An Adventure in Ministry

  I have recently returned from a fantastic weekend at the riverbank, a conference for women within The Salvation Army and I had such a brilliant time. The fellowship was sweet, the worship was spirit-filled and the teaching challenging, and I am only beginning to unpack all that God did over our time together. Today I am thinking about the keynote speaker Dr Helen Paynter who powerfully brought us the story of Esther - a woman in the bible who discovered she can! Dr Helen Paynter presented the account of Esther in a fresh light showing the tyranny of the powers of the day and how her story was truly one of resilience and pain. She talked about the call on her life to make a stand for God and how in spite of the barriers, she gave her risky yes.  While talking about the call on Esther’s life, Helen used a phrase that has been bouncing about in my mind for a little while, and one that I felt God had been challenging me with. This is the command of “Speaking Truth to power.” Est...

  I have recently returned from the powerful Riverbank conference, a weekend away for women in The Salvation Army in the UK. The weekend was packed full of worship, community and above all truth and I am still trying to unpack it all. Today I have been thinking about our first evening at the Riverbank and the life transforming message of Major David Betteridge the Director of Family ministries  Before David came to speak to us we spent some time in worship and we sung this years ‘theme song’ for the conference. The words were striking and seemed to provide the scaffold for all the words of truth that we would hear throughout the weekend. One of the verses said: Thou are the bread of life, O lord, to me,  Thy Holy word and truth, That saveth me; Give me to eat and live With thee above; Teach me to love Thy truth,  For thou art love.  What a profound statement “Teach me to Love Thy truth, for thou art love.” As I sang those words, little did I know what liberating...

  I have just returned from a truly special and spirit-filled weekend at The Salvation Army’s women conference called the riverbank. Often when we think about time spent at a riverbank we think of words such as refreshment, rest and restoration and this year the conference did all this for me and more besides. This year’s conference theme was ‘Truth be told’ and to start off my recap series I thought I should take the time to tell “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!”  The truth is I almost didn’t make it to the riverbank! up until 3pm on the Friday afternoon (and the conference started at 4pm!) I didn’t know if I would be at the conference or in the hospital awaiting surgery! At the beginning of May I had undergone an operation on my back and there had been a number of post-op complications.The last few weeks had been painful,  (both physically and emotionally) Frustrating and confusing and it had been a steep learning curve for me about trusting in God...

As I stood worshipping in our Sunday service yesterday I had a vision from God. The building of the Salvation Army in Mold is very unique. We have a charity shop and coffee shop on the ground floor and our worship hall is on the first floor. Through the week we have various acts of worship in the coffee shop and our hall is used for Sunday worship As I sang ‘What a faithful God have I,’ God gave me a picture. It was a picture of the white walls in the worship hall. As we corporately worshipped together, it was like someone was pouring red paint over the walls. It started at the very top corner of the hall and seeped down the walls. The more we worshipped, the further the paint trickled down. It didn’t just stop at the floor of the worship hall but down to the walls of the shop and the coffee shop. The more we worship him, the further the blood of Jesus will spread into everything we are and everything we do. So let’s worship God today in spirit and in truth.