Articles

Author: Ellie Worthington

During a Farsi group meeting in October, Sola had preached on the person of the Holy Spirit and we were praying afterwards for more of God. Whilst praying in groups, one of the wonderful young Farsi women, Shaida, was asked if she was hungry for God and if so to lift up her hands. As she did this we noticed she had gold dust all over her hands which remained even until the following week! This was a sign and a wonder that points us to a supernatural God who loves to remind us of his glory. After the miracle of Lazarus being raised from the dead, Jesus challenged us, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” We were all blessed by this sign and wonder, especially Shaida who God chose to use.

Author: Sola

Healing on the Streets (HOTS) started in Newcastle a year ago. HOTS is a simple yet profound way of demonstrating the love of God and extending compassion to the people of Newcastle. Each Saturday from 2-4pm at the Monument or Northumberland Street in Newcastle we provide an opportunity for members of the public to receive prayer. In the last year we have seen increasing numbers of people receive healing and many coming back for more prayer. We are also enjoying increasing unity from people from different churches in the city, and favour from the Newcastle civil authorities who give us permission to pray for people on the street.

For many people that we meet, in particular teenagers, the Church has become an institution and impersonal. HOTS allows us to challenge this view and offer a personal touch of the love of Christ, through our face to face contact with the church on the street. Jesus sent his disciples in pairs in Mark 6: 7-13, Luke 9:1-6 and Matthew 10:1-16 to the towns and villages to preach the gospel and to heal the sick.

We believe the same commission applies to us today. God is powerful and compassionate and He still heals and answers prayer today.

One of my most profound HOTS experiences was praying with other members of the HOTS team for a 16 year old girl who accepted Christ for the first time. She visibly experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit and we encouraged her to let other people know about the experience she had just had. In less than one hour she brought her friend who wanted us to prayer for her about bullying at school. After this experience I thought what it would be like to see 100 decisions like this on a Saturday in Newcastle and have the right strategy and resources in place to signpost these people to churches that could follow them up?

My testimony is that in the last year with HOTS I have seen more people healed through my prayers and had more people saying to me that they want to follow Jesus for the first time, than I have seen in my previous 12 years living in England.

The great thing about HOTS is that you are not there on your own. You are with a bunch of normal people who have busy lives, jobs and family commitments (doctors, business people, students, university professors and church leaders) who are also passionate about sharing the love of God with people in Newcastle.

We have many training events throughout the year and it is mandatory for people to attend the training before joining the HOTS teams. We want to make sure that people we are praying for are treated with the utmost dignity and respect, the training gives excellent instruction in how to pray with non Christians outside of the church context.

The next training is on Friday 6th of November 7pm-9:30pm and Saturday 7th of November 10am -1pm followed by HOTS at Monument or Northumberland Street from 2pm-4pm. The venue for the training is Brunswick Methodist Church Newcastle, at the back of Fenwick Store.

For further information please contact Sola
oeidowu@yahoo.co.uk

Author: Frances

I really want to give God the glory for what He is doing in my life. I came to the meeting Sunday 6th September depressed, really low and flat spiritually as I had for some weeks. I’d been finding it difficult to pray, read the word and felt miles away from God. Phil Wilthew was back from his Sabbatical and said God was going to move powerfully in people’s lives that morning.

Phil preached about Jesus’ death and resurrection. There was prayer for people during the meeting. Towards the end of the meeting, Phil invited those who wanted more prayer to come to the front. Liz began praying for me; I wanted breakthrough. Phil came over and began to pray; I felt the power of God touching me. Phil prayed against despair and for the joy of God to fill me; he had a word about something or someone that had caused me offence. I knew that I had been preoccupied by something someone had done, so I prayed a prayer of forgiveness. I cried for the first time in ages. Phil prophesised that God was going to use me, as He had in the past, with specific words.

Since that time I have felt a new excitement for God; my mood has lifted and I am getting back into praying and reading the word. I have noticed that at work I’m much brighter and more confident than I have been for some time. Someone at my City Group had a picture which perfectly illustrates what God has done for me (this was before I shared anything with her):The picture was of a down pipe; a great deluge of water flooded through the pipe clearing away all the debris, dirt and gunk that was in it. That's how I feel God was working.

