Lastword Publications

Newspaper review: Courage To Dream

phil — Wed, 01 May 2013 18:23:28 +0000

“Thetford woman’s inspirational story published”
by the Eastern Daily Press

An inspirational woman, who fought against decades of poverty, racism and violence to forge a successful teaching career, has released her life story.

Coralita Martin, 77, who lives in Thetford, was in The Book Fountain in Wymondham on Saturday signing copies of her new book, called Courage to Dream – The Impossible Becomes Reality, which went on sale last week.

The autobiography details her rise from the slums of Antigua to becoming a successful teacher in London and Norfolk. She was the first black teacher in Thetford and Watton – working at Queensway Middle School and Watton Primary School in the 1970s.

But her career progression did not come easy as she struggled against terrifying domestic abuse and periods of homelessness while trying to raise a young family.

Despite the frank account of her troubles, Coralita said she was not nervous about sharing her past with the public and was “elated” to see the book published. “I was so hurt inside and just wanted to express it,” she said. “I feel like it’s going to help other people. It will help the battered wives, the battered children, the homeless and for those who are down-hearted it will cheer them up.”

The book was co-written by former reporter Sandie Shirley, from Tacolneston, near Long Stratton. She said: “I think it’s been a healing process for Coralita to talk about her experiences and I felt it should be written. It’s a beacon of hope and no matter how tough life gets people can dip into that book and find hope and the courage to dream because everyone should have a dream.”

Coralita will also be signing copies of her book at the Church on the Way, in Thetford, on Friday from 6pm to 8pm, and at J C Books, in Watton, on Saturday from 11am to midday.

Adventures in Antioch

phil — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:56:28 +0000

ANDY MOYLE’S
Adventures

of a Church

Planter

A few years ago Josef Krinstensen from Denmark went on a church planting adventure to Antioch. I caught up with him today for an email interview…

Andy Moyle: Tell us about yourself?

Josef: I am 49 years old, married to Elin for 29 years, 4 children, 5 grandchildren. By nature a little adventurous, an enjoyer of life who loves people, and appreciates God’s grace and would like to loose a little weight!

How did you become a Christian?

Josef: I grew up in the Lutheran church in Denmark, and had a sence of lostness when I was 13, was saved then, but had my first encounter with the Holy Spirit, when I was 19 years old.

How did you get involved in Christian ministry?

Josef: I fell in love with a girl from the Pentecostal movement, married her, and was invited to help a pastor for 5 years, where I did children’s work, worship leading and a little preaching.

Tell us about Antioch.

Josef: Antioch is a great place, approx. 180.000 people, Muslim community, people are very warm, friendly and open for a talk about God. Antioch is only 40 km from the Syrian border, and there is a lot of Arab speaking people in the city. It’s far from a tourist place like Antalya, Alanya and similar well known places.

Antioch was the first place the believers of Jesus got the name “Christians”. It’s about 20 years since my wife and I first visited Turkey, and felt love for the people.

What have you learned about church planting over the years?

Josef: First of all I think it’s very important to enjoy being with people, to be a gatherer, focus constantly on the person Jesus, lay a foundation of grace, good enviroment important, family atmosphere and make sure the core-people enjoy each other and agree on the vision.

What key skills do you have for gathering the first 50?

Josef: A clear vision and a burning heart to see it happen. The first time I presented a draft vision for the people who seem to be key people. Together we were talking, praying and trying to come up with something simple, clear end easy to understand. To give an example, in this church plant we agreed on the following: “Lord, help us establish a foundation for a glorious grace-filled church – a dwelling-place for the presence of The Holy Spirit”

What are you reading at the moment?

Josef: Henri Nouven: “The homecoming of the prodical son”

Anything else you would like to say?

Josef: Yes, I am very greatful to be allowed to be involved in church planting after leading a local church for almost 20 year. Now when our kids are out of the nest, we feel very much it’s a good time to do what we always have had a dream of doing – plant churches.

Start a business – plant a church!

phil — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:44:34 +0000

A new strategy is coming into view over the horizon. I believe it will be bigger and more significant in its ongoing impact into the next 10-20 years than even those of us who are presently aware of its emergence can imagine. It revolves around the whole issue of business creation and mission, especially church planting.

In the last 10-15 years we have seen steady and methodical church planting amongst the churches we work with. Most of this has been at the same pace for this whole time. Praise God for each new plant that grows healthily and vitally but it is a restrictive pattern. We are at present seeing a multiplication of church planting opportunities especially across Europe. The number of these simply cannot be financed by traditional ways of offerings and ongoing support from local churches or apostolic funds; a new way has to be found.

