Healing Meeting - Sunday May 23rd

It's now only 6 weeks till we have our healing meeting on Sunday 23rd May.  We have got a guy called Chris Kilby coming to us from Southampton.  He leads the Newfrontiers Church there called Life Church.  I always find Chris to be an inspiring guy to be around - he always has a story of kebab shops where he has just shared the gospel or people he has seen healed recently.  He has a great gift of connecting and communicating with people and explaining Jesus to them in stories.  He also has a growing healing ministry.  I am hoping that RFCers will get to meet Chris before the event as we have invited him to come and meet midweek with us in a couple of weeks time.

This is definitely a date to put in the diary.  For ourselves we need to be full of faith and expect that God will do amazing things through Chris' ministry.  We also need to be inviting as many people to come as possible - I know that they will find themselves in the presence of God on the morning.  We shall also be flyering the area around the school again as lifegroups. 

RFCers on the street

Over the past few weeks three RFCers, Lozi, Sam and Edd, have been going out with people from two other churches and have been using the 'Treasure Hunt' framework of evangelism which entails asking God for clues and words which are then written down under headings such as Name, Appearance, Location, Unusual and Ailment/What they need prayer for.


This Sunday Lozi and Edd came and shared some stories with me.  This is a fairly long post but stick with it because the stories are worth it and should help build our faith:


The 8 of us got clues such as 'black railings', 'statue', 'questions', 'Christine', 'museum', 'clock', 'brick floor', 'left ankle', 'black longs and a top with blue & white', the colour 'green' and 'garden'. Based on these and other clues we got, we decided to head for the area around the museum and Forbury Gardens.

 - On the high street we spotted a lady collecting for a charity and saw she had 'black longs with a blue & white top', so we went up to her. We asked if she wanted to prayer for anything and she said to pray for her charity. We asked how her ankle was, and she said that her right ankle was in pain. We asked if we could pray for her and she said yes. We asked if we could pray for her right there and then and she said yes! So, asking if we could lay hands on her foot (she said yes), we knelt down in the street and prayed for her foot. After prayer she said it felt "comfortable". We told her that God loves her and we left her to her charity-collecting.

-Soon afterwards Matthew, Kathy from Vineyard and myself went to Forbury Gardens to see if we could find anyone else. Entering the Gardens we saw the big lion statue, the green grass, the brick floor...location-wise we hitting alot of our clues basically! Kathy felt that the Holy Spirit wanted us to go and talk to a woman who was sat on a bench wrapping presents. So we did. She was a lovely, friendly woman from New Zealand who we soon got into conversation with and was so friendly. (It turns out her mum is called Christine.) We felt the presence of God around her and really saw that God loves her heart for the "down and outs". She had a lot of questions about the bible and stuff, and we got the opportunity to read Psalm 139 to her, shared the testimonies of how we came to know Jesus and how he changed us, told her a bit about his grace and how much he loves her and how she's fearfully and wonderfully made. She let us pray for her as well, and she said that she felt heat. We shared how people react in different ways to God; some cry, some fall over, some don't feel anything but see the later effects, some feel heat and tingles. Her eyes kind of widened when we said about the tingles. She got those too. She also said that she was looking for a fun church, so we gave her a flyer of the 3 churches we were from with our contact details on and invited her along to Reading Family Church. It was so clear that were meant to meet her and it was such a priviledge as well.

-On the way back to the church offices Kathy and I stopped to speak to a homeless guy called Paul to see how was doing and if he needed anything. We didn't have any information on us about shelters or places to eat so we asked God to provide, and within 30 seconds after praying, 2 ladies came up beside us with a piece of paper on with contacts for shelters and places to eat & practical advice. God is good.


These guys are doing a great job of attempting to live out the Gospel and see people introduced to Jesus.  I am planning to go out with them sometime to experience the thrill of hearing from God and then seeing it through.  maybe you too would like to join them.  If so then just comment and I will give you more details.


God is good and He is working in our town through His church.

A trip to Ascot

This weekend B, Rachel and I are off down to Ascot for church on Sunday. I shall be preaching and laying hands on the sick trusting that God will do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine by the power of His Spirit at work within me, in order to bring Him glory. It's as you go out on these adventures that you grow in your faith because you know that it's all about Jesus and nothing about you.