God is still working in me but I know that I have had a real breakthrough. Thank you Lord!

One Year On

Author: Caroline Emmerson

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55: 8-11)

This is one scripture that underpins all that we are and all that we do. Each member of the team feels called by God to serve Him in healing prayer and we have all seen and experienced things that have taken our breath away and revealed just how amazing our God is.

God heals the whole person. Every idea I had about how a healing prayer team would work and what God would do has been totally turned on its head. I’ve found that what is important is not always what we think should be done, it is what God thinks should be done. Often we have seen people coming to the healing prayer team with some specific request and God has worked on something entirely different first, usually involving a much deeper more profound healing. Now, when I come on Sunday evening, my expectations are that people will come, we will seek God and He will come to meet us.

We all are receiving healing from God and this is ongoing in our own lives. My own testimony is of a life being changed. I am not the same person who set out on this pathway a year ago. So many hurts from my past have been healed and through this I am being transformed. It has been an amazing journey. We will be running another training day in the autumn for anyone who would like to join the team and the next series of prayer will start on 20th September. I have been given permission to include some of the brief testimonies from some people who have attended, which speak of God’s activity in lives.

Caroline Emmerson

“Gradually over the last year, God has healed me of fatigue and depression, and has drawn me much closer to him, helping me depend on him more and seek his will more. Thank you all for your prayers for me. I feel so much better, have much more energy and having better quiet times with God. Peace has come, despair has gone, and joy is bubbling up (I feel God’s got more of that to come!). What you do is wonderful and God is amazing, releasing and unlocking us from strongholds and restoring hope.”

“God did a mighty work and released me from terrible nightmares that I had had since 1990 from a very abusive and violent marriage. I frequently had nightmares and would wake up in a cold sweat and feel upset for hours and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. But now it’s stopped. Jesus has set me free forever and my life has changed.”

“When I heard City Church had a healing prayer team I knew I had to come. I only managed to make 2 sessions because of my health, which wasn’t good as I had been diagnosed with cancer and was receiving treatment. On the first meeting during the prayer time one of the team members asked me about my stomach and a problem with bloating. I was surprised as I hadn’t mentioned I had this problem to anyone. In fact I had had this problem for years and it was really beginning to worry me. But God knew and so did the HPT member! They prayed for me and I was healed. The next week I came back again and I was anointed with oil by one of the Elders and prayed for. When I went to the doctors for a check up, fully expecting to have to have further treatment, I was told I no longer needed treatment and 6 weeks later the scan confirmed I was cured. I was so amazed
as they had told me I only had a 35% chance of survival and
God totally healed me.”

Report from Luyando

Author: Libby

Many of you will know of the amazing work that Martin Zuch is involved with in Zambia, Africa where he has established two banana plantations providing jobs, education, and an orphanage for locals and they have plans for health care provision too. Kevin and Libby came
to Cool bananas/Luyando as volunteers over a year
ago. They are now running the banana plantation as well as the community projects. Below is the story of what happened earlier this month. 

Very early yesterday morning, we got word that a section manager Mavis Mwaka’s 2 year old son, had just died.  We were so sad as Stanley said that the poor little boy died of malnutrition.  Mavis had asked the grandparents of the child to look after him as Mavis found herself pregnant again with another child shortly after giving birth to her son.  Tragically, the grandparents had no money to buy food for the little one and didn’t ask anyone for help or let them know there was a problem.

This really hit home to us how fragile life is and when Kevin went outside to take devotions, he shared about how our life is but a vapour and that our life is in God’s hands.  He told the workers about Mavis’s son.  He explained that God loves them very much and has a plan for their lives, that his own life could be taken in an instant, in a car accident, a heart attack, walking across a road etc.  He then challenged the workers and said that they too could not guarantee that they would be alive tomorrow, that their life could end today. And if they died today, where would they spend eternity?  Heaven or hell?  They had a choice and today they could repent and ask Jesus into their hearts and lives.

Kevin and I have been watching every night the revival meetings in East London, South Africa where Rodney Howard Brown, a well known passionate evangelist, has been preaching.  The Lord challenged us about being available to share the gospel with those around us.  What better opportunity than that morning?!

