I hope you all had a great, restful Christmas and New Year – I certainly did! It was great to spend time with both our families and relax, as well as playing with the children and eating far too much!

Having been ill just before Christmas (kindly passed on by my lovely little niblings!) and so being off work the last 2 days of 2011, I came back to a mountain of emails and a Christmassy desk! It’s straight back into lots of busyness. 2012 sees 10 Just A ‘Child’? Events, the first of which is this Saturday at Welcome Baptist in Heathfield, so we are getting ready for that. January itself is quite a busy month:

• 7th Just a ‘child’? Event in Heathfield
• 10th Baptist Assembly Planning Meeting
• 11th SOLID Remix Management Meeting
• 12th Viz-A-Viz Ministries UK Team Strategy Meeting
• 15th Ed and I are taking both morning services at Elim Braintree
• 18th Children’s and Family Ministries Conference Planning Meeting
• 21st Worship Rally at Trinity Baptist Church
• 22nd Taking both morning services at Trinity Baptist Church
• 28th Training day at Newbury Baptist Church
• 30th Junior SOLID Management Team Meeting

This weekend saw the first inter-generational evangelism conference run by Viz-A-Viz Ministries. It was held at the Bridge Methodist Church in Radcliffe, Manchester – a church we have very good links with through Liv’It Camp. The conference consisted of a Friday night session and then on Saturday streams looking at evangelism amongst Children, Youth and Adults.

Ed and I led the Reaching Children stream – adapting material from the first Just a ‘child’? equipping day.
Joy and Andy led the Reaching Young People stream.
Special guest Rich Powney (now officially an associate speaker for Viz-A-Viz) led one of the Reaching Adults stream – unpacking the Engaging Through Story resource.
Jon Stannard led the second Reaching Adults stream – creative ideas for street evangelism, including practical!

The whole weekend went really well, with around 50 people attending and some great feedback. One lady who attended commented in an email afterwards:

‘I got so much from it, it really got my fire burning so much brighter again!’

There were some great stories from those involved in street evangelism – most notably the fact that it was easier than they thought it would be, and people were more receptive to talking than they thought they would be! I think for many people it was an opportunity to be inspired and reminded of the call to share their faith with those around them.

The Bridge Church were fantastic hosts – the food was great! Ed, Jon and I travelled back to Essex on the Saturday night while Taste, Andy Keel and Rich stayed for services on the Sunday and then Liv’It Reunion in the evening. I was disappointed not to have been able to stay but the van coming home was full!

On a personal note it was great to stay with the lovely Mike and Judith Hainsworth (who have such a gorgeous house!) – friends from Liv’It Camp. Their hospitality for my flying visit was much appreciated! It was also a chance to catch up with the wonderful Paul and Hannah Schofield (Metro Christian Centre) – always fun and good to chat.

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After a couple of days off I’ve been back in the office this week working on all sorts of things! The Just a ‘child’? event that should have been taking place in Sussex tomorrow has been postponed due to viability and will now be on the 7th January at Welcome Baptist Church, Heathfields. Taste have taken Andy with them to Germany for a few days so I’m heading to Braintree for the weekend on babysitting duty for my littlest niblings!

Here’s one of those blog posts that does what it says on the tin!

The next few events for Arise Ministries are:

• 31st October: Bright and Light Party at Kingswood Baptist
• 4th-5th November: ‘Unlock The Power of the Church’ Evangelism Conference in Radcliffe, Manchester with Viz-A-Viz Ministries
• 12th November: Just a ‘child’? Equipping Event in East Sussex
• 22nd November: Ed and I are off to a ‘Getting Your Kids Through Church Without Them Ending Up Hating God’ conference run by Care For The Family.

Between those, here’s an idea of *some* of the things I’m working on:

• Developing a strategy for Just a ‘child’? Equipping Events in 2012 and beyond
• Keeping contact databases up to date and emailing out news and event promotion
• Following up people who have been to our Equipping Events or bought our resources to see how we can help them in their children’s ministry
• Making visual aids for equipping events
• Working on our social networking strategy
• Creating the monthly prayer diary
• Calculating costings to put together crib sheets for resources, events and publicity

I’ve booked the second half of this week off so I can spend some time with Maddie and Emi and Billy in half term! So a busy couple of days for me!

