I love going to New Word Alive. Sure, Pwllheli is closer to Iceland than London but a few fleeces in your luggage soon solves that one. Besides, it is worth it for sound as a pound preaching and helpfully led praise.
The only down side to NWA this year was that I was on a weekend away at the start of the week which meant I missed the first 24 hours or so. I actually arrived at 2am on the Monday morning, having driven the last 2 and a half hours in pitch black without seeing another car on the road... not one! But after a chilled out morning and a very large caramel latte from Starbucks (the only one in the north west region of North Wales, apparently!) I was soon back to a reasonable state of alertness.
I was gutted to have missed Don Carson, as I think he strikes an excellent balance between deep theological content presented with superb clarity. Bring on the DVDs...
Hey ho, I was still able to catch the morning Bible studies (on TV in the caravan!) and the remainder of the evening celebration talks. Plus, as always, the days were spent catching up with old and new friends (all over a nice tall latte)!
All in all, a great time away and a helpful encouragement in my walk with Jesus.
The internet is a wonderfully brilliant and frighteningly bad thing all at once.
To help propogate some of the good stuff on the web, here are some things that I've found recently that are worthy of a peek or two.
Bible Study Magazine and Mars Hill are giving away 20 copies of a new book, Vintage Church by Mark Driscoll. Not only that, but they are also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and a copy of their Bible Study Library software! You can find more information on this page. Plus, Logos Bible Software also produce one of the best and most comprehensive software for in-depth Bible study I have found.
Speaking of Mars Hill church, theresurgence.com is a ministry operating out of Mars Hill that is great for getting you thinking about Jesus, the church and Christian living.
Joshua (who is now 1 year old!) is wondering what the deal is with that strange man dressed in a red and white suit with a clearly fake bushy white beard that seems to be lurking about on street corners selling garden equipment (who wants three hoes when only one would suffice?).
He would be grateful if someone could fill him in on what it is all about. Thank you.
I've decided to ignore the fact it has been -ahem- months since posting, and to bite the bullet and just get on and write something.
Christmas is here! Huzzah! Coming up for us this Christmas...
Hopefully I'll be able to shift a cough and a cold that has stuck with me for the last two weeks. Kirsten currently remains untouched by it, and Joshua has had a few sniffles.
I'm speaking at the Family Carol service on Sunday 21 December at 4.30pm. Please pray that I would point people to Jesus as our Wonderful Counsellor, Prince of Peace (I'm speaking on {bible}Isaiah 9:6-7{/bible}).
Kirsten is singing in the Adult Carol service on Sunday 21 December at 7pm. It is going to be a hectic aftrenoon/evening in the Witchalls household that day! Pray that Kirsten doesn't get my cold (or a sore throat).
We head off back to Harold Wood on the 24 December after the Christ Church Christingle at 4pm for a week and a bit long holiday. Bring on the mince pies and cream!
My word, doesn't time fly when you are... not blogging. Okay, so I turn my back and whoosh! a whole 5 or 6 months go flying by!
Kirsten and I are on the back leg of our holidays at the moment. We've just spent a week in Holmfirth, in West Yorkshire, which is the where Last Of The Summer Wine is filmed. Here are some of the highlights of the holiday:
The cottage we stayed in was superb. It was called Erin Cottage and was really cosy and homely, with a fantastic view over Holmfirth and the surrounding area.
Half way through the holiday we visited Bryony & Fraser (Kirsten's neice & nephew) and Gary, who were themselves visiting family in Huddersfield.
We discovered that the National Coal Mining centre is actually a bit boring if you can't go on the underground tour. This is because children under 5 aren't allowed. We tried to convince them that Joshua was a remarkably young looking 8 year old but for some reason they wouldn't believe us.
We went for a walk around Langsett resevoir and then had a pub lunch afterwards. We had our pride puffed up a bit by a couple of people commenting on how well behaved Joshua was. However, I pointed out to Kirsten that the communal reaction of the pub when I went in to check they had a high chair was one of aprehension. So we figured that the expectation upon us was actually pretty low to begin with!
Every day we enjoyed a bit of a lie in. This meant that although we got up to have breakfast together, we all went off back to bed after breakfast time! Huzzah for morning naps!
At Digley resevior, we enjoyed our lunch in the sun. Alas, as we were about to go for a walk the skies opened a monsoon fell. We gave up on the walk and went for a drive instead.
On our way home, we stopped at a dairy farm for a coffee and to pick up some decent ice cream. The place is called Delph House Farm, and although we were only there for half an hour or so, we had a great time drinking coffee in the sun, playing 'Boc' with the chickens (Joshua particularly liked the chickens), and tasting some lovely ice cream. Turns out their ice cream parlour has only been in business a few weeks. So, if you ever find yourself on the A629 to Huddersfield, then we would recommend a stopping for a coffee and an ice cream.
When we get back to Bromley, I'll be starting my second year at Christ Church. It's amazing that we have been here a year already, and I can't wait to get stuck into the second year.
I'm sure that the blogs and social networking sites of the UK are buzzing with posts and updates following the 2008 New Word Alive event in Pwllheli, North Wales. Not wishing to miss out on the action, here is my tupence worth.
All in all, the event was really good. The morning Bible studies were excellent, as were the evening talks. The teaching was faithful, deep yet understandable, and were all steeped in helpful application. The praise was led really well, providing a helpful mix of sound Word-based songs led in a way that drew people into singing God's glory and responding to the teaching in praise.
The only thing going against the event was the natural consequences of having to set up and run a whole event for over 5000 people in less than a year. If the problems with venue capacities and organisation experienced this year were still around in 3 or 4 years times, then there would be something to worry about. But given that this was New Word Alive's first year, I'd be happy to write them off simply as teething problems.
Unfortunately, New Word Alive is still finding opposition even after its first year. Despite trying desperately to find a suitable venue, the organisers of New Word Alive have had to go with hosting the 2009 event in Prestatyn, North Wales, which is a smaller venue. The consequences of this is a two week split event - one week for students and a separate week for families. This is not at all the direction the event organisers (primarily UCCF and Keswick Ministries, among others) want to take New Word Alive. Hopefully, 2010 will see New Word Alive with a venue and a programme that it can start building a brilliant yearly event on.
As I said before, it was a great event and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone looking for a Christian holiday with thoroughly biblical teaching and superb seminars or peripheral activities.
Oh, the only other downer from the week was that I got a cold.
I was asked to give my 'testimony' at a womens Easter service at church. It focussed on what God has been teaching me through things that have been happening in the last few months.
Here is the testimony...
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And here is the song, 'For this I have Jesus'...
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Right-o. Well, whilst I try and figure out how to get all the content of our site back online (some hacker-geek thought it would be a good idea to destroy our site - can anyone see the point in that?), here are some brief bits of news for those of you who check here to find out what is going on.
The work at Christ Church is going great guns. The two youth groups have recently undertaken a fairly significant overhaul which has seen God's grace grow in the lives of the young people as they get stuck into God's word more and more. Moving from a games-centred programme to a Bible-centred programme, we were expecting numbers to fall. However, all of the young people that came along to try the new format out have enjoyed it and some of the non-Christian lads from the 14-18s group have started coming along to the Sunday meeting and then joining us for the evening service.
Kirsten has fully recovered from her C-section and is now in full swing as a mum. I must say, she is an excellent mum - loving and caring yet level-headed and focussed.
Joshua has learnt to blow raspberries.
He has also figured out how to soak mummy whilst in the bath (but he doesn't dare soak daddy - I'm hoping its from fear of daddy getting his own back with a super-soaker in a few years time)!
More news and info (as well as the rest of the site) soon.
