Arise Europe 98 Arise Europe was held this year from 7th to the 9th of October in Station Street Christian Centre (Hazel Grove Baptist Church), Stockport. 200 people came during the day and about 500 each night; including 70 Brazilians, and people from France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Portugal, Uganda, Kenya and the UK. The conference opened with a time of prayer and worship, which was led by Gerson Ortega (a Brazilian pastor) and Keve (GttN team). A multi-media presentation then followed, on the work of Go to the Nations, exploring ways of working together to reach the nations. Pieter Bos, a European Prayer Network Leader from Holland, then shared from his perspective, a spiritual overview commenting on the sins, strongholds and calling of Europe encompassing the past, present and future. John Mulinde, a Ugandan pastor spoke at both the evening meetings. It as a great privilege to have him with us, John is a pastor in his native country but also leads the World Wide Trumpet Mission, he travels and speaks extensively throughout the world about prayer and intercession and how God changed his nation through it. As he spoke the presence of God was very strong and he impacted many peoples lives, John shared the prophetic word God gave him for Europe which challenged all of us to pray more and also to realise the spiritual state of our continent. On Thursday, for the first time at Arise Europe, we offered seminars on 7 different topics of individual and corporate life in Christ, from Prayer to Cell Church and Social Action. These were very well attended and the feedback from delegates indicated that they were much appreciated too. We are very grateful to the Lord for the contribution the seminar speakers made as it enriched the whole gathering and taught us much. On Friday, the last day of the conference focussed on prayer for Europe using interviews and testimonies of people to help lead us in prayer. We firstly interviewed Ian Bothwell, director of Crossfire Trust asking him about their latest project of buying a property in Crossmaglen and then turning it into a Community Centre and church, at the end of the interview people surrounded Ian and his team and prayed for them. It was very moving and powerful as the Nations reached to bless what he is doing and offered him support financially and practically as well. Bill Cowie then gave a testimony about how the Brazilians breathed a breath of fresh air into his church in Scotland and how they were bringing something fresh from God to the nations satisfying peoples desire to be refreshed. Pastors Steve Abbott and Paulo Damiao talked about receiving Evandro Luchini from Presidente Prudente to work with Steve’s church in Bristol, then they led the gathering in prayer for them. Günther Geier a pastor of church in Deggendorf, Germany, spoke a little about the missions ministry of his church in Germany into India and a lot of the former Soviet Bloc. He then talked about individual Christians being the ones who would change Europe through realising their ability in God to do anything focussing on prophetic evangelism. He then led the prayer time for the whole of Europe, and whilst doing this received many, many accurate words of prophecy for those present. We want to thank the members of Station Street Christian Centre as they took a big risk in having us with not knowing us very well and they had never dealt with this volume of delegates before, but they did a splendid job and made everyone fell very welcome, all of which helped contribute to making the conference a success. We can recommend it as a great conference facility.

webmaster, 09/01/2008