen not to be left behind. In this there is no spiritual transformation. It is very clear that a mere confession without a personal encounter with Jesus Christ does not make one a Christian. For confession to be authentic, one must confess what he or she has actually experienced (Romans 10:10, 2 Timothy 2:19) Incomplete or Fragmented Gospel A gospel that is solely based on miracles and prosperity, without a primary and clear emphasis on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and the redemptive work of the cross leads to nominalism. This kind of gospel is what Apostle Paul calls another gospel. A genetically modified gospel or what I call a fragmented gospel. This kind of gospel can produce many things such as materialism, position, prosperity etc. but it cannot produce purity and holiness without which no man will see the Lord. It cannot bring the world or the world system on their knees. Nothing spreads nominalism faster than an ambiguous message of the Gospel, where the reality of the cross is hid or partially obscured.

The Effects of Nominalism The first person who suffers greatly the cause of nominalism is the nominalist himself. A nominalist bears the name Christian in name only,

FAITH therefore though his name may be in the church register, he is not known in Heaven. This results in him or her not being a partaker of the many blessings of God our father which he has made available for his children. While he may receive the general benevolence of God which is for all mankind, he or she cannot inherit God because he or she is a stranger (John 8:34-35).

Nominalism has affected the church in many ways. The church now has given birth to strange children whose character only brings disgrace to her. We have brought reproach to our fathers name (Mathew 5:14-16). When we should have affected the world, the world has affected us. As a result our impact is very little if any. There is also the matter of disunity. Nominalism has bred denominationalism. If we will not lose our space in the plan of God and take our position back in the influence and governance of this earth (Gen 1:26-28), we must redress this image and seek a quick recovery from this sickness called nominalism.

Today, nominalism has dealt a devastating blow on Christian homes.

It has resulted in many marriages being broken as both husband and wife are Christians in name only, ignoring the instructions of God about what Christian matrimony should look like. Statistics indicate that the divorce rate in Christian and non Christian homes are the same.

Some scholars say “Christians are no different than the general population when it comes to failed marriages, domestic abuse, sexual conduct, marginalism and racism.” The result is that the children get caught up in the web of this dysfunction, the consequence of which we see on our streets today.

The home is the foundation of any society. The Bible says “if the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). The church is meant to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Light brings illumination and dispels darkness at the same time. Salt confronts decay.

However when the church becomes nominal, the society in which she is, enters into pitch darkness and decay becomes the order of the day.

We lose our potency and functionality. We become irrelevant and only add to the trouble instead of being the solution. We become a laughing stock. A nominal Christian is a great disadvantage to the society in every way. Many of the public and governmental positions held today are held by nominal Christians who were not affected by the authentic word of God in their growing years.

Now they are our policy makers, our politicians, law makers, judges, teachers and Pastors. Their policies and teachings are now affecting us and our children. Our society thereby fragmented and in disarray.

When our actions do not depict the character of Christ whom we profess to follow our unbelieving friends, neighbours and relatives only become bewildered. Nominal Christians misrepresent Christianity and make it unappealing to non-Christians. Professor V. Ntintili in his write up on our society states that, “nominalism makes Christianity to appear impotent and incapable of helping anyone. It does not become the answer that it is supposed to be to life challenges. It reduces Christianity to a mere religion like other religions.”

The Cure to This Malady It is not enough to speak about nominalism, the causes and the effects, it is also proper that we speak about the cure to it. Intimidating as this disease may seem, it is not an incurable disease. Dr Tite Tienou in his submission states that nominalism can be cured and “its deadly effects can be reversed if proper measures are taken.” He highlighted four major cures which are: ▯ Conversion in context of worldviews

as follows: ▯ The preaching and teaching of the adulterated word of God. ▯ The re -discovery of the old time Gospel. ▯ The need for a well structured programme of discipleship. ▯ A concerted training of the clergy and apex leaders. ▯ Mobilization for revival ▯ The critical need of addressing the issue of the original sin and the New Creation Man as it is taught in the bible.

Permit me to add the need for: ▯ A personal encounter/collision with the Cross of Calvary ▯ A proper understanding and presentation of the Complete Gospel ▯ Biblical Discipleship In Conclusion If we must experience revival in our times as it happened before, and if the church will return back to her glory days, we must confront nominalism. It is not insurmountable.

Prayer is a crucial key to overcoming this deadly disease. We must repent of our sins and return to our first love. (Rev 2: 4, Hosea 10:12). If we do, God promises to forgive us and heal us (2 Chronicles 7:14). Hopeless as the situation may appear, we must continually remember that what seems impossible with man is possible with our God. (Matthew 19: 26). The need for our prayer content to change has never become so urgent like now. We must shift from the need based prayers to kingdom based prayers.

▯ Mutual correction through global missions ▯ Renewed emphasis on teaching and discipleship

References: Christian Nominalism: Causes and Cure

by Dr Tite Tienou

▯ Deliberate practice of real Christianity where ethics grow out of inner Nominalism: The mother of all Challengtransformation.

Professor P. V. Ntintili (an acclaimed scholar and a veteran minister of the gospel) adding his voice to this subject added six more points to what could bring about the cure. They are 37

es by Professor P.V. Ntintili

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MAKING EXCELLENT CHOICES

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he 3 C’s of life are Choices, Chances and Changes. Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change. Great Bible characters such as Lot, Abraham, Esau, Jacob, David, Job, Paul etc teach us the importance of making wise choices and also serve as a warning not to make our decisions lightly.

Simply, a choice involves making a decision.

Know that a decision you have decided not to take is a decision in itself. Making decisions can include judging or weighing the merits of multiple options and selecting one or more of them.

It is possible to make wise, excellent and godly decisions.

Decisions are the hardest thing to make especially when it is a choice between where you should be and where you want to be. For instance; attitude, where you want to live, career, life partner are all choices and many more. John C. Maxwell puts it that “life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” We are what we are by the choices that we make. So invariably, your choices in life or decisions can mar or make you.