Linking with Businesses
I believe this new way has much to do with the harnessing of business and church planting. Goff Hope, together with his team at Kings Church in Norwich, recently did a main session at one of our leaders equipping days. His session was strongly provoking of new ideas to explore in this harnessing.

King’s themselves have developed a successful business to help support mission from the use of their own building for conferencing etc. He touched on a number of models for how business creation can help resource church planting and other mission. These broadly included business as mission, business resourcing mission and business enabling mission. Without going into the fine detail of each of these models, I want to raise a flag on this whole issue to encourage you business entrepreneurs to consider whether your God given ability to create wealth could have a wider application than you perhaps thought to bring glory to Jesus.

Many believers gifted in business areas can sometimes feel outside the loop of ‘mission’. They may feel second class as they are ‘just running a business’. This is a concept which in itself denies the holistic nature of the kingdom of God. For everything should be viewed as a vehicle for Jesus glory to be displayed. If you are a gifted business person it is because God has enabled and called you. You are not less in ministry than a church leader!

To church planters …
I also want to encourage church planters to begin dialogue with business folk not just seeing them as asset managers but as friends who might get a heart for the same project and plant and feel relationally connected to what is going on. Many do not want to hold the strings of control in an unhelpful way, they just desire to be a blessing to those who are delivering the church plant and can be a blessing through finances.

For others you might find starting a business with help from a seasoned business person will help you relocate to plant churches and get you financed and connected to the community through this.

I feel there is much to explore and consider in this. Perhaps I need to write more about it as there are of course some pitfalls to avoid and things others have learnt the hard way by trying this. But I am convinced there is a vibrant way through.

How to grow in God

phil — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 17:08:06 +0000

Over the years I have known many Christians and seen some grow in God and others seemingly get stuck at certain points in their growth in God. Sadly also I have seen some doing really well for many years and then seem to lose their way.

I have been thinking over the last few days, probably because issues of succession and the next generation are never far from my thoughts. We are only here for a short while. There seems so much to do, so little time to do it. I have been thinking about how people grow in God? What creates a personal internal environment so people develop?

I think people need basically two things: A bit of time with someone who can father them in God. Not always someone old enough to be their father. But someone who is a bit further on than them but who they respect and feel faith and stimulation to hang around with. Just meeting together to pray and chat once a month is a great start it’s not rocket science.

Then they just need to be given some responsibility. I grow more convinced that it does not matter in the early years of our Christian lives what we do by way of serving. What matters is that we are faithful with a little and can be relied upon to do what we have said they will do. This is the stuff of growth. This leads on to be faithful with more.

If someone wants to lead a big church or have some mega ministry (not always a wrong ambition) then they need to start by being faithful with going on the chair rota month by month. There is no short cut. Absolutely none! I even look for people who will volunteer to go on the rota rather than wait to be asked.

By the time Joseph came out of serving others and while in prison at that, he found it had all been training for the day when he would feed a nation and have great authority. Often the bigger the calling the more care and preparation God will put into a person. Think about it God has to trust us with things he asks us to do. He needs to know we are a safe pair of hands.

People also need to be teachable and willing to be changed by the Lord and by those who lead them. Training we used to say in my FYP oversight days was a matter of developing knowledge, character and skills. This I still believe to be true, but in all of this teachability underpins it all. When the chips are down it is often a case of can an individual submit to doing something the way another over them in the Lord wants it done, simply because that person is over them in that area of service.

None of us can have authority until we have learned to be under it. These are massive tests: faithfulness, responsibility, being teachable. No wonder we have few leaders of calibre. Most miss it and go for the glitz trying to bypass being a servant or get fed up being directed by others and go off and create their own ministry. Such a waste!

I love to see people grow in God. I love spending time with people hungry to grow in God. I really do, it feeds my soul. My concern in our fast food age is that many might get impatient with the process God takes them through and impatience for arrival at their destiny might make them miss out on some key things they could have seen and been a part of. I have seen too many wrecks over the years. It breaks the heart.

By Mike Betts

Close encounters of the God kind!

phil — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:17:33 +0000

D L Moody writes of an encounter he had with the Holy Spirit: ”I began to cry as never before …”

”The hunger for this increased. I felt that I did not want to live any longer if I did not have the power for service. I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with the Spirit. Well, one day in the City of New York oh, what a day, I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it, it is almost an experience too sacred to name. I can only say that God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand.”

We live in a realm where material things are all around us; it is easy to become unaware that we are in close proximity to the dynamics and activity of heaven’s realm. The realm from which Christ came and into which raised from the dead he ascended, and from which he has sent forth his Spirit until he returns.