I know that Ascot Baptist are a great church who are working hard to share the gospel in it's purest form by being as relevant to the town that they live in. Phil Rogers who leads the church is a man who has trusted God for many years and is now seeing some breakthroughs in terms of salvation and healing. I love his faith and I love his zeal and I know that I have much to learn from men who have walked the walk for a lot longer than myself.

Sunday I trust will be an immense day once more, as God shows up and does what only He can - heal and save - and I know that we will once more look in in awe and wonder knowing that we do worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Please pray for me as over the next day or two that I will speak clearly and that I will hear from God with regards to words of knowledge.

I hope to bring news of what God has done when I return from holiday in a weeks time.

Salvation and healing!!!

Necks, depression, knees, legs growing and back pain - all of these are healing stories that came out on Sunday evening at our prayer meeting to thank Gods for all he did on Sunday. They are an accumulation of stories from the past couple of weeks as well as an older one. What this shows is that God is at work amongst us.

Granted not everyone who is prayed for is healed but we are seeing people regularly healed of various ailments. The more we pray, the more God does through his people by the power of his Spirit. You would think that this would be enough to rejoice about. However the real rejoicing came when we rang the bell three times. There were at least three responses to the good news of Jesus on Sunday morning with three more still to be identified. Each time we rang the bell we put up a cheer to God not a short cheer, but a long sustained one, joining with the celebration of heaven over each of these three sinners saved.

Sunday night will sit in my memory for a long time. To hear testimony after testimony and to ring the bell three times felt like a glimpse of what God wants us to be as a church. A place where people can come to receive physical, emotional and spiritual healing.

Terry Hotchkiss spoke brilliantly on this on Sunday morning and would recommend you listen to it. If you were there on Sunday morning, then listen to it again and let the truth that he speaks change you and build your faith. (Link here)

Jesus: Saviour, Healer and Deliverer

Preaching the gospel, laying hands on the sick and casting out demons - this is the work of the Christian. When Jesus sent the 12 he sent them to do these things in the villages that they came to. When he sent out the 72 he got them to do the same. He now also sends us, how do we know - because of the great commission found in Matthew 28. We also read this in John 14:12-14:

"I tell you the truth, anyone who who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. They will see even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."

When he says these things he is saying, I preached the good news, laid hands on the sick and I cast out demons - go and do these things - yes do this with love and compassion, without compromising or watering anything down, but go and do what I have been doing. Why? So he can continue doing what he has been doing, but all over the place by the power of his Holy Spirit as we step out in faith.

This weekend, I had the privilege of speaking at Sutton Family Church. On the morning there were 5 responses to the good news - 3 recommitments and two unsure whether it was the first time or not. Whatever the details were, 5 people stood and aligned themselves with Jesus asking them to be Lord of their lives and to relinquish the hold they have on their own lives.

On that same morning several people were prayed for for healing. One lady's neck was healed even before hands were laid on or a prayer was answered. Another lady sent this testimony to the leader of the church in Sutton on Monday morning:

"I felt very strongly that I was going to be healed on Sunday morning. In fact I quickly realised that I could stand with very little pain during the worship. I was leading the Whiz kids class so I’d asked Colin and Mary to come and collect me when the time came. I went to the front and Mary, Pete and Scott all prayed for me. At the time I cannot say that I felt totally pain free but immediately I walked away I realised that for the first time in months I wasn’t limping or dragging my foot.

During the rest of the day I was fine – I was climbing stairs without relying heavily on the banister rail and even ran up the top flight of four. By bedtime I made a deliberate decision not to take my nightly dose of painkillers. I did not wake up in pain during the night and when I got up this morning I was pain free and mobile! I still am! I have told three people at work so far.

Praise God - I am so elated I can’t stop smiling! "

There were other stories of an older lady who could march on the spot where before Arthritis had subdued her movement. Another lady was overwhelmed by the Spirit and we are awaiting news as to whether her thyroid problem has been rectified.

I tell these stories because Jesus is still doing his work through his people by the power of his Holy Spirit. At his name, people are saved, they are healed and at his name demons do flee. We truly have an amazing God and as we build up now for Alpha starting next week and our healing meeting on May 17th, let's be praying that our God will do extraordinary things here in Reading.