It is said that “every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase your dreams. The choice is yours.”

The Bible offers many principles to aid the process of making excellent choices. To begin with, it is absolutely necessary to make prayer as an essential element in making excellent choices.

Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” If we should pray in all situations, we should certainly pray in times of decision-making. As we pray, we ask for wisdom (James 1:5). The Great Nelson Mandela urged that “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” May we make the right choices in Jesus name.

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impact on the life we live. Denis Waitley opines that there are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. I advise you to make the right choices on a daily basis so that you may live an authentic life that is true to who you want to be. It is said that “you are free to make whatever choice you want, but you are not free from the consequences of the choice.”

That urges us to be frugal in making choices.

If you want a different result, make a different choice. After the Almighty urged Moses to make a new covenant with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb, Moses called all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land— 3 the great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders (Deuteronomy 30:1-3). Then Moses said “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;” (Deuteronomy 30:19). This affirms that God gives to everyone the free will to choose good or bad, right or wrong and to make positive or negative choices.

To a considerable extent, when choosing between options one must make judgments about the quality of each option’s attributes. There are several types of choices an individual can make.

There are four main types of decisions, although they can be expressed in different ways. Brian Tracy breaks them down into the following: ▯ Command decisions, which can only be made by you, as the “Commander in Chief”; or proprietor of an organisation. ▯ Delegated decisions, which may be made by anyone, such as the colour of the bike shed, and should be delegated, as the decision must be made but the choice is inconsequential. ▯ Avoided decisions, where the outcome could be so severe that the choice should not be

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made, as the consequences cannot be recovered from if the wrong choice is made. This will most likely result in negative actions, such as death. ▯ “No-brainer” decisions, where the choice is so obvious that only one choice can reasonably be made.

Brian continued by identifying a fifth type, however, or fourth if avoided and “no-brainer” decisions are combined as one type, is the collaborative decision, which should be made in consultation with, and by agreement of others.

SOME KEYS IN MAKING CHOICES Another way of looking at decisions focuses on the thought mechanism used. For instance, is the decision: rational, intuitive, recognition based or a combination. The following keys are necessary: 1. Courage: This is the ability to do something that frightens one. Deuteronomy 31:6 says “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.” Courage is an attribute of good character that makes us worthy of respect. Also, Ephesians 6:10-13 admonishes us to be fearless by putting on the whole armour of God, “10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

11 Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” History books tell colourful tales of the exploits of social activists, such as Martin Luther King (Jnr.) who chose to speak out against injustice at great personal

risk. We must be brave and bold with the choices we make.

2. Patience: This is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay and challenges. In making wise choices we are to be patient. Hebrews 12:1 says “run with patience the race that is set before us.” Sincerely, the onus lies on us. The Psalmist says in Psalm 27:14 that we should “wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.” Don’t be in haste in making choices. Ecclesiastes 7:8 says “The end of a thing is better than its beginning; the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” Patience is not simply the ability to wait, it’s how we behave while we’re waiting. The Biblical Job while in the midst of suffering said “all the days of my appointed time will I wait, until my change comes” (Job 14:14). Have patience for great feats are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

3. Trust: This is a firm belief in the reliability or truth in someone or something. The wise man Solomon says in Proverbs 3:5-6 that “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” To be able to trust someone is a decision. Psalm 37:5 says “Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” Trust is earned when action meet words. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” Commit that decision onto God and know that He is trustworthy.

4. Confidence: This is closely related to courage and trust. Confidence is the quality of being certain of your abilities. Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Confidence is full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or 39

reliability of a person or thing. Isaiah 41:10 says “Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” Confidence is a feeling of self-assurance arising from an appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities.

In making excellent choices, it is very essential to be confident.

5. Seek Counsel: This is an advice, especially that given formally. Let the Holy Spirit guide you which is the best teacher. Romans 8:14 “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.“ It is important to seek counsel from God and other informed persons. Proverbs 11:14 “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.”

In all, there are simple life choices which might include what to eat for dinner or what to wear on a sunny day – choices that have relatively low-impact on the chooser’s life overall. More complex choices might involve (for example) what candidate to vote for in an election, what profession to pursue, a life partner, etc. – choices based on multiple influences and having larger ramifications. The Psalmist says “I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved” (Psalm 16:8). Put God first in all your decisions and you will escape the consequences.

Shalom!

- Akpo Onduku

Pastor, Chapel of Grace Bradford.

Twitter: @AkpoOnduku

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FIXING

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oday’s society has become a disposable loving society. What do I mean?

If we find something has a crack in it, we throw it away and get a new one!

In times gone by, there were repair shops all over the place where items could be restored or at least repaired with a bit of character! Have you noticed that there are less and less of these shops? All we do is consume, consume, consume!

I want to encourage you to mend a crack while it is just a vulnerable flaw, before too much damage is wrought.

However, no matter how serious the crack, I am certain it can be fixed. Why? Our God is a Master Repairer, Rebuilder and Restorer. With His help and some action from you and your spouse, the cracks can be fixed!

This mindset has filtered into our relationships, many don’t even try to repair cracks in their relationships or they give up when it is difficult and move on to another.

Are their cracks in your relationship with Him that need to be fixed? Are you angry with Him? Angry that life hasn’t gone how you expected? Angry that you are hurt and you feel God should have stopped you from getting hurt? Angry that you have been mistreated or abused?

According to the dictionary a crack is: · ▯ A vulnerable point; a flaw · ▯ A line on the surface of something along which it has split without breaking apart · ▯ A narrow space between two surfaces which have broken or been moved apart: · ▯ Give way or cause to give way under torture, pressure, or strain Which of these definitions of cracks apply to your marriage? You can see that there are stages of cracks, beginning with a vulnerable part or a flaw, leading to a line/split on the surface without breaking, leading to a narrow space/breakage and finally when there is a give way under pressure or strain. www.sunrisemagazine.org

What are the steps to take?

