New Wine in Somerset

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On 4th August we are off to spend a week at the New Wine Conference near Shepton Mallet in Somerset.

I have volunteered to help at the Film Cafe run by Bible Society where we will be serving coffee, cakes and 'chocolate mountains' whilst showing much-loved feature films. The Festival starts on 27th July but we are going for the second week.

New Wine say ~
The Arena is our brand new venue where everyone can join together for worship, teaching and ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit. Coming together as a united family allows for powerful encounters with God.

Those looking for ‘something different’ there will be our morning Alternative Acoustic sessions in the Hungry venue. In an atmosphere of presence-led worship, Charlie and Anita Cleverly will teach into a biblical charismatic contemplative encounter with Christ.

Celebrations and Bible reading ~
Our evening celebrations have become a firm favourite with New Wine visitors and this year we are expanding on this with the introduction of a morning celebration. Both will have plenty of opportunity for worship, ministry and teaching.

After the morning celebration, at 11.15 Simon Ponsonby will bring us daily Bible teaching exploring the book of Romans. This will run in parallel with our normal morning seminar programme.

Live worship ~
Back by popular demand is our live worship album. To guarantee your copy you need to pre-order the album on site. This is a great way to rekindle all those New Wine memories and bring back the sound of summer!

Diary Room ~
Also new this year is our Diary Room. This is your opportunity to share with us how God is working in your life. Share your story with us, and you never know, you might see yourself up on the big screens in one of the main venues!

Are you free?  Can you come too?

For information about volunteering at the Bible Society Cafe click here

To find out more about the New Wine Festival please click here

Send a Bible, a Bible a Month ~

I learnt about Bible a Month in about 1984, as my flatmate had joined the scheme. I thought, 'That's a nice thing to do.' I wish I'd found out more. I didn't realise how inexpensive it was and went on my own merry way without joining.

In about 1996 I spotted some new Bibles, in the Tswana language, on a shelf in a junk shop where I lived in South Africa, selling for £1 each. I bought the lot to take with me to Botswana. They proved ideal gifts and I was asked to return with more. This was difficult as there were no longer any for sale in my town. I had to persuade a farmer, I knew was a Gideon, to let me have a box of New Testaments. Some were in Tswana. Some were in English –at the front - and Afrikaans at the back. One had a gold cover. 

As I was travelling into the Okavango Delta, on the back of a lorry, an American tourist asked me what was in the heavy box. 

'They are Bibles,' I explained. 

She was horrified, disgusted. But as soon as we arrived all the Botswanans rushed up, asking me, 

'Did you remember the Bibles?' 

The scathing expression on the American woman's face dissolved as she realised how much they had been longed for. Everyone wanted the one with a gold cover. I apologised as I gave the English/Afrikaans versions to those who spoke English. 

'No problem,' one Tswana lady told me. 'I shall use it to learn Afrikaans' and she did. 

Many of those Tswana people have now died of AIDS. I am very glad I took the Bibles to them. I fear the next box I took up was not received by those who really wanted them, and I couldn't keep going.  

Instead I started sending £10 a month to Bible Society, discovering that it was a much easier way to distribute Bibles than going into the Okavango on a lorry. It was only when I reached China that I understood that supporting Bible Society is probably one of the best investments you can make. When I was going around the Amity Printing Company in Nanjing I realised that my meagre gift had been able to subsidize a substantial amount of printing. I stood in front of a great stack of about 300 Bibles thinking, 

'Those are my Bibles!' 

Each one will be read by about five adults. That is a total of 1,500 people, all thirsting for the Word. They estimate that 10,000 a week are converting to Christianity in China, many in the poor rural areas where people only earn about £1.60 a day. It's imperative that they have access to Bibles in their own language. And these Bibles are so treasured, so appreciated, used by many who are learning to read. When we went up-country to help distribute the new Bibles were we heralded with trumpets and fire-crackers, welcomed by crowds of people. I walked up to the village with tears in my eyes, saying to myself, 'All I've done is to give £10 a month.' 

Is a Bible a life changing gift? Yes.

Is giving Bibles a matter of life and death? It can be. Providing Bibles for Prisoners in South Africa will save lives. Giving Bibles to the Military in Zimbabwe will save lives. Subsidising Bibles for the people of China could be more important than we can ever imagine. I believe lives will be saved.  

How do you impact a nation? Give a Bible a Month. It's not just 'a nice thing to do'.

To find out more about Bible Society please click here

One Verse - from this season's 'Word in Action'

Sophie Neville

An extract from Funnily Enough ~

24^th April ~ When I was breaking down in the office, I kept muttering, ‘Oh Jesus. Help; give me strength.’ A prayer of desperation. I was trying hard not to cry but had fallen down under my desk and was grasping the edge of the filing cabinet, determinedly saying to myself, ‘I can cope, this is just a dizzy spell.’ Only a huge pile of scripts slid on top of me. Then the Manager’s Assistant came in, discovered me groaning under this mound of pink paper, heaved me up and off to see the doctor. ‘Well, Lord, I’m still ill. If you’re in control, please tell me what’s happening.’

I lie looking at the ceiling. Nothing’s happening. I’m not getting any better. One thing’s for sure: this illness just proves how terribly weak and vulnerable I am. It’s made me realise the astonishingly obvious fact that I only have one body and it’s not disposable. It is certainly not meant to be demolished by slogging away on some wretched series. As my Department Manager, said, ‘In the end, it’s just another television programme. If you were run over by a white van I would have to replace you.’

Had I let working in telly become my idol, my raison d’être? Alastair says if we let our jobs totally define us, it is of course gutting if they dissolve overnight. I have a horrid feeling that I’d let pride slip in too. I didn’t mean to boast, it’s so ugly, but when people at a drinks party ask you what you do, they never fail to be impressed when you say that you work in TV or the media. Pathetic isn’t it? The self-justification I think I held in place, was that it took so much hard work and determination to become a television director I felt I deserved to be able to say something for myself. None-the-less, like grotty old T-shirts, these vanities have to be flung out. I want God to be able to accept me, use me. Otherwise what’s this life all about?