Sunday 23rd November was a very important day in the life of King’s Church. Richard Anniss preached from 1 Corinthian 11:3 on the nature of God’s headship; he focussed especially on the relationship between the Father and the Son. He explained how outside of the Kingdom of God it was impossible for people to fully understand an order within complete equality. Such a notion does not compute in unregenerate minds that have come to see authority as potentially abusive because of bad experiences of authority.

God however, is totally good. His authority is therefore totally good and something we welcome. Looking at the Godhead is the way we can understand the right use of authority. Jesus is absolutely God, yet he submits Himself to the Father who is the source of all authority. The Father loves to give away His authority to the Son. Jesus builds His Church by giving away His authority to her. True authority is never grasped, only received by those who give it away.

Last Sunday there was a real dawning in the minds and hearts of people that a major part of receiving the authority of Christ is to imitate Jesus and submit to authority in the Church. Submitting to living flesh and blood apostles and elders who have themselves submitted to one another and to Christ is not therefore a burden, but a joy; doing this is the way to receive authority and be the people God intends us to be: a people acting in authority and preaching Good News of salvation, healing, justice and freedom to the oppressed, weary and heavy laden of Manchester.

Kofo Bolarin and Peter Paine were prayed for and set in as new elders to the church. There was a warm and hearty welcome from the church for them and their wives, Yetundie and Hazel. Their fuller profiles will soon be added to the leadership page of this site.

It’s only been two weeks – weeks of action.

Our first meeting was on 9th November. There were 14 visitors. Admittedly, some of these were from related churches visiting members of All Nations church. However, in the goodness of God one family that came has felt to be part of what God is doing amongst us. The second Sunday, we had one visitor. She too has expressed desire to be part of the church. Another lady phoned after finding a leaflet we had put through her door and wants to visit the church. Of course we still believe God for salvation, but we praise God for the beginning of the fulfilment of his word to us that Christians will be added to us!

The favour of God has been abundant in the provision of a meeting place. Initially our contract only allowed us 3 hours on a Sunday and two afternoons in the week. With setting up and breaking down on Sundays, we felt pressured with time, and had to work with quick hands! We have now been allowed an extra hour on Sunday, at no extra cost. And, we have been allowed a room to keep equipment through the week…at virtually no extra charge. Yes, it’s only two weeks!

God’s word too has been abundant. God has spoken to us again about breaking people out of addictions. He has spoken to us about thousands who will come and be part of the family. He is calling us to live in intimate relationship with him. He also wants us to continually live in the light of revelation knowledge – the word that proceeds from his mouth. He has promised that we will see great results because he is with us and has conquered everything that seeks to oppose us.

As went out on the streets Saturday 22 and still go out on Wednesday 26 and other future dates, we believe we already have the victory. Victory comes because God has assured us that the LORD our God goes across ahead of us like a devouring fire. He ‘will destroy’ them; he ‘will subdue’ them. We are so privileged that we participate with him in driving out all that is against His kingdom and secure the victory he has already won (Deuteronomy 9:3)! Yes, it is only two weeks, …exciting!

Roger Beattie & Peter Paine report on their Mission 193 trip to Kyrgyzstan.

Our mission to Kyrgyzstan was a wonderful high-point in my life. It was an awesome privilege to be used by God as an agent of His Kingdom, making a difference in eternity. We knew such outpourings of God’s grace, mercy and joy whilst we were there – and throughout our preparations beforehand. Kyrgyzstan will never be the same again – and neither will we.

We heard God’s call to go at Bible Week this summer, and when we came back home we started preparing – laying practical and spiritual foundations. While we were talking and praying, Peter used the phrase ‘a faith adventure’ – it seemed to sum up what we were about so well. And then we got thinking …. There are adventures and adventures, from those that merely slightly quicken the pulse, to those that are potentially life-threatening. But we knew God’s peace in this – He is trustworthy in all things. We were relieved to find that Kyrgyzstan was a comparatively stable country, although bordering some more challenging territories – we were being sent on a faith adventure according to the measure of our faith – God is good.

Our families met together every fortnight to eat, pray and plan, preceded by 24 hour fasts. And as we met together, and with the body, God continued to speak to us, and we knew growing excitement, as we mixed God’s word with faith. God spoke to us about ‘divine appointments’, and that ‘He would give us every place where we set our feet (Josh 1:3). At the last family gathering before we went, God spoke to us about sowing in tears, ands reaping with songs of joy, going out weeping carrying seed to sow and returning carrying sheaves (Ps 126:5-6). We were to take seed to sow, in the natural and in the Spirit.