The first relationship that has to be repaired is your relationship with God.

A turning point occurs when you realize the root cause of your hurt is the sin in operation in the lives of other people and/or your own life. As you think about the people and situations that have hurt you the most, allow God to reveal to you how sin is the underlying cause. When this principle is understood then it makes it easier to stop blaming God and begin putting the blame where it belongs. God promises to be with you through the pain, the hurt, the disappointment, the things that you don’t understand and the grief process – not only in the past, but also in the present as you go through the pain. God doesn’t always remove pain, but He goes through it with us.

God promises in Jeremiah 31:25 that 40

THE He will fully satisfy the weary soul, and He will replenish every languishing and sorrowful person. He desires wholeness and healing in the broken places of our hearts and lives. He will be faithful to do it. Will you let Him? What are the steps to overcome anger or disappointment with God? · ▯ Recognize the true source of your hurt (sin) · ▯ Repent of falsely accusing and blaming God. · ▯ Allow God to redeem the hurt by speaking His love and truth into your heart.

Secondly if you have made mistakes in the past, how do you fix it? There is no sin that is too difficult for Him to forgive. Don’t run away from Him, run to Him. Detach yourself from guilt and shame or you will feel trapped like a victim. As you forgive others, you will feel more free to receive forgiveness from others.

Let’s turn our attention to our marriage.

We need to be ready to fix the cracks the right way. · ▯ In Genesis 29 Leah tried to fill the crack in her marriage by having babies. Don’t use children as a way to fix your relationship or as a weapon against each other without considering the effect on your children. · ▯ Moving to another neigh-

RELATIONSHIPS bourhood, city or church cannot fix it because what you don’t handle now will follow you. You are only running away from the problem, it will resurface another time. · ▯ Playing the blame game in the family will not work. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, to fix it, you will both need to work together.

What should we do?

Start Communicating, maybe you are unhappy but you’ve never voiced it.

You may think this is better as there is peace in the home but you may not realise that your feelings are sooner or later going to manifest. · ▯ When you begin or continue communication remember Colossians 3:12 “Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience”. · ▯ Remember that communication is made up of verbals and non-verbals. It is not just about what you say but the tone of voice you use, the expressions on your face and what you do outside of talking. · ▯ No one should ever laugh with your spouse more than you and no one should ever weep with your spouse more than you.

Think of communication like a windshield in your car. If your windshield is clear, then you can see the road and the challenges that lie ahead uninhibited by blind spots. However, if you’re married and your spouse is not the first person you call, or that comes to mind, to share good news with, than you have a crack in your windshield.

Likewise, if the first person you vent to or cry when you have a bad day is not your spouse, than you have a crack in your windshield. Even though we see

the cracks, we can ignore them – think- ken glass and repair the window. ing we’ll fix them eventually. But very The two of you are not alone, if you alslowly, subtly and very gradually over low Him, God will walk alongside you time those cracks spread and spider giving you the wisdom and the grace web throughout your windshield as to make it right. He will help you to foryou hit the give and b u m p s h e l p and pot Think of communication like a wind- you to holes of shield in your car. If your windshield is love and life. If you h e l p don’t seal clear, then you can see the road and y o u and repair the challenges that lie ahead uninto put the cracks hibited by blind spots. in the i n i t i a l l y, w o r k eventually, needed. you have But it won’t just happen, if you leave it to replace your entire windshield costand say ‘well we are Christians, let’s just ing you more than you want to pay. get on with it’ and you don’t deal with · ▯ We also need to be in the root issues it will explode one day. constant dialogue with our How do you build or rebuild trust spouse; being quick to overwhich is vital to fixing cracks? look, forgive and forget offenses in our marriage because it’s It is not something you just do one time, inevitably that we will let each but rather need to do consistently, day other down and fall short on in and day out, over a period of time. occasion (Proverbs 15:28).

Your main job during this process is to · ▯ We have to practice listening in understanding everything about them, their past and their hurts (James 1:19 says “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry”). · ▯ When our communication with our spouse is strong then we’ll understand them, we’ll see what hot buttons, or pot holes, to avoid when we’re resolving conflict. Likewise, we’ll know how to reach them to build them up, as opposed to tear them down, in their moment of need.

That takes me to the next point - has there been adultery or a breach of trust in the marriage? There is a phrase that says time will heal’. I am not sure that this is true. The truth is that time without any action is just time wasted. For a crack to heal there has to be a huge amount of work on both sides. We can be forgiven for breaking the window, but we still have to sweep up the bro41

be dependable, consistent, responsive and comforting. Take full responsibility for your actions and choices. Simply put, what you say you’re going to do, you DO. Practice the three A’s: Affection, Attention and Appreciation daily.

Show your spouse how much you love and appreciate them in big and small ways every day.

Remember in the Bible we read about God sending Jeremiah to visit the potter’s house (Jeremiah 18:1-6). Jeremiah watches the potter mould a vessel from the soft clay. As he works, the vessel is spoiled so he reworks it and makes something beautiful out of it. As Jeremiah watches the potter God says that the people of Israel are like clay in his hands that he wants to shape them as he sees best. Yield yourself, your spouse and your marriage to Him and He will surely make everything beautiful.

- Andrea Onduku www.mattersoftheheart.org

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MATTERS OF THE ea ear Andr

HEART

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Dear Andrea, My spouse is not pursuing God and I want to fulfil God’s purpose for my life. He is bringing me down and I don’t know what to do. What should I do?

Dear Andrea, My husband doesn’t trust me with our finances. My financial decisions and suggestion are not respected. It is causing a lot of conflict in our home, how do I talk to him about this?