This past week my brother Russell had his induction service as Assistant Pastor at Yeovil Elim. I travelled down on the train and met Mum and Dad who had gone down a couple of days earlier. Spending a whirlwind 18 hours with my family was lovely, and I especially enjoyed being able to take Sam my 9 year old nephew to school. The induction service itself was great – a real sense of love and excitement from the church as they welcomed Russell, Becci, Chloe and Sam in (although they’ve already become very settled and active members of the church). I felt really proud of my brother and I know that they will be really happy at Yeovil Elim and God will use them all for amazing things. You can see one of Russell’s recent sermons here.

I have recently lead a couple of services back at my home church Elim Braintree. The 11.30 Young at Heart Service is an all age service incorporating songs, activities and stories designed to help children and adults engage together. It’s been a real privilege to be part of the life of my home church, giving something back after all the teaching and encouragement I’ve received over the years! With a wealth of Arise Ministries resources and ideas behind me I’ve been able to do things a little bit differently and have some fun while learning with the children and grown ups! Yesterday we were  thinking about Harvest and helping those in need and us young ones made this beautiful banner!

This week preparations are underway for our first Just A ‘Child’? Equipping Event of the new term – on Saturday 1st October at Fullbridge Church, Maldon. Really looking forward to sharing with people enthusiastic about children’s ministry and hopefully injecting some enthusiasm and vision for their ministry with children in the local area.

With the arrival of Viz-A-Viz Ministries’ new National Director comes lots of exciting plans, ideas, visions and things that will be happening over the coming months. To keep up to date with all that Viz-A-Viz Ministries is doing and planning, please sign up in whichever way suits you:

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Thanks!

>> In other news, Andy is preparing to move into his new place sometime this week so we’ve been busy painting his room and buying curtains! Please pray for a stress-free and easy move and that he will settle in quickly.

Well having had a week off I’m supposedly all refreshed and ready for the chaos and fun which is the summer!

On Saturday we were at the ordination and induction of Beth Powney at Sandy Baptist Church. It was great to be involved by providing technical support but also to be there on such a special occasion. I stayed with Beth for 3 weeks right at the beginning of my time with Viz-A-Viz Ministries and with her being Rich Powney’s Mum and Ed’s Mother-In-Law and previous Viz-A-Viz staff member our paths keep colliding which is great!

Back at my desk this week with the noticeable absence of Simon Petherick (Viz-A-Viz designer for many years has now gone freelance) and Rich Powney (unless God intervenes is off to London School Of Theology in September to study straight theology) – although Rich will be helping at some of the festivals this summer so will be seeing him then. It’s very quiet!!

Today I have been catching up on emails and preparing for a meeting tonight about Junior Solid. Tomorrow I have some admin bits and pieces to catch up on and then the afternoon/evening is Andy’s Early 21st Birthday Surprise (I’m very excited!!). Wednesday I’m doing some preparation for a Church Weekend Away with Dan and Jen Wicks, Thursday off to Basingstoke to view and exhibition with Ed and possibly Alan Cass and Den Pethers. Friday last minute preparations for the equipping session Arise are running at Earl’s Hall Baptist Church, Westcliff on Saturday. All very busy and spending lots of time trying to manage my time and be as time effective as possible…is that good use of my time?! Whilst keeping Germany, Liv’It and Leading Edge on the radar as they creep up very quickly with very little preparation time between events!! I’d appreciate your prayers, especially for my health – yesterday I slept most of the day and today have been having dizzy spells. Then if it’s not that I suffer with stomach aches – not fun and definitely not helpful!!

So the events that are upcoming are:

June
11th: ‘Just A Child’ Training at Earl’s Hall Baptist, Westcliff
17th-19th: Church Weekend Away with Dan and Jen Wicks
21st: Andy’s 21st birthday!!
29th-4th: Joining the ‘Check It Out Team’ in Herne, Germany

July
8th-10th: SOLID Festival + Junior SOLID (10th), Upminster
22nd-28th: Liv’It Youth Camp, Northallerton

August
1st-8th: Children’s Venue at Leading Edge, Warwick
22nd-4th: Holiday!

I will try and keep updates coming – please forgive me if I slack slightly!