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

The July issue of iBelieve is out now

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My feature in this issue of iBelieve goes into more depth about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. What is amazing is that we still know so little about this debilitating disease.

It is rather a good illustration of someone with ME - although a terrifying number of patients can neither sit up or lift a glass. I have been told that the number of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the UK is nearer 250,000.*

 Please click on the images to enlarge

To order two issues of iBelieve please click here

* CFS Research Foundation

Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York

On 18th May I attended a confirmation held in Ripon. The Archbishop of York gave out copies of his address afterwards, suggesting we could sell them on eBay.

'I've just been speaking at a high-security gaol,' he went on, amused that of the prisoners called him 'Archie.'
'You seem like a dynamic man, Archie, but aren't the leaders of the church boring geeks?'

'My prayer,' The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dr John Sentamu told us, 'is that the people of this county can talk about Jesus the way they talk about the weather. Then something will happen.' He explained that in Uganda, where he comes from they only have climate. 'Whether we know Christ or have only grasped a fragment of him, the best is yet to come.'

He spoke to the ordinands saying, 'Love always involves a responsibility, and it always involves a sacrafice. We don't really love Christ unless we are prepared to face the task he gives and to take up his cross.' 

We now hear that the Archbishop is facing treatment for prostate cancer. He must have known this when he took the service in Ripon, and yet he managed to fill the church with laughter.

As we left the service my husband thanked Dr Sentamu saying, 'Asanti sana,' (Many thanks in Swaheli). He was immediately clasped in a passionate embrace.

'Let each of us serve Christ where Christ has sent us,' the Archbishop told us. 'As the Risen Christ said to Peter: 'Never mind the task that is given to someone else. John is none of your business. Your job is to follow me and to be faithful to your calling.' 

'That is what Jesus Christ still says to each one of us. Our glory is never in comparison with others; our glory is the service of Christ in whatever capacity he has allotted to us. But all of us are called to worship him and to witness to what he has done, and is doing in our lives as we dwell in him.'

Another episode of 'Funnily Enough' serialised in iBelieve, the rather glamorous Christian lifestyle magazine

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The author of 'Funnily Enough'

with further true-life stories serialised in

To buy two issues of iBelieve please click here 

~ Churches can apply for special rates for magazine orders ~ 

Mary Stephenson speaking on Premier Radio

Mary Stephenson, a former addict, shares her testimony of finding Jesus in a 'Woman to Woman' interview  on London's Premier Christian Radio (listen on demand, recorded in May 2013).

You will need to use Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox to listen.

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

'Funnily Enough' in the May issue of iBelieve magazine

I had no influence over this portrait of me that's smiling out of the May edition of iBelieve magazine but it made me laugh as it was exactly how I wanted to look when I was little. I must have been strongly influenced by Sindy and Barbie dolls.

I am always packing things up for the post - but never this neatly.

Here is the full page:

This is how I really look:

The magazine cover is much more masculine this month:

I feel hugely honoured to be featured alongside Joyce Meyer, Nicky Gumbel and Sarah de Carvalho.

To subscribe to the magazine, please click here