I understand that it is challenging when a married couple are not pursuing God with the same intensity. Firstly though, I would want to mention that everyone expresses themselves differently and it is not wise for us to judge the relationship of another with God. It may be possible that the cares of life are currently affecting your spouse’s relationship with God and in this case I would strongly suggest that you commit to praying for them to have all round peace and to overcome distractions. Is there any burden they are carrying that you could prayerfully seek a solution for? If they are extremely busy, you could offer to help with some things which would give them more time to focus on their spiritual life. I would also want to ask if you have discussed your concerns with your spouse? Perhaps you could suggest a devotional that you could study together, a book you could both read or a conference you could attend together or a fast that you could do together. Doing something jointly would help each of you to encourage the other to keep going. This would be a better strategy than nagging your spouse as this will make them feel they are just not good enough. It is likely that they already feel condemned about their lack of zeal and would need help to get priorities sorted, rather than making them feel worse.

I would suggest that you approach this subject with your husband in a calm manner rather than in an argumentative way. There may be many reasons for your husband’s approach to finances. Perhaps he grew up in a home where the man in the house made all financial decisions without question. Having this role model would make him less likely to accept a different approach. Perhaps he believes that as the Head of the home, those decisions are down to him alone. Or is it possible that in the past, you have not managed finances well?

The second part of your question seems to suggest that your spouse’s lack of zeal in pursuing God is preventing you from fulfilling God’s purpose for your life and bringing you down? I would want to caution that our walk with God is an individual one and therefore no-one can stop you from fulfilling God’s purpose for your life. While you must be considerate of your spouse, their spiritual walk should not determine your own. You must keep yourself strong in the Lord and not be discouraged. www.sunrisemagazine.org

I would suggest that in a home, whoever is most skilled at budgeting should handle the finances.

That is not to say, that large decisions should not be made jointly. One way forward may be to jointly create a monthly or quarterly budget that can be implemented which would mean that daily discussions about money could be avoided. Once both you and your husband can stick to the budget, then trust in each other would be further cemented. There are lots of budgeting templates online that you could use. However you must have the agreement of your husband before going ahead to create a budget and then demanding he sticks to it. As his wife, even if he does not take your suggestions into account, you will need to follow his decisions. You can prayerfully make suggestions led by the Holy Spirit and pray that there will be unity and an absence of strife in your home. Amos 3:3 (NLT) says “Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction”? I believe that setting goals and direction as a family will help you to set financial goals and targets which your budget will be centred around. Approaching your husband about setting goals may be better received than yet another conversation about how to spend the family finances.

Andrea Onduku Send your problems or questions, which will be treated in strictest confidence, to info@matteroftheheart.org 42

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The Remarkable Story of - Janis Feely MBE

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he Living Room Hertfordshire is an award-winning addiction recovery charity, founded in 2000 by Janis Feely MBE. They have a centre in Stevenage and St Albans, staffed by highly-trained counsellors with lived experience of addiction themselves. They offer free, day-time, group counselling, peer support and workshop therapies.

In the late nineties Janis Feely, worked as an addiction worker at a residential rehab project. It was during this time that Janis had a vision for a unique new day recovery treatment centre. In May 2000 after a year of fundraising and lobbying Janis achieved her vision and established the Living Room supporting many people to achieve recovery from their addictions.

Janis retired in 2016 and since then, staff, trustees, volunteers, clients and people in the community have worked hard to ensure this vision remains a reality. She has won many awards, most notably an MBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List.

Sunrise was so excited to have the opportunity to have an interview with Janis where she shared a little of her story and the Living Room.

Janice thank you for speaking with us, your story is truly a remarkable and inspiring one. Could you please tell us how it all began?

Well, I didn’t realize I had a problem with alcohol until I was actually taken to my first AA meeting. I was having marriage problems and I was drinking to cope with the reality. I’d been married for 7 years, I had 2 children and, we’d moved 7 times in 7 years. My husband at the time was into all sorts of debt and stuff that I didn’t know anything about. We moved again from a big house with 6 hectares of land to a small three bedroom semi and I was only living there a couple of weeks when a man knocked on the door

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telling me I was squatting and I had no idea. A friend came round with just one bottle of wine one night and that night that bottle of wine spoke to me. That night I laughed and I didn’t care. And that’s what alcohol did for me at that time. It was a coping mechanism without any doubt. I also went to the doctors and I was put on valium as well.

Sometime later, I had left my home and my children, something I never thought I would do because I was so ill by then and I went to live in a bedsit, it was there I met the man who took me to AA. I agreed to go because I was a mess. I just would agree to anything I think, I was so weak, in the darkness really.

What happens at AA meetings?

The first meeting I was taken to, I looked round the room and thought they are all well-dressed and happy and okay people, it was really my thought there wasn’t an alcoholic in that room but really there was, they were doing recovery and enjoying their life and I just wanted to go back; there was the identification and the hope.

Along the way during your recovery, you became a Christian?

Yes, I was already in recovery before I became a Christian. We do have a lovely saying in AA that God brought me to AA and AA brought me to God. I love that saying. The AA program is a spiritual program, the units of the course deal with mental, physical and spiritual recovery.

What was the spiritual element in the AA program?

You come to believe in the power greater than yourself that you come to know as God and another step is handing your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand Him. It’s not the God you would have been brought up with

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it’s actually the God you come to know.

So how long did your participation last?

It never stops, it continues. I still do it today, I am 31 years sober, I still work the same program.

So is there this sense that there might be loads of people out there who are facing similar challenges on the whole front and they just might be risking a lot by comfort drinking?

Oh yes, because that’s how it starts. But what happens is you get addicted to it and you don’t have a choice, you just keep drinking. Eventually I drank because I had to not because I wanted to.

We don’t know where that invisible line is, it could be anywhere.