Kevin felt the Lord just give him love and compassion to share with the workers of the incredible love of God for them.  He asked in the morning meeting if anyone would like him to pray for them and to ask Jesus to forgive them and to ask Him into their lives.

One after another put their hand up and Kevin asked them to come forward for prayer.  He prayed for over 45 people who gave their lives to the Lord yesterday!  We are incredibly humbled and privileged to have had this awesome opportunity and really thank the Lord for the work He is doing here.

We need to follow them up and Stanley is now finding out who needs a Bible.  They have also been encouraged to come to the church in the village.  Please pray for them all as there is a general belief here that if they come to church they must give an offering and be dressed smartly.  Most of them just don’t have the ability to do this and so this barrier has to be overcome.

Please pray for these new sheep that the Lord will grow them and give us the ability to care for them and nurture them in a way that is culturally acceptable to these precious people.

Author: Gareth

At the end of May myself and the rest of the FP team from the north headed out on our international mission trip to Albania. It was an amazing experience, especially considering that I felt a lot of apprehension about the whole thing before leaving. Albania was not like I expected. Knowing that it was a poor country I expected it to look much like the images we often see from countries in Africa but the capital city, Tirana, where I was staying, was much like any city in the UK. There were obvious differences, architecture, quality of buildings and such, but not the tin huts I had envisioned. It was a reminder of how lucky we are where we live that even the poorest countries in Europe are still much richer than many other places in the world, the UK even more so.

The FP team split up into two groups, one half heading to Lezhe and the other, the one I was on, to Tirana. We stayed with the leader of the church we were serving at, a man named Sheban, and his family. The work that we did out there, again, was not what we had expected. I think our original plan was to do a very English approach to evangelism; spending 8 hours out on the streets and being exhausted at the end of the day.  Sheban, however, had a much more Albania approach which thankfully involved sleeping in the afternoon. We spent a lot of our time visiting the churches around Tirana that Sheban helps to lead. We found ourselves spending most of the time with the children from the churches and surrounding area. We sang songs to them, played games and chatted a lot. This wasn’t what we had planned but I really felt we were following God’s plan instead through Sheban’s leadership.

The highlight of the week was on the Sunday night when Ian Portwine (from Emmanuel Church in Durham) was speaking at Sheban’s church about healing. I had received words from God before going about seeing miracles and healings so it was something that was particularly on my heart for that week. Until then I hadn’t seen anything and was a little disappointed. However, when it got to this night God moved in a big way raising my own faith and the faith of everyone else there to new heights. All in all we saw at least 17 people healed of different things such as stomach problems, migraines and partial blindness, and a woman who was healed came to Christ that night after been healed. If I had any doubts about the worth of the week then that eliminated it all as every hour was worth it if just one person is saved.

At the end of the week I really felt like I received a lot more than I gave. I think I had a bit of a pompous view before leaving. I thought that we had so much to offer the Albanian’s, that somehow we were more qualified at doing evangelism in their own country. Thankfully God humbled me and let me see that in many ways they know what they’re doing a lot better than we do. It was great to be in community with them and find that language, culture and distance didn’t stop us from been one in Christ. I’d recommend any Christian to go on some form of international mission at some point in their life. I don’t particularly feel called to serve in other nations but I still received so much seeing the church in another nation and I hope it will help me to better serve those people in our own church who come from other places.

"Serving local churches to transform nations."

Author: Duncan

Sounds a bit crazy doesn’t it.. but we’re really doing just that! 2 years on since we waved goodbye to some good friends from City Church, our team in New Zealand - Grace Church Auckland are up and running and doing just that: gathering people from New Zealand, South Africa, China and Tonga to meet together and meet Jesus.

One such person is Alan. Alan is in his mid 20’s and arrived in NZ from mainland China about 6 years ago. In the space of 2 short weeks his life has been turned around. Alan was in the middle of a crisis when a church member approached him in the local mall and asked if he could tell him about Jesus. God’s timing was impeccable and came at the moment Alan was silently crying out for help. The church has gathered round him, led him to a personal relationship with God, and he has made some major life changes as a result. ‘Its amazing’ Alan told me, ‘every time I come here God speaks about my situation’. Alan is only 3 weeks in to his new life, but everything now looks very different.