We can see the rule of Christ break forth in our day from heaven’s realm in all sorts of ways – the breaking out of kingdom activity like lightning bolts break out of a stormy sky. But we await the Saviour to be unveiled from heaven who will not then be like a lightning strike as his kingdom rule touches various places and people – no, when he comes again he will fill all things with the resident glory and brightness of his power and the fullness of his kingdom will embrace and enfold everything blending the material and spiritual.

Our world will be made anew to function as it should and the peace and order that should pervade it and all its facets will descend again. Somehow Earth and Heaven will meet and kiss and blend into one glorious kingdom where ‘He’ reigns.

Reaching into heaven’s realm
We should not be afraid of the breakout of heaven’s realm, of close encounters with God that are not normal to our daily lifestyles. Paul recounts his tale of being caught up into heaven’s realm and seeing and hearing things he is not permitted to talk of. The reality of his experience is a provocation to me that we are so close to the reality of heaven’s realm all the while, often without perceiving it. So close in fact that Jesus said ‘the kingdom is within you’. The Holy Spirit resides in us – we are his temple. We are not seeking presence from absence, rather we are seeking the unveiling and enfolding of heaven’s realm in the realm of our lives and world. To visualise ourselves reaching into heaven’s realm by faith through prayer and drawing out resources to touch the lives of people around us with his kingdom is quite close to the reality.

A hunger for his power and the intimacy of his presence that transforms us and all we seek to do to serve him is a longing every Christian should have. We are not just people who believe a set of facts. We are people who have and do encounter a living saviour. He can warm our hearts, speak into our lives and indeed change our whole countenance and outlook with a word or a touch from heaven’s realm.

Of course stories of ‘weird’ people recounting tales of weird things abound. Scripture is there for us to weigh and test everything by. But we must never seek to domesticate God or set rules for how or when God might break out from heaven’s realm into our daily lives. Lives surrounded by supermarkets and commutes to work and paying bills and cutting the grass. Such is the realm of daily life into which the Saviour first came. God broke in through Christ, he still does.

How hungry for encounters of the God kind are you?

Mike Betts

Gathering the first 50

phil — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 14:01:02 +0000

ANDY MOYLE’S
Adventures

of a Church

Planter

Once you have moved, gathered your core team, talked to other local church leaders, you need to gather your first 50.
Fifty is a viable number for a public Sunday morning launch. It’s enough people to make things work and for it not to rattle! So where do you get they come from?

People join a plant for a number of reasons:

Pioneers: they have moved to the area because of the church plant.

Moving Area: Christians moving into town for a job move etc. Often they will join a plant because it is the most friendly and welcoming church and hungry for the extra bodies.

Lost to the Church: these are Christians who have given up on the Church for various reasons. Some will be a pain because they have unresolved issues and have left every other church in the area. They are more like wolves in sheep’s clothing. However, I have found that a lot of “lost to the church” people have been genuinely hurt and heal up in a grace filled New Testament church. Church plants also attract all the Christian nutters and people who would love to be a big fish in a small pond for all the wrong reasons – so you do need plenty of discernement, wisdom and grace. We have been genuinely blessed by many “lost to the church” folk who have healed up and got back in the battle.

Non-Christians: as you meet people, you find those “men of peace” who are open to the Gospel.

Moving Church: lastly you will gather those who have been surviving in a dead church or who aren’t enjoying where they are at and are waiting for you to come. It’s not the kind of growth we are looking for and you need to make sure people leave their old church well before you let them join you. I have sent people back to their pastor to leave well.

We have tracked how people have come to us - because I want to make sure we are growing through salvation and bringing the prodigals home.

How do we gather those first 50 then?

In those early days you have a window of opportunity being the new thing in town. For 18 months you will gather those who are lost to the Church and those moving church, but that will tail off. The key is to lay foundations for evangelistic growth at the same time as benefitting from the freebie growth.

Encourage your core team to be building friendships with non-Christians.

Brainstorm ways of getting the message out cheaply and effectively. That helps get ownership for the task from the core team.

Leaflets: I have real faith for leafletting. It’s a numbers game though – 1 visitor for every 1000 leaflets!

Town centre give-aways: printed balloons, hot cross buns… which give you a quick window of opportunity to invite people to what you are doing. Just handing out leaflets will mean you will be litter picking later. A 30 sec chat while giving away a freebie will get a leaflet in the pocket and not onto the street!

Treasure Hunts

Meet people for coffee regularly and get used to sharing the story and vision for the plant in a 30 sec, 3 min and 30 min chunks.