It’s reported that at some point recovering addicts would benefit greatly from faith in God? Well that is part of the principle of AA. I was working in rehab and I wasn’t allowed to talk about God. I wasn’t allowed to promote plans to go to AA for the 12-steps programme at that time. That was when I had envisioned to set up the Living Room. I was sitting in the day service talking to one client and he knew I was a Christian by then and he was asking me all sorts of questions. He was on a spiritual journey himself and I suddenly realized, if I get caught, if my boss walks in now I am going to get it because I wasn’t allowed to talk about God and it was at that moment that I thought I can’t do this anymore. I went to my vicar and discussed it with her, the vision that I had of setting up a treatment centre but having it Christian-based.

She completely understood where I was coming from. She arranged for me to speak to the Chair of Churches Together in Stevenage. It was coming up to year

INTERVIEW

2000 and they wanted the churches in Stevenage to do something for the town that wouldn’t be just like a big bang of fireworks, they wanted to do something lasting and they knew that there was a big problem with addiction in the town.

I came along just at that time so they all agreed to back the Living Room and take it forward.

Was it challenging to set it up?

To set it up was not really challenging.

I went to the Charity’s Commission and registered it as a charity and appointed trustees. We did a fundraising day among all the churches on a particular day and a lot was raised for The Living Room. I also contacted St Albans’ diocese and I got 3 years funding from them towards the cost of running the Living Room.

Did you have any experience or training on managing a charity or non-profit organisation or did you get into it by faith?

I have a Business Management and financial background; I was a legal accounts manager before I gave up working for solicitors. I had also managed the previous treatment centres for 4 years as well. But it was really done on pure faith, everything was done on faith, and everything we needed started coming to us. We went to the council and got a room in a community centre.

With regards to the Living room, your approach when you started out, you believed that separating children from those in recovery was doing more harm than good? Can you tell us what this was about?

Whilst I was working 6 years in rehab, three things became very apparent to me. Many families didn’t like to be separated for 6 months because that’s the length of the AA course. Some would only stay a month or two and leave.

Some had voluntarily put their children in care. I wanted to my treatment cen-

tre to have a crèche so that the children would be looked after whilst the parents were receiving care.

How did this new approach you were introducing work in practice?

Parents would go through the whole treatment plan and come out at the other end of it and their children there will be a lot of change in their children’s behaviour, their wellbeing and it was always a success when we had the children in crèche because parents stayed in for treatment which most of them certainly did.

Quite a few of them that came to us would be under social services care.

I would go to all the co-group meetings and case conferences. Social services would see how the parents had changed and they would also see a massive change in the children in the home and then they would be signed off their caseload.

I think most people can recover by going to a day service, some people need to be in rehab, they need to be taken out of society, but the vast majority can get well whilst living in their home because that’s where the issues are and the problems are. As they gradually get well, their families get well. It was a holistic approach.

The Living Room has had a 60-70% success rate, and this is remarkable?

Why is that?

All my staff that I took on had to have been in recovery for a minimum of 5 years and also be qualified counsellors or part-qualified, coming to the end of their training. Immediately the clients feel more relaxed and they trust quicker, because they know that we know where they are coming from. We can share our own experiences of certain things that we are going through that they might be going through at the moment. In the 16 years I had been there, 46 children were returned to families out of care and I had many more signed off the risk registers.

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After almost 10 years of managing the Living Room, you’ve taken a step backwards, you’ve retired and handed over the charity. Was it something difficult to do?

No, it was something that I had decided.

My husband was retiring officially and I was nearly 69 so I kind of felt it was time to have a little bit of time to myself and have time to catch up with family and friends that really I didn’t see as often because the charity took a lot of time and evenings.

You were awarded an MBE in 2010, how did you feel?

I could not believe it, it still amazes me till date. I got the reward in Buckingham Palace from Prince Charles, and it was a truly remarkable event.

For charities like Living Room how could people contribute?

The Living Room does loads of different events so they can always contribute in that way and they can donate money.

They often need volunteers in the charity shops and within the Living Room itself.

In St Albans we don’t yet have a crèche, for years we’ve tried to get bigger premises so that we could eventually have a crèche but premises in St Albans are so small and so expensive.

What would be your advice to anyone out there, reading this who is thinking, ‘I know a social problem I would really like to contribute towards’?

Do it. Try to put one foot in front of the other. Do it on faith. I did it on pure faith and God never let me down.

How do you spend your days in retirement?

I sponsor people in the AA fellowship, I support them, share my experiences with them and take them through the steps.

- Interview by Yinka Oduwole

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Why Destination Weddings?

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ver the last five years there has been an increase in Destination Weddings. It has become a trend among the older and younger generation. According to an article from tripsavvy.com about 25% of weddings are destination orientated, with 340,000 of which take place every year.

There are a number of reasons in why destination weddings are becoming more and more popular, especially among Africans.

After conducting my own research by interviewing couples who have gone through the process of destination weddings; I have listed below some of the highlighted advantages which can be found interesting.

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1. Traditional weddings now-

adays have become very expensive to afford, therefore couples use Destination Weddings as a tool to save money or stay within budget.

2. Couples are finding tradi-

tional weddings stressful and destination weddings stress free due to the help of onsite wedding planners

3. Couples I spoke to prefer an intimate wedding setting with only family members and close friends because they can give special attention to limited relatives or close friends

4. Some couples want to have a different experience of having a destina48

tion wedding rather than having the wedding in their own city/town

5. There was also a clash of

culture/ mixed culture.

For example if the bride is Ghanaian and the groom is Nigerian, there may be a conflict of interest as their families would both want the wedding in their country of origin. Therefore, to stop arguments and stress, couples often opt for a destination wedding to help bridge the gap

6. Most couples after the

wedding ceremony continue with the honeymoon in the same venue as it ends up being cost effective

7. Weather is seen as one of

the most desired aspects for most of the couples, as pictures will come out beautiful

8. Many wedding resorts offer complete packages which includes venue, hotel rooms, catering, decorations, entertainments and even a wedding planner

9. As much as weddings are spiritual, couples also want their wedding to be VERY Fun and enjoyable

10. Some just simply love the idea of being different from others who have traditional weddings

Anything that has advantages has disadvantages. These disadvantages are highlighted and listed below.