Alan’s life has been changed because of the church’s determination to reach out to people outside the church, a determination which is beginning to affect the community – people like Alan, and others like Grace and Rose and their mum and Dad. Grace’s family became friendly with a number of people from the church through school friends such as the Finchs, Birchs and Rays. When Grace was hospitalised after a fall from a moving farm vehicle it was the Church that gathered round the family, babysat, cooked and prayed. Her prognosis was at first absolutely terrible but things changed suddenly on the night the church gathered to pray and that Sanna Finch visited her in Intensive Care. Amazingly, just a few weeks on Grace is back at school and the parents are gobsmacked, both at the love of the church and the possibility that God answers prayer.

All of these are great early signs that God is at work and is with Grace Church: encouraging signs as the church looks towards starting programmes like Alpha and the Marriage Course to serve the local community and help people explore the gospel. At the same time other doors are starting to open; a chance meeting Shannon and I had at the local university leading to an invitation to come on campus and present the gospel at spirituality week, whilst Ian is beginning to connect to and support another couple, keen to partner and receive help in planting another church in a different part of the city.

Mid week the church now gathers in 3 small groups across the city. In addition to training preachers, working with the core team and lots of time with individuals, we ran workshops on evangelism and prayer with these groups. Again and again I was struck by a couple of things: firstly the sense of community, but secondly, the quality of people and the investment they have been prepared to make. These are great qualities and good things to emulate!

Two weeks on, lacking sleep and needing to dial down the caffeine intake we’ve returned to Newcastle confident of a couple of key things.
Firstly, God is at work in Auckland: he’s building something really good there: the people we sent are growing, are a fantastic example, and their work is paying off.
Secondly, it underscored the value of what we are doing here in Tyneside. People who’ve come to Christ here, are building wonderful families and are going on mission, and as we love one another, serve God and reach out, we can have an impact both locally on Tyneside, and ultimately can be part of impacting the nations and serving other churches to do the same.
What a privilege! It is, to quote the Kiwi’s, “Sweet as”.

Author: Heather Galloway

The healing prayer team is one of the hardest and the most rewarding things I have been involved with in City Church. Every Sunday afternoon before the meeting I feel dejected and find it very difficult to drag myself to the CastleGate. I wrestle with temptation to stay at home; other commitments and priorities pull me. However I go in obedience, with a little faith, and then God meets with us, the Holy Spirit moves powerfully and afterwards I come home light-hearted, and often singing, because we have been in the presence of God, and seen him working.

When Jesus started his ministry he announced it with a reading from Isaiah 61.

‘The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance for our God.’ (Luke 4:16-27)

Jesus was back in his hometown, after a gruelling forty days of desert warfare. This reading was a manifesto for the next stage in his life, and initially he is rejected at home, but undaunted, he moves into dynamic healing ministry.

A man with an evil spirit gets released, Simon’s mother in law is healed from her fever, a man with leprosy is cured, the paralytic walks, sicknesses of many kinds are healed in many different ways, and even the dead come back to life. These healings are coupled with teaching about the Kingdom of God. There is a demonstration and a declaration. Sounds familiar!

Then Jesus sends his disciples to do what they have seen him doing.

‘He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.’ (Luke 9:1-3)

However, hard on the heels of their initial success, comes set back. A boy with seizures doesn’t respond to the disciples’ prayers. Jesus sorts it out. But he is not put off by their apparent failure, instead he now sends out seventy-two instead of twelve!

I’m so glad Jesus doesn’t need us to be ‘experts’ or get it right all the time. Instead he seems to delight in the disciples ‘having a go’, and encourages them on to do more.

The healing prayer team was formed about a year ago, initially with twelve team members, and we have been praying for people on Sunday evenings since then. We aim to give people time and space to connect to Jesus, so ask people to commit themselves to come for four sessions on four consecutive Sunday evenings. The team have been equipped with teaching and training, but the most important thing we have been doing is ‘having a go.’

God is amazing and we have seen him work powerfully in peoples’ lives. Some have been completely healed already, but everyone has said they have experienced God working in them. Now, we want to be able to pray for more people and so we want to increase our numbers. We started with twelve. We would like to offer more people the opportunity of receiving healing prayer. Can we find seventy-two?

