An Adventure in Ministry

  Just over a month ago I attended an amazing women’s conference for women in The Salvation Army called Riverbank. It was a beautiful weekend of teaching, challenge, fun and friendship and there were so many highlights. Throughout the weekend there were a number of thread that God wove within it. It wove through the speakers and the worship, and was incredibly powerful.  One of these threads was the truth that we can still praise God in the midst of the darkest times. From the frist evening we heard testimony of how people were able to praise God in the midst of trauma and difficulty. This ran through the entire weekend with person after person talking about praising God in the difficult places and finding comfort, power and joy through it all. Each person declared "Still I will praise!"  One of the most powerful moments of the entire conference was on the Saturday morning when our amazing and anointed worship leader sang one of her songs. The song, ‘Still I will pra...

  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...

I have just returned from the most amazing weekend at the Riverbank conference, with women connected to The Salvation Army from all over the country. God’s presence was tangible, the worship was powerful and the teaching was Holy Spirit inspired. This is the second post in a series of what God spoke to me while I was there (You can find my first post here: Tales From the Riverbank: Singing at Midnight ) If you were there too I would love to hear what God revealed to you, I would love to include you on a guest blog post! If you weren't there I pray that a little of the riverbank will flow into your heart and you might just sign up to join us next year! On the Saturday morning of the riverbank conference we listened to Commissioner Debbie Horwood as she brought us truths about God’s great compassion, and there was something she said that completely and utterly floored me! She spoke about how she has been doing a deep dive on the word used for compassion in the Old Testament - the wor...

  I have just returned from the most amazing weekend at the Riverbank, with women connected to The Salvation Army from all over the country. God’s presence was tangible, the worship was powerful and the teaching was Holy Spirit inspired. Over the next few days I will be sharing a little of what God spoke to me while I was there. If you were there too I would love to hear what God revealed to you. If you weren't there I pray that a little of the riverbank will flow into your heart and you might just sign up to join us next year! On the Friday night, on the bank of the beautiful river installation, the head of family ministries, Major David Betteridge taught from the story of Paul and Silas in prison found in Acts 16. One of the (many amazing) truths he spoke declared that ‘The songs you sing in the daytime become the songs you sing at midnight.’ Throughout the weekend I returned to this truth and I am sure I will many times more as the power of it takes root in my heart.  My hu...

The other week I received the letter that I had been dreading would come. The letter that said ‘Your daughter needs to be shielded from Covid-19 for a minimum of 12 weeks’ and with that everything changed. Well to be honest it wasn’t as dramatic as that. We had already been isolating for five weeks already and in many ways life would continue much the same as in previous weeks, but as is often the case, along with the letter, the enemy seemed to enter my mind with words of fear, anxiety and worry. Looking to the news for guidance and reassurance did very little to help so I looked to the place that overflows with reassurance and words of comfort, I looked to scripture and I wasn’t disappointed. Psalm 28:7 says: ‘The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with songs I praise him!’ What a promise! The scripture makes it clear that God will shield us, in every situation and even as we shield those...