1. According to grouptravel.

org, couples having a destination wedding usually pay for the weddings rather than the traditional way of parents paying for the wedding

2. Many couples also end

up paying for the travel expenses of their guests especially parents, immediate family members and the even the bridal party

3. Depending on the loca-

tion of the wedding some couples have had to cut down on what they spend money on, like expensive centrepieces, flowers, and cutting down on the usual three course meal

4. Some brides have to spend

a lot of time on planning with the wedding planners who are usually from the destination place, which they find quite tasking

5. Another aspect they find

quite daunting is the legal requirements of the foreign country, this can

range from visas to the re- gle to offend people who may conquired documentation for sider themselves close enough to be the marriage joining at least, invited to your wedding. I This brings me to the next point where most of you are wondering happen to fall into the category of “where do these couples actually those who would struggle to upset go for their big day?” So I’ve listed the many friends and church family below eleven top most romantic that play a vital role in our lives and Destination Weddings spots; pilgrim journey. So, one solution we 1. Dubai deemed necessary in curtailing the 2. Hawaii number to a smaller size was the 3. Mexico option of a destination wedding 4. Las Vegas and at a season where those who 5. California (Palm Springs)

would come, would be those really

6. Florida

close and dear to us. By so doing, we

7. South Africa 8. The Caribbean (Jamaica) 9. Italy

worked with a reasonable budget that provided the quality of wedding we wanted and a budget that worked as a holiday for our guests.

10. Morocco (Marrakesh)

Although, I would have naturally viewed a wedding in Dubai as a There are countless reasons as to cliché, it turned out to be a reasonwhy couples are choosing from the above but you have to admit able middle ground for guests from that some of these destinations Europe, North America and Africa. are lovely to have that “Picture We loved it, and remain thankful Perfect” Moment. that God allowed it to happen; surWhile conducting some personal reserach, a couple wrote a state- rounding us with very wonderful ment on why they had a Desti- Pastors, family, friends and incredination Wedding for their Big Day. ble vendors.”

(Please see below) As you can see, destination wed“Destination Weddings have bedings are on the rise and will concome increasingly attractive and tinue to be globally. It can be said common place for some couples. that in the next 10 years, many The reasons may vary from person weddings will not be done in one’s to person. In my case, we succeeded country of residence. It is imperaat staging our wedding in Dubai at tive for couples to find what works a peak period because we wanted for them and their budget. Whatan intimate setting of family and ever you decide to do, it’s all about close friends exclusively. making that memory with the one Some may argue that, an intimate you love. “After all happiness is setting can still be achieved in one’s what we live for.” local community; which is actually

By Lara Samuel true. However, some people strugRoyauté Events 11. England (Leeds Castle)

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RCCG’S VISION IS FOR CHURCHES IN EVERY COMMUNITY. PRAY WITH US AS WE FOCUS ON THESE PARTIALLY REACHED AND UNREACHED AREAS IN THE UK Avon Bradley Stoke Clevedon Keynsham Nailsea Portishead Thornbury Yate

Runcorn Sandbach Widnes Winsford

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Cleveland Redcar Yarm

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Dorset Blandford Forum Bridport Christchurch Dorchester Ferndown Gillingham Lyme Regis Poole Sherborne Swanage Verwood Wareham Weymouth Dumfries and Galloway Annan Castle Douglas Dalbeattie Dumfries Kirkcudbright Langholm Lockerbie Moffat Newton Stewart Stranraer

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Wigtown Barnard Castle Bishop Auckland Chester le Street Newton Aycliffe Dyfed Aberaeron Ammanford Burry Port Cardigan Carmarthen Fishguard Haverfordwest Lampeter Laugharne Llandeilo Llandovery Llanelli Milford Haven Narberth Newcastle Emlyn Pembroke Tenby Tregaron East Sussex Battle Bexhill on Sea Crowborough Hailsham Hastings Heathfield Hove Lewes Newhaven Polegate Rye Uckfield Wadhurst Essex Brightlingsea Burnham on Crouch Coggeshall Maldon Manningtree Rochford Saffron Walden Thaxted Walton on the Naze Auchtermuchty Burntisland Cowdenbeath Cupar Inverkeithing Kinghorn Kirkcaldy Ladybank Leven Markinch Newport on Tay Pittenweem Fife Auchtermuchty Burntisland

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Gwynedd County Abergele Amlwch Bala Bangor Barmouth Beaumaris Betws y Coed Blaenau Ffestiniog Caernarfon Conwy Criccieth Dolgellau Holyhead Llandudno Llanrwst Penmaenmawr Porthmadog Pwllheli Tywyn Hampshire Alton Fordingbridge Gosport New Milton Petersfield Ringwood Romsey Tadley Totton Whitchurch Winchester Yateley Herefordshire Bromyard Hereford Kington Ledbury Leominster Ross on Wye Hertfordshire Berkhamsted Buntingford Buntingford Hoddesdon Potters Bar Sawbridgeworth Waltham Cross Ware

Highlands and Islands Cromarty Dingwall Dornoch Grantown on Spey Kingussie Kirkwall Lerwick Nairn Tain Wick

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Brading Cowes Newport Ryde Sandown Shanklin Ventnor Kent Broadstairs Deal Edenbridge Faversham Herne Bay Hythe Lydd Ramsgate Sandwich Southborough Tenterden Westerham Whitstable Lancashire Adlington Bacup Barnoldswick Burnley Carnforth Clitheroe Colne Darwen Failsworth Fleetwood Kirkham Leyland Longridge Morecambe Ormskirk Poulton le Fylde Skelmersdale Whitworth Leicestershire Ashby de la Zouch Hinckley Melton Mowbray Wigston Lincolnshire Alford Boston Bourne Caistor Gainsborough Grantham Horncastle Louth Mablethorpe Market Deeping Market Rasen Skegness Sleaford Spalding Spilsby Stamford

