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Dear
All,
Greetings in our Lord’s wonderful Name!
I’m
writing this circular letter to everyone who has been to
one of our New Wine Cymru events to give you feedback on
this last summer’s event at Builth Wells, and keep you
up to date with news and developments.
First
– a big thank you to you and all who came to the event.
There was a wonderful spirit among all who came, and
speaking personally, I was richly blessed by the sense
of fun and warmth of the many people I had the
opportunity to chat to during the event. It was a joy to
see so many people enjoying themselves, and receiving so
much from the Lord through the worship, teaching and
ministry during the event.
Feedback:
We
have had a huge volume of feedback, which overall
was highly enthusiastic. Below is just a small sample of
things people wrote on the feedback forms –
Heaven on Earth! Everything my soul has cried out
for Thank you everyone. God is good all the time.
How
can I describe my appreciation of all that I’ve received
this week? Thank you Praise God
Great
feeling of joy, and of God’s presence, and of welcoming
everyone at all times, all through the site
The
best year we have had – thank you
I’ve
been really moved by my first time at this conference
and through being here I can now honestly say that
‘Jesus is Alive’ and living here with us today.
My two
children and their friend found Ignite great fun. They
said that Dai Hankey was inspirational!
To God
be the glory. Have heard a lot of my friends being as
blessed as me.
WOW!! First time here, what a fabulous week, thank you
ALL from the bottom of my heart.
Thank
you so much for all the hard work. This conference has
been deeper – the word ‘breakthrough’ really describes
it. It’s been a delight to see what the Lord is doing
– and there have been some mighty works – life
changing. Thank you and God bless you.
Appreciated the overview of what God is about within
Wales - Liked hearing about what was happening in
different ministries.
Conference spirituality excellent and in right
direction.
The
car park attendants, deaf signers, flautist and
violinist need special mention for their good work and
the lady on the door will be remembered.
Site
crew and stewards were excellent. Worked very hard.
My
daughter loved Messengers and took a lot out of it
Worship – excellent, wonderful way to get into God’s
presence – liked the idea of different worship leaders
and choir.
Andy
Booth – Fabulous !
Just
amazing speakers all around. The Lord has great
faithful servants and anointed speakers in you all.
The
keyboard player from Cardiff was very good ….
Richard Lewis brought us to the throne room.
Just
what we both needed – feel refreshed and filled up, my
husband particularly found Don’s talks really helpful
and inspiring and it has really helped him to move
forward.
Congratulations to everyone who prepared the campsite
for the conference. A big thank-you to the Camp host who
worked tirelessly to solve people’s problems.
God
told us (my wife and I) to come this year, our first
time … We are richly blessed, God met us in His power
this week through prayer ministry – please do not change
anything - God is in all you are doing – just keep on
doing it !!
Prayer
ministry was well organised – people felt safe with the
ministry team
The
availability for prayer and openness is fantastic, not
experienced this before anywhere.
This
conference has been a very high standard in teaching,
worship sense of God’s presence and fellowship.
There
have been many changes this year, I realise they have to
come. May God continue to bless and guide you towards
2008 conference.
But we
were also grateful to receive much constructive critical
comment too, and I want to assure you all that we have
noted them all and will be doing our best to address
them for next year. This was only the first time we had
a full year to plan and prepare the event, and so we are
seeking to learn everything we can from this year’s
event.
Next
year:
As already announced, we have David Parker as our adult
venue Bible expositor next year. David is one of the
finest teachers in the Vineyard movement, and in the
last 15 years has seen his Church – the Desert Vineyard
in Lancaster, California – grow from approximately 350
to over 5000 members, who come from all kinds of social
backgrounds.
We
also have Bill Johnson coming to speak and minister. He
leads an independent Church in Redding, Northern
California, and they are growing rapidly through regular
and wonderful manifestations of the Lord’s presence and
power in their midst, including many amazing healings.
