New Beginnings

For many, December is a month of preparation; an opportunity to gather momentum and determine direction ready for launching out in the year ahead. This can be true at a church level, an inter-church level and a personal level. In this brief report I will touch on all three.

The church level
Whilst my itinerary varies considerably from year to year, there are one or two speaking engagements that have almost become fixtures. One such is my annual visit to Church of Destiny in North London. In the summer of 2012 this church’s meeting place was seen on television screens all round the world. The riots in the UK started right outside its doors. Now everything is calm again and the congregation’s desire to minister into the community is stronger than ever. Working alongside Dr Mark and Pastor Mary van Gundy, together with their team is indeed a privilege. They have a real grace for inspiring and encouraging others and are a great example of what God is doing in fresh ways through many churches around the UK.

Bus on fire outside Church of Destiny in summer riots
Preaching at Church of Destiny this December

My visit to Church of Destiny was followed by a Sunday with Christian Life Fellowship in Greenwich. Christian Life Fellowship International is a network of churches in the UK, Ghana and beyond. All of their ministers have been a great encouragement to me and have played a significant part in establishing Churches in Communities International. They, amongst others, have been working hard to establish my ministry (and that of CiC) in Ghana. So often today I find international links and local links going hand-in-hand. I appreciate that to some extent this is the nature of CiC but still the inter-connectivity never ceases to amaze me. I think it signals great things for us all in the years ahead.

The inter-church level
Despite my international travel I still manage to chair and co-chair a number of significant conferences and boards in the UK. One such is the UK Charismatic and Pentecostal Leaders’ Conference; an ‘invitation only’ conference that gathers every year in December. It was established decades ago as the Charismatic movement took hold in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s but is finding fresh energy now as a new generation of leaders are taking their places among the delegates. This bringing together of energy and experience is a great blessing to me and something that I want to continue to foster. As I launched out afresh into itinerant ministry four-and-a-half years ago I held a launch conference around the theme of Malachi 4:6 declaring it to be a mandate for the 21st Century. I believe that seeing the Lord turning ‘the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers’ is our great need. I am thrilled to see the UK Charismatic and Pentecostal Leaders’ Conference moving in this direction, with speakers reflecting a wider generational spread. We definitely benefit from the fresh alongside the familiar and were blessed with this sense of newness.

The personal level
From time to time these monthly reports contain photographs of Bible College graduation ceremonies that I am invited to participate in and I am sure this will continue to be the case. In my givenness to so many different projects it would be easy to overlook the Bible training arm of my own ministry, one element of which is the School of Biblical Studies that has been running as a weekly lecture programme in South East London for some fifteen plus years. It is a modular course and those who complete all the modules not only receive a certificate but gain a good grounding in Biblical principles and Scriptural awareness. From time-to-time we hold our own graduation ceremonies and here are some photographs from the December graduation. For many, completion of the course marks an opportunity to launch out into ministry with a fresh confidence.

Stephen Akindayomi (grandson of RCCG founder) graduates from SBS		Trevor Howard (lecturer) congratulates Dr Emmanuel (SBS graduate) and his wife
SBS lecturers and latest graduates

So… looking ahead to 2012
It is too early for me to give details of what 2012 has in store in terms of my itinerary. One item of significance, though, for partners in the UK, is that we will be beginning to take our quarterly teaching conferences to venues outside greater London. Here are the details for our March Teaching Conference which will be held in Medway, Kent. Please make a note in your diaries and begin to make your travel and accommodation arrangements. It is not too difficult to reach Medway by rail or road if you are in the UK and we look forward to having you and your friends with us. If you are outside the UK, please pray for us as we seek to include a visit to your nation in the months ahead.

Do stay in touch and thank you for your support.