Newton le Willows Prescot Southport Wallasey

Worksop Oxfordshire Burford Carterton Charlbury Chipping Norton Dorchester Henley on Thames Thame Wallingford Wantage Woodstock

Mid Glamorgan Aberdare Bridgend Caerphilly Llantrisant Maesteg Merthyr Tydfil Porth Porthcawl

Powys Brecon Builth Wells Crickhowell Hay on Wye Knighton Llandrindod Wells Llanfyllin Llanidloes Llanwrtyd Wells Machynlleth Montgomery Newtown Presteigne Rhayader Talgarth Welshpool

Norfolk Aylsham Cromer Dereham Diss Downham Market Fakenham Hunstanton North Walsham Sheringham Thetford Wells next the Sea Wymondham North Yorkshire Bedale Easingwold Filey Harrogate Knaresborough Malton Middleham Pickering Richmond – not the one South London Ripon Scarborough Selby Settle Skipton Tadcaster Thirsk Whitby

Rutland Oakham Uppingham Shropshire Bridgnorth Church Stretton Ellesmere Ludlow Market Drayton Newport Oswestry Shrewsbury Telford Wem Whitchurch Somerset Bridgwater Burnham on Sea Chard Crewkerne Frome Glastonbury Ilminster Minehead Shepton Mallet Somerton Wellington Wells Wincanton Winsford

Northamptonshire Brackley Burton Latimer Daventry Higham Ferrers Irthlingborough Oundle Thrapston Towcester

Lothian Bathgate Dalkeith Dunbar Haddington Linlithgow Loanhead Musselburgh North Berwick

Northumberland Alnwick Ashington Bedlington Berwick upon Tweed Blyth Corbridge Cramlington Haltwhistle Hexham Morpeth Prudhoe Rothbury

Merseyside Bebington Birkenhead Bootle Heswall Hoylake Kirkby

Nottinghamshire Bingham Eastwood Hucknall Retford Southwell Sutton in Ashfield

South Glamorgan Barry Cowbridge Llantwit Major Penarth South Yorkshire Bawtry Dinnington Hatfield Mexborough Penistone Wombwell Staffordshire Alton Biddulph Burntwood Cannock 53

Leek Lichfield Rugeley Stone Tamworth Uttoxeter

Pitlochry

Strathclyde Airdrie Barrhead Bearsden Bellshill Biggar Campbeltown Carluke Coatbridge Cumbernauld Dumbarton Dunoon East Kilbride Gourock Greenock Helensburgh Inveraray Irvine Johnstone Kilbarchan Kilmarnock Kilwinning Lanark Largs Lochgilphead Maybole Milngavie Motherwell Oban Prestwick Rothesay Rutherglen Saltcoats Tobermory Troon

Warwickshire Alcester Atherstone Bedworth Coleshill Kenilworth Shipston on Stour Southam Stratford upon Avon Whitnash

Tyne and Wear Houghton le Spring Whitley Bay

Suffolk Aldeburgh Beccles Bungay Eye Felixstowe Framlingham Halesworth Haverhill Kesgrave Leiston Lowestoft Needham Market Otley Saxmundham Southwold Stowmarket Sudbury Woodbridge Surrey Camberley Egham Esher Farnham Godalming Haslemere Leatherhead Reigate Walton on Thames Weybridge Tayside Aberfeldy Brechin Carnoustie Crieff Forfar Kinross Kirriemuir Monifieth

West Glamorgan Gorseinon Neath Port Talbot West Midlands Blackheath Bloxwich Halesowen Rowley Regis Smethwick Wednesbury Wednesfield Willenhall West Sussex Arundel Cuckfield Midhurst Petworth Selsey Shoreham by Sea West Yorkshire Batley Brighouse Castleford Cleckheaton Hebden Bridge Holmfirth Ilkley Keighley Morley Normanton Ossett Otley Pontefract Pudsey Todmorden Wetherby Yeadon Wiltshire Amesbury Bradford on Avon Calne Devizes Highworth Malmesbury Marlborough Trowbridge Warminster Westbury Wootton Bassett Worcestershire Bewdley Bromsgrove Evesham Kidderminster Malvern Pershore Redditch

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RCCG UK 2018 NATIONAL MINISTRY CALENDAR AUTUMN PRAYER SERVICES RCCG CONFERENCE OF REGIONAL & COUNTRY (IN ALL PARISHES) Wednesday 3rd October 2018 ADMINISTRATORS (UNITED KINGDOM) Wednesday 17th - 18th CHILDREN’S TEACHERS’ RCCG UK LEADERSHIP Thursday October 2018 CONFERENCE SUMMIT Saturday 25th August 2018 Saturday 6th October 2018 FESTIVAL OF LIFE (FOL) AFRICA MISSIONS GLOBAL LONDON STEP OUT-FRESHERS’ FAIR. Friday 19th October 2018 STAR PASTORS, TRUSTEES & INITIATIVES MEETING KEY STAFF CONFERENCE (LONDON) Tuesday 9th - Wednesday 10th CONTEMPORARY DIALOGUE (LONDON) SERIES Saturday 1st September 2018 October 2018 Monday 29th October 2018 RCCG UK NATIONAL COVENANT PARTNERS & STAR WEBINAR (FOR PARISH FESTIVAL OF LIFE (FOL) TEACHERS’ CONFERENCE TRUSTEES, PASTORS & KEY Saturday 15th September 2018 PARTNERS’ RECEPTION STAFF IN REGION 1, 2, 3 & 4) (LONDON) Saturday 3rd November 2018 Thursday 11th October 2018 CHRISTIAN MEDIA AND COMMUNICATORS’ WONDERS OF PRAYER DAY GRADUATION (RCCG CONFERENCE (LONDON/CARDIFF/ Saturday 22nd September EDUCATIONAL EDINBURGH/BELFAST) INSTITUTIONS/ 2018 Saturday 10th November 2018 ORDINATIONS SERVICE/ CHURCH-PLANTING PASTORS’ SEED FAMILY (PSF) CONFERENCE PREMIERE OF RCCG DRAMA TRAINING WEEKEND PRODUCTION Friday 28th - 29th September Saturday 13th October 2018 2018 “THE PRODIGAL” RCCG UK ANNUAL GENERAL Tuesday 13th November 2018 HELPS MINISTRIES’ MEETING (AGM) & RCCG UK CONFERENCE. WORKERS’ RALLY (LONDON) RCCG PASTORS’ ASSEMBLY (END-OF-YEAR RCCG YOUTH CONVENTION Tuesday 16th October 2018 THANKSGIVING & MEETING) Saturday 29th September 2018 Saturday 24th November 2018 RCCG DRAMA GROUPS’ COMPETITION Saturday 18th August 2018