At the Mission 193 celebration at Living Rock church on the weekend before we set out for Kyrgyzstan, there were amazing testimonies of what the Lord had accomplished throughout the earth – in countries like Libya and Afghanistan – that inspired and provoked faith. God reminded us that His Word will not return to Him empty, but will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it (Is 55:11).

We knew God’s grace and provision in terms of the practical arrangements – the timing of our visit, how we would get there, getting Visas and where we would stay. God honoured us and blessed us deeply in all our preparations: everything fell into place so well, God had gone before us and made a way for us – it all felt so pre-ordained. It was time to go.

We had a fairly uneventful flight – although breaking bread together on the plane was a first for both of us. On landing in Kyrgyzstan I felt something akin to an echo of Paul’s statement ‘And so we came to Rome’ (Acts 28:14) – in that this was the culmination of where God had been leading us, and where we would see the fulfilment of all that God had promised us: God had brought us to Kyrgyzstan for purpose – to declare His promises of peace and prosperity – and for blessing.

After checking-in to our hotel in Bishkek, the capital city, we grabbed a few hours sleep, and then set out to explore the city. We talked, prayed and worshipped as we walked around, stopping at Victory Square to read the prophetic scriptures that Mission 193 had given us to declare in every nation – to declare our Lord’s victory over the world, and over the spiritual forces of evil.

God led us to a church near the railway, where we enjoyed warm fellowship with a couple of Kyrgyz believers – they shared with us in broken English how God is building His church in Bishkek. We were also able to speak with someone from another church in Bishkek, who gave us some key areas to pray into concerning Bishkek and the church.

God had spoken to us through the prophet Isaiah (Is 52: 7-10), saying that we were to go up into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan to proclaim the prophetic scriptures, that all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. So the next day we headed off into the mountains, in a car the hotel had arranged for us. Our driver told us much about Kyrgyzstan, its history, traditions and people – he himself was a Muslim. The mountains were beautiful, with what looked like fairly fresh snow lying around. We left the car, and walked on, climbing steadily, into the gathering mist.

We then stopped at a bend in the road, and read the prophetic scriptures. We sowed in the spiritual and in the natural, praying that God would raise up a harvest for himself, and declared the prophetic words God had given us for the country and people of Kyrgyzstan, that God can raise up children for Abraham from stones, from the very rock (Mt 3:9).

And as we prayed, the mist dramatically lifted, but came back down once we had finished – a sign in the natural of change in the heavenlies. The Lord brought to mind a scripture from Isaiah (60:2-3): “See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” We were witnessing, and being part of, the outworking of this promise for the people of Kyrgyzstan – how awesome is that! What joy.

We returned back to Bishkek, knowing that much of our mission had been accomplished, and confident that God would see it completed. We were very pleased when our driver accepted one of the Russian bibles we’d been given to sow into the Kyrgyz nation.

We spent the afternoon walking around Bishkek, aware that we had one more Russian bible to give away – we had prayed that it would be treasured by whoever received it. We visited a Russian Orthodox church, and were thrilled to see that at the back we were they were building an extension – increase in the spiritual realms being reflected in the natural – glory to God. As we were walking away, we saw an old lady begging, and went to give her some money. When she heard us saying the name ‘Eesus’ – Jesus in Russian – her eyes lit up, and she gave us huge hugs. Rarely have I seen such joy in anyone’s face – it is more blessed to give that to receive.

We spent the final evening in a restaurant, where we broke bread together, and enjoyed traditional Kyrgyz cuisine. We had had such a good time – knowing God’s provision and blessing. And then back to our hotel, the Silk Road Lodge. It had an office, with something of a library for guests to use, and it seemed good to offer our remaining bible to the hotel. We were delighted when they told us they didn’t have a Russian bible, and would add it to their library.

And so we returned home, mission fully accomplished. We are continuing meeting together, praying for the people and country of Kyrgyzstan, and are extending the circle of covenant to include others who have been on Mission 193 or who are going to go. God is building his church – the day is coming when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, even as the waters cover the sea. (Hab 2:14).

Roger Beattie, November 2008

Jen Drury reviews this book for members of King’s Church.

What the book is about

Jesus seeks intimacy with us but this is not something we will ever casually or accidentally enter into. The author says that intimacy with God requires something on our part which must be deliberately planned for, diligently pursued and consciously desired: Stilling ourselves before God. The Lost Art of Practicing His Presence is about just that: the discipline of Christian “meditation” and “contemplative prayer” and knowing His presence in our daily lives.

