Wessex News

Wouldn't you know it. It's been sunny all day whilst I've been working in the church office. I'm getting ready to leave, and suddenly there's a clap of thunder, everything gets dark and the rain starts to pour. Needless to say, I didn't bring a jumper/coat/umbrella or anything like that.

On the plus side, I'm about to meet a Bournemouth friend. I like how close Southampton is to Bournemouth, Winchester and other such places. The area I call Wessex definitely feels like home. So, how about some Wessex-related news for this pleasant Tuesday?

Newfrontiers Wessex Regional Celebration
Perhaps you didn't know, but Newfrontiers in the UK is organised in regions. In the same way that there is Newfrontiers UK, Newfrontiers France, Germany etc. the UK is didvided up into regions and teams of men serve the local churches. The Wessex Region spans from Weymouth and Dorchester in the west to Portsmouth in the east. It includes the church I grew up in, the church I served during my year out, and the church I'm currently a part of in Winchester, Bournemouth and Southampton respectively.

Last Sunday, Winchester Family Church hosted an event to which the Wessex Newfrontiers churches were invited, along with their friends in the 'Mission Winchester' group. It was a kind of celebration of their newly-refurbished Middle Brook Centre, and Terry Virgo spoke. Having spent the morning with Winchester, he spent the evening talking about the church broadly.

In terms of the substance of what was said, it made the same points as the sermon Terry recently preached at ChristChurch London. However, to say it was a repeat really doesn't do it justice. In John Groves' introduction of Terry, he said "I am confident that if you listen to Terry, God will speak to you this evening." He certainly did that! The evening served to show me how important it is that the Holy Spirit is present in preaching. Yes, I had technically heard the points made via a podcast, but that was a totally different experience to what God did in that moment on Sunday evening. Many were strongly impacted across the whole range of churches in Winchester, and from around the wider region of Newfrontiers churches.

Wessex Website
On Sunday, the new Wessex website was unveiled. This will be a great tool through which churches within the Newfrontiers family in this area will be able to communicate and share ideas. If you're in a Wessex church, I strongly suggest you sign up!

Life Church On Songs Of Praise
That's right! Chris Kilby and his family were profiled on Songs of Praise on BBC1 on Sunday afternoon in a special Father's Day edition. Haven't seen it yet (I was at the Wessex event!) but I hear it was great!

I notice that having blogged every day for a month, I'm now suffering the usual setbacks of returning south (= little/no blogging). Hopefully I will soon find a regular space in which to blog. It's a little difficult when you have to wait in line for the family computer (although wireless is being installed soon... means I have to fix my laptop to recognise wireless... any ideas please let me know!). I won't give up on blogging, it's just far more difficult when you can't use your own computer!