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BOOKS YOU JUST MUST READ

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RCCG WORKERS’ RALLY APRIL 2018

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t the RCCG Workers’ Rally, Workers from all RCCG Churches from across the UK assemble for an evening of Worship, Christian Drama, Bible Study, Prayer and the Holy Communion under the leadership of the General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye.

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RCCG EVENTS

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OFFICIAL OPENING OF NEW RCCG UK CENTRAL OFFICE

T

o the Glory of God, after eight years at Knebworth, RCCG Central Office moved to new premises at Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire in January this year. Although in use from then, the official opening took place on the 11th April 2018 by our General Overseer Pastor E. A. Adeboye and Mother-in-Israel Pastor Mrs Folu Adeboye. The Mayor of Stevenage, Pam Stuart and Christian leaders from various denominations were also in attendance.

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ORDAINED MINISTERS’ CONFERENCE 2018

O

rdained Ministers’ Conference took place from Thursday 12th to Friday 13th April 208 at Bournemouth International Centre (BIC). The theme of OMC 2018 was “Let the Fire Fall” The host of the conference was the General Overseer of RCCG, Pastor E. A. Adeboye. The conference was held in order to empower and equip Ordained ministers in the Mission.

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Pastors’ Seed Family T

2018 CONF ERENCE

he Pastors’ Seed Family (PSF) Conference brings together the children of RCCG Pastors and Ministers for a time of soul-stirring Worship, Bible Study, Prayer, Christian Drama and Interactive Sessions on vital matters that concern the delegates as Ministers’ children and as young persons. The PSF Conference provides a platform to raise another generation of committed disciples of our Saviour Jesus Christ who will lift the banner of the Lord higher. At the Conference, delegates should develop frienships in a secure, friendly and spiritual environment where their needs are met in the midst of other young people. This year’s conference held on the 14th April at the Bournemouth International Centre.

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Good Women Fellowship 2018 Conference

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he Good Women Fellowship (GWF) was inaugurated by RCCG’s Mother-in-Israel Pastor (Mrs) Folu Adeboye in 1998 in the United Kingdom (UK) to foster holistic development so that every woman will fulfil God’s purpose for her life. It is the vision of GWF to encourage women to discover, develop and maximise their God-given abilities. At the GWF Annual Conference presided over by Pastor (Mrs) Folu Adeboye, women in the RCCG are empowered to become vessels of honour in their ministries and personal lives. The event held on the 14th April 2018 at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) with the theme ‘Victorious Women’.

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Excellent Men CONFERENCE 2018 T

he Excellent Men is the Men’s fellowship of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in the United Kingdom. The vision of the fellowship is to equip men to discover, develop and maximise their God-given mandate and abilities. Their annual Conference was held on the 14th April at the Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre.

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PRAYER & ACTION C

Prayer Walks For Peace

hurch leaders and their members across London came together to symbolically conduct prayer walks over 4 Sunday afternoons, beginning 22nd April 2018 in multiple locations in the communities most affected by the recent spate of violence across the city and that represent the North, East, West and South of the city. Participants prayed for peace on the streets and an end to violence and murders.

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(FISH): THE EVANGELISM AND SOCIAL ACTION CONFERENCE

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he Evangelism and Social Action Conference is a strategic forum to resource the Church for Evangelism and Social Action. Initiated by the Central Office of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), it brings together evangelism and social action ministers from Parish, Area, Zone, Province and Regional levels in the RCCG and equips the church with the strategies, capacity and tools to be more effective at soul-winning and social outreach. This year’s conference focused on the following topics: Principles and Strategies for Effective Evangelism, Digital Evangelism: Soul-Winning in the Digital Age, A Scriptural Foundation for Sustainable Social Action Ministry, RCCG UK Social Action: Vision, Strategy and Governance Framework. The event was held on the 26th May 2018 at the Central office in Stevenage.

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Called By His/Her Side C

REGION 1

alled By His/Her Side is an initiative of RCCG UK Central Office to empower Parish Pastors’ spouses in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). CBHS aims to help Pastor’s Spouses to overcome challenges, avoid burnout, become excellent helpers of destiny, help them fulfil their ministry and answer any questions they may have regarding their role. Each Region held their CBHS event this year. Region 1’s event held at the Central office in Stevenage on the 2nd June 2018.

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21 CENTURY LEADERSHIP TRAINING st

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his Special One-Day Leadership Training Seminar was a platform for leadership development open to leaders at various levels within RCCG UK. Organised by the RCCG UK School of Leadership, the event will held on Saturday 16th June 2018 and Saturday 23rd June 2018 in four locations across the UK.

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CALL TO ACTION Are you a professional sports person?

Do you know anyone who is a professional sports person?

If so, please send their name and their sport to: sports@rccg.co.uk PS: A professional sports person is someone participating in any given sport professionally and at an elite level representing a club or their country at recognised national and international competitions.

Tel Contact: Pastor Daniel Akanmu (RCCG UK Sports Director) - 07932402037 Bro Sheriff Tajudeen - 0208 171 1030

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