Who I’d give the book to

I’d give this book to anyone who says that the chaos of their daily life constantly competes for and diverts their attention away from fixing their mind on fully God during prayer; to anyone who feels stuck in a conversational prayer life of lifting up word-laden, shopping-list prayers, but who wants to move into a full and satisfying relationship with Jesus; finally, to anyone who wants to know Jesus more!

‘Wasting’ time

The author does not suggest short-cuts or quick fixes to building, or repairing, intimacy with Jesus but makes a radical suggestion by the world’s standards: be extravagant in your worship by ‘wasting’ your time on God in contemplative prayer. It struck me that ‘to waste’ often has negative connotations because we learn that the consequence of ‘wasting’ is detrimental in some way. However, the consequence of ‘wasting’ your time on God is an expression of extravagant worship and the consequence of which is only good: knowing more of Jesus. Only by spending time with Him can we know Him and be changed to become more like Him.

Initially I was held back by a number of stereotypes I had about “meditation” and “contemplation” but Goll makes an essential distinction early on in the book which rescues Biblical meditation from any confusion with contemporary counterfeits: counterfeits are man-centered whereas Biblical meditation is God-focused and Jesus would have us fill our mind and heart with Him. Rather ‘quietness before God’ as something passive, I now understand it as a time which is very much active.

Brother Lawrence’s Letters

Part four of the book is an abridged, contemporised version of the letters of Brother Lawrence which were originally written in 17th century. I would recommend reading Goll’s book first and resist skipping straight to the letters. I feel that I understood Brother Lawrence’s closeness in his relationship with God having first read Goll’s book (there is a reason why Brother Lawrence’s Letter are at the end!).

And finally….

Goll does cite other authors extensively, and this does not always make for the smoothest of reads, but when this book is read slowly and digested section by section then I think you’ll agree that it is definitely worth sticking with it. The author writes passionately about living fully in the presence of God and I get the impression that he would be heartbroken if he thought his audience, having read the book, added the knowledge from this book to their repertoire simply for analytical debate: The Lost Art of Practicing His Presence communicates a passion for lives transformed by living in the fullness of the presence of God.

Dave Emmett exhorts King’s Church members to make strong connections in the body.

Have you ever wasted a lot of time wondering why something wasn’t working properly only to discover later it wasn’t PLUGGED in properly? I cut the grass in our garden by plugging the lawn mower into an extension cable that runs from the house and goes down to the garden. I then plug the lawn mower into the extension cable. I remember one day working for hours trying to get the lawnmower working, taking it to bits, re-building it….only to discover back in the house Philippa, my wife, had UNPLUGGED the extension cable to run the vacuum cleaner. Hours of my life wasted – simply because something wasn’t CONNECTED to the power supply. What a waste of time!

Everyday you and I spend UNPLUGGED from the presence of the Lord is a wasted day! Tragically some people waste weeks, months, years or their entire lives living DISCONNECTED from the life and the presence of the Lord and don’t work properly..

What do we mean by “work properly”?

You and I were created to carry the presence of the Lord and fill this earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. It’s what we’re meant to do. It’s the reason for which we were created. Jesus died and rose again and poured out the Holy Spirit so that we could be PLUGGED in to knowing the power and presence of the risen Lord Jesus through the Spirit and be carriers of the blessing and goodness of God to all we come in contact with.
Being CONNECTED to Christ is all about making a covenant with Christ and His people. You can’t become joined to Christ without being joined to his people…the Church. John was crystal clear in his understanding of this when in his epistle he says:

1 John 4: 20 He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen

1 John 4: 21 “Whoever loves God must also love his brother”

Let me ask you a question. If the growth of this church depended on you would it grow?

• Do you ever volunteer for anything?
• Do you ever invite someone back to your home?
• Do you ever phone someone and encourage them?
• Do you ever speak to the lost about the Lord?
• Do you ever invite someone to come to an event such as a Christmas concert?
• When was the last time you were with other church members in a home?
• When was the last time you invited others to your home?

Let me put it another way: are you living life PLUGGED into the presence of the Lord and expecting his Kingdom to advance through you? If you are, you’ll be CONNECTED to others in His body.

Your answers tell you whether or not you’re connected.

Members of King’s Church have a wonderful opportunity to meet people, make friends with people, receive the life of God from others and give what we have to others within this body: young and old, European, African, Asian and American. Political groupings look at the genuine social and racial harmony we have with green eyed jealousy The opportunity to be connected to a body made up of all races and social backgrounds is unique to the Church of Jesus Christ. It’s good fun! It’s holy and it’s the will of God for your life! Get plugged in!