Bill has a special gifting to train, equip and impart
faith to Christians for ministry, and is now much in
demand as a speaker all around the world.
We are
also already assembling a list of excellent speakers
from within Wales and further afield for our different
venues.
I am
also delighted to announce that Richard Lewis, (worship
pastor at City Temple in Cardiff), who led one of our
evenings at Builth Wells is to lead our adult venue
worship next year. Andy Booth has led our worship
superbly over the past two years, but had indicated to
us that this year would be his last. But we are hoping
that he may still be with us this next year as a
speaker, and to lead some of the adult venue worship.
We are
also looking hard at how we might develop our use of the
site in ways which foster a far greater sense of
community among us between meetings and in the later
part of the evenings. We hope this will mean that people
who have come on their own will feel far more included,
and that all people of all ages will be able to meet and
make new friends in a relaxed, fun atmosphere. Watch
this space….
Networking:
I return from a lengthy ministry trip in mid-October,
and over the next months intend to get around Wales with
Brian Gregory and others to as many Churches and leaders
in our network as I can. Some describe New Wine Cymru as
“one of the best-kept secrets in the Welsh Christian
scene”, and I hope that we will quickly rectify this!
Funding:
I and the NW Cymru Executive feel it is important that
we correct an impression that several people have fed
back to us, namely that our work is being funded by New
Wine in England, and that we therefore enjoy plentiful
funds!!
It is
vital that everyone understands –
-
New Wine Cymru is a separate operation from NW
England, led from within Wales, and is financially
separate from England, receiving no funds or subsidy
from outside Wales.
-
We
therefore have to be as prudent and careful as
possible with the way we plan and run our events.
-
New Wine in England is not wealthy! As with all New
Wine events, attendance prices at events are kept as
low as possible to make it as easy as possible for
people even of lower incomes to attend. So this does
not result in major profits to subsidise New Wine
activities in other parts of the UK or in countries
abroad.
-
NW
Cymru’s present operations presently run at an
annual loss of approximately £30,000 – a loss which
is being temporarily covered through an
astonishingly generous donor who longs to see the
Churches make real progress in Wales.
-
But – we are expecting to grow! And if we grow by
500 delegates over the next two years (very possible
when compared with events in other places), the
figures start looking very different.
In
the meantime – if you long to see Wales impacted with
Jesus’ gospel of the Kingdom in the power of His Spirit,
why not consider becoming a regular donor to New Wine
Cymru, or persuading your Church to include NW Cymru in
its annual mission giving?
(contact
Anne Gregory 02910 766766 or use
our
contact form)
And
if you haven’t already, why not book early? New
Wine Cymru Conference 2nd to 8th
August 2008. Your deposit will help fund our
activities, reduce what you have to pay if you only book
later, and it will mean that we can plan for next year
with a clearer estimate of how many might attend. This
makes a HUGE difference to us.
Keeping
in touch:
We
want to be able to keep in regular contact with our
network, giving you news updates, asking for prayer and
also to consult with you on important issues.
We are
emailing and posting this letter out to everyone for who
we have contact details. Obviously the more we can do
this via the internet by e-mail, the more we will save
both costs and time spent folding paper, licking stamps
and sealing envelopes.
So
PLEASE – send us email contact details if you have them,
or if you don’t, ask someone close to you who does if
they would mind if you gave us their e-mail address.
This would be so, so helpful.
And
last – we are so grateful for those who prayerfully seek
the Lord’s guidance and help in inviting new people to
come to Builth. Why not make it a personal goal to
bring at least one more person/couple/family with you to
Builth next summer? The Kingdom comes as we each
play an active role in recruiting labourers for the
Lord’s harvest.
Just
imagine what impact we might have on Wales if together
we build the Builth event to well over 5000 people
hungry to see Wales impacted with the gospel?
With
every best wish in Jesus,
Bruce
Collins
Chairman, New Wine Cymru |
