Update week ending 26th February

Afternoon at the end of a wet week here in Essex. We hope you are all well and thanks for your continued support in our church planting adventure!

This week has seen some of the Harlow Group men enjoy a men’s day entitled ‘Men of Stortford’ at Community Church where we are based which was a great day. In addition Adrian Holloway (from ChristChurch London ) came to speak at Community Church last Sunday and inspired us in the area of making Jesus known which was very timely for us as Harlow Group, as we’ve felt God nudging and reminding us that Harlow is a town consisting of 90,000 people the majority of whom need to know that there is a God who loves them, died for their sin and who wants a personal relationship with them.

In response we’re considering how to get to know more people around our town and will keep you posted once things materialise more but we’d appreciate your prayers for us as we seek to go purposefully into Harlow to grow our group.
In addition if you could continue to pray for God’s protection over us particularly regarding health and employment we’d massively value that. Plus one final specific request this week would be a job for James in our group as he urgently needs employment in order to move and join us here in Harlow all the time.

Please do keep checking our website – www.harlowchurchplant.org as we are adding new bits all the time plus it has our BLOG, News, Dates and even some videos about Newfrontiers

Have a great week and don’t forget to keep mentioning us to your friends, family and anyone else you meet!

Keep smiling
Ben & Clare

Facebook Group Update

Afternoon everyone, welcome to those of you who are new and we trust this message finds you well. Thanks again for continued support for the Newfrontiers Harlow Church Plant, we wouldn’t be where we are without your prayers and support.

We are planning to maintain these Facebook updates in addition to the BLOG part of our website (www.harlowchurchplant.org) which contains lots more info besides these updates.

Since we last wrote things have been tough and it’s fair to say we know we’re in a battle! As a group we have faced what seems like more than our fair quota of illness and employment hassles! That said God has been good to us and kept us going as well as confirming our total and utter dependence on Him. God has spoken to us regularly as a group letting us know He is with us and that we have favour with Him.

We have now established regular Thursday evening meetings which are starting to become exciting times as God is speaking to us and confirming our purpose, direction and that He is most definitely with us!

We’d still appreciate loads of prayer for wisdom and strength to keep going as the number of tasks seem to be escalating and time by contrast seems to be non-existent! We’d also appreciate prayer for God’s protection on us as a group and for jobs to appear / go better.

Lastly we’d love to meet some new people and grow in number. We have some obvious ‘holes’ in our group which we’re trusting God to fill so if you or anyone you know feels called to join us then please have a look at our website (www.harlowchurchplant.org) and get in touch via there or the Facebook group.

Have a great weekend, God bless

Ben & Clare

Harlow Group Meeting 18th February

Last night we met once more to worship Jesus plus share Shepherds Pie, cake and life with one another.

God has been speaking to us as a group lately about being in a battle, it has certainly felt that way! In line with this we drew comparisons and encouragement from scripture plus the following speech given by Winston Churchill as he address parliament for the first time as Prime Minister after taking lead of the country shortly after the outbreak of the 2nd World War.

'I say to the House as I said to the ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.


You ask what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air. War with all our might and with the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.


You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - victory in spite of all terrors - victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival'

God spoke to us last week from Psalm 23 with a special focus on verse 5 'You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.' and again last night as we prayed into this we felt God re-affirm that He is with us and that the battles and struggles we face He is with us in and that He and He alone will bring us through.

We had pictures of God being our support in the way a stick supports a plant and were also reminded of the footsteps poem where God carries us through the tough parts of life.

God also reminded us of the value of standing together and not retreating into our own worlds but standing together as a 'new' community united by Jesus. A picture was brought about Roman soldiers shields locking together and so being more together than apart and able to withstand together better as a community than apart.

Overall it was a good night where God was with us and lifting our spirits and blessing us because of His goodness.

We wait in excitement to see Him build us into the people He would have us be for Jesus' glory and honour - what a challenge and wonderful adventure we're on!

5th February Update from Facebook Group

Greetings everyone and welcome to those of you for whom this is your first contact.

Thanks for taking time to read this, for remembering us in prayer and as always we sincerely pray that you will be blessed in return. God has been impressing on us the importance and need for prayer and more and more we are realising that we are totally dependent upon Him, trusting in His grace and mercy and brought up short with our total inability to make things happen.

Since the last update lots seems to have happened although it’s only been 2 weeks. We have got a website up and running so can be found at www.harlowchurchplant.org and whilst parts of this are still changing we are hoping to use this more and more in the future so keep an eye on it.