Get a banner put up in town: one of those wires the council use for Christmas lights – you’ll need permission from the shop, the landlords and the council and then insurance too.

Posters in every doctors surgery and anywhere else there is a notice board like supermarket, community centres etc.

Use the web: website, Google adwords, facebook and so on – but there is no substitute for getting out there and meeting people face to face.

In the air

phil — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:15:18 +0000

I’m sitting in a car on a sunny day listening to “Majesty” by a band called Delirious.
My eyes are being treated to a feast of small cotton-fluff clouds floating over the vast expanses of the Lincolnshire Wolds.

I’m imagining a multitude of people all looking up to the skies. They are the church, the bride of Christ and they are looking upwards, waiting for the Groom to appear.
An intense buzz of electric expectation is emanating from this crowd. They are filled with joy, brimming with hope, radiant with love and vibrant with energy. Song after song is bursting out and desire for him is rising up, so pleasant to breathe, so intoxicating, so beautiful.

We are a multitude clothed in white by the Groom. We span the generations but all are now young. We speak many languages but now there is only one tongue, singing intimate words that only lovers share. We are a myriad of colours, a plethora of identities and an abundance of experiences but now we are a single entity. We are his bride and he loves us dearly.

He is coming. First, a spattering of sweet raindrops upon our faces and we cry in delight. With unblinking eyes and delicious smiles as wide as our mouths will allow, we sense the arrival of his presence. No longer can songs fall from our lips for awesome wonder is upon us. He is our champion, our hero and our king. He has done that which we could not do and we adore him.

His love is so fierce, so pure and so powerful. I know instantly that it has no limitation, it has never stopped and it never will. I am utterly and completely loved and the knowledge is all-consuming. I am weeping, all are weeping, from the intensity of this love. Nothing could prevent him from coming for his bride; not the filth of our crimes nor the torment of the cross. He leapt forth from heaven and rode out to meet us.

Suddenly I understand why we shall meet him in the air and not on the ground! The air is where the desire of the church rises up from earth to meet with the descent of love from heaven.

We are besotted with you Jesus and you only have eyes for us. There is only one bride, no other to share your love. You have named and bought us with blood. Our white garments are robes of honour and dignity. We are perfectly loved and love you dearly. You make us feel a thousand feet high but you are higher still.

Video: The Ordinary Hero

phil — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 21:28:08 +0000

VIDEO: The Ordinary Hero
Tim Chester

The Ordinary Hero. Where the church is growing strongly, one of the common features is persecution. In the west we tend to have an incremental approach to discipleship but think about what happens when someone is called to follow Christ in a context of persecution. They are making a decision in effect to suffer and maybe … to die.

Why do people Europeanise Jesus?

phil — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:38:21 +0000

He was not English; he did not behave in English ways.
If he knew something was going on that was not pleasing God, he wouldn’t just sit back.

He cleared a temple in no polite way, saying ‘get these things out of here!’ and turning the tables over. People had turned the temple into a market place of trade. Jesus’ passion burned within him, he demonstrated God’s anger.

God is not just all about love and kindness, turning a blind eye to wicked ways of men. These people in the temple were mocking holy worship. This is righteous anger, justified in purpose and in God’s plan. We are too easy to sit back and not react to sinful things around us we see. We do need to get the balance between showing the way and letting people live freely, however, let’s be passionate, as Jesus was.

He was not some weak boy who was bullied and killed by the real men. He is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, reigning victorious, the first and the last, reigning today and forevermore. We can paint such a pathetic picture of Jesus. We have to think about what he was really like. He has all the authority, yesterday, today and forever. What a mighty name, what a mighty ruler to follow.
by Sam Betts

Whose Word is it anyway? by Keith Hazell

phil — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:21:54 +0000

Whose word is it anyway?
by Keith Hazell
… following the intriguing journey of an international prophet, bringing practical wisdom and encouragement in the areas of mission, strategy and discipleship, encouraging corporate and personal growth for both leaders and everyday followers of Christ.

Lastword Publications

Newspaper review: Courage To Dream

“Thetford woman’s inspirational story published” by the Eastern Daily Press

Adventures in Antioch

Start a business – plant a church!

How to grow in God

Close encounters of the God kind!

D L Moody writes of an encounter he had with the Holy Spirit: ”I began to cry as never before …”

Gathering the first 50

In the air

Video: The Ordinary Hero

Why do people Europeanise Jesus?

Whose Word is it anyway? by Keith Hazell

“Thetford woman’s inspirational story published”
by the Eastern Daily Press