Well, actually I have faith for a team of twenty as the next step. This would mean that we can offer three healing prayer opportunities every term, and each team member would pray for four weeks then take eight weeks off, so that no one gets exhausted.

We are running a training day on Saturday the 9th May 9.30am to 3.30pm for anyone interested in learning more about healing prayer, especially anyone who thinks they may be one of the seventy two. So sign up at the information desk on Sunday morning and come along.

Author: Léon Le Dune

There was something slightly unreal about leaving England in a temperature of -2 last February and arriving later on the same day in a country where the thermometer registered 35 degrees. This was my introduction to Burkina Faso. I had been invited by our son Philip to accompany him and his wife who were going on a follow up mission trip to the city of Bobo- Dioulasso in the south west of the country. I would have the opportunity to use my French to aid communication and also to preach.

Burkina Faso is roughly the size of England with a population of 12.7 million and is one of the poorest nations in the world. Life expectancy stands at 47years, and 300,000 children die annually before the age of 5 years. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where infant mortality is actually rising. However there are some positive developments. Considerable sums of EU money have been given to help in the development of the country’s infrastructure, but most of this has only benefited the large urban centres and major roads. Sadly, a proportion of the donated money has not been accounted for. However some ambitious healthcare programmes have been started and this gives real cause for hope.

I was most impressed and deeply moved by the response of the local church to the huge needs of the people and communities around them. An excellent relationship of mutual love and trust has been established between Philip and the local leadership of the AOG churches in Bobo. This has led him to establish a Charity which has clear aid objectives and which can therefore target particular projects established by the local church for the benefit of entire communities. This has come about because of the vision of Moise Oubda who is the regional superintendent of Missions for South West Burkina Faso for the Assemblies of God. In personal conversation with him I was struck by his grasp of the totality of the gospel. He was insistent that the first step in bringing the Good News to any community consisted of finding out what they felt were their greatest needs. These are always linked to the need for medical care which outside the urban areas is non-existent and the desire for education and therefore the need to build schools. His approach to practical help is gradual, for example, the establishing of dispensaries and mini-clinics as funds become available. At each stage he fully involves the leaders of village communities. Clean water is fundamental to health, so the digging of wells is a priority.

In a region just to the west of Boba there was real resistance to the Christian message and part of the cause had been an aggressive evangelistic thrust which had failed to make any real impact. Subsequently when the people of the area saw the practical expression of genuine care and concern for their needs they wanted to know why this was being offered and the door was wide open to the gospel. I personally heard Pastor Moise rightly insisting to the pastors under his care that practical care and compassionate involvement is not inferior to the message of salvation, vital as that is, but is an integral and indispensable part of the message. It is a demonstration of the love of Jesus. The local church is very involved in church planting and it has established 33 active church plants. These vary in size from 40 to several hundred members. Churches have also been planted into neighbouring Mali and into Senegal. I was very impressed by the quality of leadership in the Lafiabougou church in which I had the privilege of preaching on the first Sunday of our 10 day visit. Fifteen people, young men and women, were baptised that day and I had the joy of taking part in the baptisms, at the invitation of Pastor Moise. There was a great sense of being the family of God together and the Eldership and Pastorate of this sending church were clearly men of great integrity who love working together for the Kingdom of God.

So much more could be said about the grace that is on these brothers and sisters, but I will mention one other outstanding example of service to the local community. This concerns a vision born in the heart of Elisabeth the wife of Pastor Moise. Some years ago she started the Dorcas Project. The plight of many women with families often of seven or more children is often desperate. They cannot afford to feed their children and may resort to prostitution simply to survive. The Dorcas Centre is open to these women, regardless of religion, but is openly Christian in its ethos. The aims are to teach women practical skills such as how to make clothes and this enables them to set up a small business and provide for their family. They are taught to read and write and are introduced to basic arithmetic. They are provided with short term interest free loans to help them set up in business and purchase essential raw materials. In the process they see an example of Christian love and care in action, in response to great human need. At the present time the project is providing education for about 100 women in three separate year levels.

In conclusion I feel a debt of love to those in City Church who have prayed for me before and during the trip. The scriptures and prophetic words given to me during the prayer meeting prior to my going were a source of strength and encouragement. If after reading this limited account you would like further information, I would be delighted to provide you with it.