We have also finished having our initial coffee and chat times and so are excited at the prospect of running ‘Harlow group’ every Thursday evening in various homes. We’d really value your prayers for these as they are crucial for us to build together and truly become ‘friends together on a mission’

For anyone still considering popping along we’d encourage you to get in touch! The plan is still to meet from 7 till 9 including simple food and a great time together focusing on Jesus knowing it’s all about Him!

This week we’ll be looking at what God has spoken to us prophetically so it promises to be a significant and good evening!

Please do pray that God would not only direct our Thursday evening meetings but that He would also add to our number particularly in areas where we are currently weak. Harlow contains around 90,000 people and Jesus has an inheritance here of many people who yet don’t know Him, the challenge for us is massive but we are trusting in God to direct and connect us with the right people.

In addition please could you pray for protection over us as a group as we’ve had medical scares, ill health and just lots of things not going as we planned in the past couple of weeks too!

Thanks for your continued support and please don’t forget to have a look at www.harlowchurchplant.org

Keep smiling

Ben & Clare

Facebook Group Update from 23rd January

Hello again or for the first time to those of you who have joined us in the past couple of weeks since our last update. Sorry for the slight delay with this update but lots has been happening, we’ve tried to incorporate the key points below. Also apologies to those of you who have joined the group who we don’t know and haven’t sent a personal message to. With the groups size now it is hard to determine who is new and who isn’t so if we’ve missed you please drop us a reply to this update.

Thanks for taking time to read this, for remembering us in prayer and as always we sincerely pray that you will be blessed in return.

What’s happened in the past 2 weeks then? Well primarily we’ve had the privilege of meeting lots of new people, from outstanding leaders in our town, people at Community Church Bishop’s Stortford and fresh faces at our Harlow Group drop in sessions.

Last Sunday we had the opportunity to introduce ourselves at Community Church Bishop’s Stortford where we are now based. We have been really encouraged by people from CCBS bringing words, pictures and encouragement from God for us which were extremely similar to previous words given in other settings. God is good!

Harlow Group is now up and running and we have our 4^th getting to know one another session planned for Sunday 31^st January from 3 till 4pm and then from February are aiming to meet weekly on Thursdays from 7 till 9.

If you or anyone you know of might be interested in joining or meeting us please can you forward this message onto them or ask them to get in contact via our Facebook Group page as we’d love to meet them.

We really feel we have the favour of God with us at present and would ask for specific prayer that this continues and that we honour Jesus in all we do. We would also ask you to pray that God would continue to add people to us and cause people who are living in Harlow but not part of an existing church to hear of our existence and get in touch.

Have a great week and we’ll have another update shortly plus our website should also be up and running in the next couple of weeks too.

Keep smiling
Ben and Clare

Posting from Facebook Group 8th January 2010

Happy New Year and welcome to those of you who have joined since our last update towards the end of 2009.

We are so thankful for your support and prayers as we doubt we’d be where we are without them. We sincerely pray that you will be blessed in return.

Last night we had the first of our informal getting to know each other sessions which saw 9 of us gather together for some food whilst sharing stories of the weather affected weeks we had been having. Clare and I had a great time, as we think did everyone else! We were amazed at God’s goodness in getting everyone together and giving us such a relaxed friendly feel to the group even though some people were meeting for the first time.

We must mention people’s commitment as one person had had to stay up 24 hours due to her car breaking down and another drive all the way from Manchester just to be with us! Truly humbling to be a part of and thank you so much!

Sorry to those of you who weren’t able to make it and we look forward to seeing you at one of our other meetings soon. The next 3 dates and times are as follows, Sunday 17^th January from 3 till 4pm, Thursday 21^st January from 7 till 9pm with food and Sunday 31^st January from 3 till 4pm.

If you or someone you know would like to pop along we’d love to see you just reply to this message or post on our Facebook page and we’ll get more details to you.

Prayer requests would be for meaningful relationships to be formed amongst the ‘Harlow Group’ and for us to also clearly hear God on the decisions which we are making at present for the group. Also we are trusting God to add to our number and so would appreciate prayer relating to this; that people would hear of our existence and that we would also have opportunities to share the gospel and also our vision with many people whom we currently don’t know. (And for courage to do just that!)

We’d also appreciate prayer regarding our ability to establish good relationships with the many other established churches in the town and for our relationship with the other Newfrontier Churches in the region. We have the opportunity to share briefly with Bishop’s Stortford Community Church, where we are now based, all that God has put on our hearts for Harlow next Sunday (17^th January) and so your prayers for communicating this clearly and for people to decide to support and join us as a result would be fabulous.

Have a great week and hopefully we’ll have another update shortly and are still aiming to get a website up by the end of January.

Keep smiling

Ben and Clare

Greetings

Testing blog page!