Our trip to the Pacific nation of Vanuatu was a flying visit – we arrived on Friday at 14:00 and were due to check in for our return flight at 13:00 two days later, giving us less than 48 hours to complete our mission.  We arrived in the capital Port Vila, having left Canberra at 06:20 that morning and changing planes in Brisbane.  We then wandered around looking for a place to stay, ending up in a lovely French guesthouse.  (Vanuatu was jointly administered by Britain and France up until 1980, hence the French influences).  In the evening we went to a restaurant where Tim tucked into fruit bat!

The next day was Sunday and we went along to a church service with a group of young people who we had bumped into walking down the street with Bibles.  We wandered around Port Vila, but didn’t feel led to anyone in particular that day to give the Bibles to, and torrential rain forced us to head back to the guesthouse.

On Monday, with only about 4 hours left before we had to head to the airport, we went off in search of the Prime Minister’s office, as we had both independently felt on our way over to Vanuatu that we should present the Bibles to someone in government.  We looked around for someone to point us in the right direction and saw a man walking in our direction on the other side of the road.  He happened to be a security guard for the Lord Mayor of Port Vila and took us straight to the Prime Minister’s office.  When we asked to speak to the Prime Minister we were asked if we had an appointment and saw quite a queue of people.  However, the man who had shown us the way told the Prime Minister’s secretary that we were “with him” and we only wanted to speak to him for 3 minutes, and we were therefore granted an audience with the Prime Minister.  The Prime Minister read the letter we presented and received the Bibles, before saying how important he felt it was that all nations strive for peace and expressed his gratitude that we had gone to Vanuatu and were praying for their nation.

After leaving the Prime Minister’s office we then prayed some prophetic scriptures over Vanuatu and hopped in a taxi to the airport.

We spent two weeks in New Zealand in June 2008 as a stop-over on our way back from Australia, where Frida had been studying for one semester as part of her university studies.  We started our trip visiting friends in Christchurch, then headed down south to Queenstown for a few days, before flying up to the North Island.  While in Queenstown, we decided to drive out to Glenorchy, famous for the scenic landscape (and for being a place where parts of Lord of the Rings was filmed).  With the snow-peaked mountains in the background, the green pastures before us and the sun shining we decided it would be an apt place to get out of the car and pray for the nation of New Zealand and read some prophetic verses.

A couple of days before New Zealand we visited a Maori village near the town of Rotorua.  Although it’s a tourist attraction, thanks to the fact that the residents cook their food in the steam coming out of the ground, it is still a genuine village where people live.  On our tour around the village we learnt that a resident had recently died and a funeral was taking place.  We also found out that because of the funeral the local Maori chief was present, and both of us instantly felt that he was the person we would like to present the Bibles to.  We hung around the village for a couple of hours waiting for the funeral to finish before approaching a group of men standing outside the Maori meeting house and asked if it might be possible to speak to the chief.  We were told he was very busy and it wouldn’t be possible.  Nevertheless we still hung around for a while longer and spoke with some other people we bumped into, before concluding that obviously we were not going to present the Bibles to the chief and started heading out of the village.  Just as we were leaving a guy ran up behind us and asked if we were the people who had been looking for the chief, telling us he was now free and we should go and speak to him.

The chief was delighted to hear of what we were doing and, after rushing off to get the keys to the protestant church in the village and showing us in, gladly received the Bibles and the letter we presented.  Standing in front of the altar he then prayed, first in English and then in Maori, thanking God for the Bibles and blessing the rest of our trip. We bid each other farewell by touching our noses together in the traditional Maori way!

On our way home from Australia we factored in a 3-day stop-over in the Kingdom of Tonga, which would enable us to “do” a Mission 193 visit. While walking around the capital of Nuku’alofa with our Lonely Planet guide in hand, we noticed on the map there was a small dot marked “Mt. Zion” just behind the Royal Palace, which turned out to be a rather insignificant hill with a radio mast on the top, but decided that it would be a symbolic place from where to read prophetic scriptures over the nation of Tonga and pray for wisdom for the King who would be crowned a few weeks later.

The next day we went to the palace office to investigate the possibility of an audience with the King and were directed to another building down the road to speak with the Lord Chamberlain. We explained the nature of our visit, and the Lord Chamberlain asked if we would give the Bibles to her, promising to present them to the King, together with the letter, during her next audience with him.