I had one of the saddest and most frustrating conversations of my life at The Gathering’s Soup Kitchen last night.Frustrating because it was of a theme that keeps rearing its ugly head, and sad because we the church are responsible.
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Dean and Paula in Blighty, autumn 2025 -
Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering -
Our beloved Palace - FA Cup winners 2025 -
The Gathering -
Baptising in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit -
Leaders preparing to serve at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen -
Soup Kitchen Xmas lunch
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Serving hands - the heart of The Gatheirng -
Thankful Thursdays -
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HOPE Home Based Care Team -
Gathering Ground -
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
Showing posts with label church planting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church planting. Show all posts
It's twenty years ago this month that we made our first move in to overseas mission as we went to Tanzania for an initial two year stint. Just under a year later we resigned out in the field, were treated appallingly by the organisation we were serving with and ended up staying with some Catholic Fathers at a nearby Seminary. The last group of people I expected to be genuinely Christian turned out to have a greater concept and handle on Christian basics than the organisation we had served with. Still, that's a long time ago and much water has passed under the bridge since then.
Having been at the Firgrove Shell for just over two years we've been given notice to quit the premises and so The Gathering is on the hunt for a new home.The Shell Garage is undergoing some massive renovations beginning in July and they need to move their admin back upstairs, and so for purely business reasons they have asked us to move.
Planting a new church is never easy and doing it from scratch is tougher still, and at times it's easy to feel down and like nothing is going to plan. Those negative feelings can be especially tough to deal with when growth is slow and commitment of some is sporadic at best.However, as one persists and remains faithful in prayer, things begin to turn and whilst I don't think church planters ever have that feeling of "we've done it" things do seem a lot more positive through faith and prayer.
Over the last few weeks at The Gathering we've had the joy and privilege of releasing some of our sons and daughters into preaching and it's not been a disappointing journey. This Sunday Rejoice spoke with genuine wisdom and insight into the Kingdom of God and what are we seeing, based on Matthew 20, the Transfiguration story and Isaiah 6. Rejoice's word was both exciting and encouraging and it warmed our hearts to see how well she knows the Word.
We're delighted to be able to reveal our new home for The Gathering!This is the Shell garage in Firgrove and the location fits so well with three prophetic words we've held on to over the last year.
Firstly, we had a word about moving out of Macassar High School, we didn't and we were tipped out!
Secondly, we had a word about moving to the outskirts of Macassar. Well Firgrove is most definitely on the outskirts.
What an amazing week!On Sunday Shaddie and family joined with The Gathering and after he had ministered to us he felt God leading him to release us as a church from the past into the future. As part of this he asked Ziggy and Philimon to hold my arms up while we prayed and as Shaddie prophetically released us into the anointing of God's freedom, released mandates over us and blessing.
So last night we gathered for an amazing time of praise and worship and then we launched our Thankful Thursdays Challenge.
Ask for nothing,
Give thanks for everything!
Give thanks for everything!
I loved every minute of being back in Zim, despite the constant power cuts, water shortages and shocking roads. I loved how the locals don't waste their time complaining and moaning about how bad it is but rather get on with life. I loved every minute of being back there because it made me realise just how much of my heart I left there when we were thrown out in 2003.
For most of our time in mission we've been involved in sowing seeds and rarely got to see the fruits of our labours. This is why I'm so thrilled by what I'm seeing in Zimbabwe.This morning I went to River of Life Westgate, the church we were instrumental in planting back in 2002 with a team from River of Life Mount Pleasant.
Those were exciting times as we gathered at Westgate as a small team with a giant vision to see a church planted and a variety of social outreach projects established.
Our inaugural Sunday was great and all I could say to the guys afterwards was that had I been able to plan the meeting in detail it wouldn't have gone as well as it did. Praise God for his infinite grace! However, planning and executing one meeting is easy, doing it week in and week out will be the challenge.
This morning was a morning of mixed emotions for the Macassar crowd as it was our final morning as part of Love & Grace Church as we're planting into Macassar from next Sunday.The mixed emotions are born out of the many friendships we've all built with folk in Mitchell's Plain and the excitement of moving into something new with God. We'll miss our friends at Love & Grace but we know we'll see each other again soon and we'll remain in contact with each other.
Our life group in Macassar last night was such an encouraging and humbling time.
It was a real privilege to hear testimony after testimony of how God has moved mightily through the year to bring folk to the point of being excited about planting a new church into Macassar early next year. For some of the guys there last night this has been a torrid year, starting with the collapse of the church and the hassles resulting from it. Some have then lost jobs, had to move house a number of times, had family members die, one of our number has lost two brothers this year! Others have had to look after extended family to help out financially in tough times and one family have had a terrible time with drug dealers and all sorts of related nonsense.
It was a real privilege to hear testimony after testimony of how God has moved mightily through the year to bring folk to the point of being excited about planting a new church into Macassar early next year. For some of the guys there last night this has been a torrid year, starting with the collapse of the church and the hassles resulting from it. Some have then lost jobs, had to move house a number of times, had family members die, one of our number has lost two brothers this year! Others have had to look after extended family to help out financially in tough times and one family have had a terrible time with drug dealers and all sorts of related nonsense.
Summer seems to be toying with us at present as the weather has generally been pretty good during the week and then pretty horrid at weekends. Winter is definitely hanging on to the bitter end!This last week and the weekends either side of it has been a good time for us as we've managed to sort out and rise above a bit of rubbish that was thrown our way and as a consequence find ourselves in a stronger position than before.
Praise God for friends who believe in the best of you!
Despite the silence on the blog things have been busy and lots of things have happened which we haven't blogged about as we needed to wait for confirmation etc. Some of our biggest news will follow in another post in the next day or so but we're very excited!
This year has been a real rollercoaster ride with some scary white knuckle moments!
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