The gathering of so many from the churches engaged in the growing partnerships across the provided a wonderful fragrant aroma of worship and praise to our God.
Some of the founding Pastors from and the together with new leaders within the GTTN movement shared testimonies and spoke encouragingly about what God is doing through GTTN. Joao Pedro shared about his call to to work on the streets with his unique style of evangelistic ‘street dance.’ Mauricio and Sibele working in Harlow. The sense of relationship was strong. Flavio invited the married and single ladies who were not British, forward for prayer acknowledging their particular sacrifice of being parted from parents, relations and friends living and ministering outside their home nation, this was a particularly moving occasion of ministry.
An opportunity was afforded for those with particular gifts in the arts (dance, drama, art, mime, and music) to share these with the conference and report on how God is using these gifts in His service, seeing lives change.
Bill Cowie from Leith in , regarded as one of the ‘fathers’ of the movement in the , shared on the Friday evening from John 4 with special reference to verses 35-38 concluding with ‘I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor." Just as fruit of the Samaritan woman’s testimony saw many believe, it was the fruit of the seed which had been sown many generations before when the land was given as an inheritance to . So it behooves us to see where the Holy Spirit is wanting to bring a harvest from long planted seed and engage in reaping.
Jame, in his devotional time Saturday morning reminded the gathering to maintain the preaching of the pure gospel. Tony from Bishop Stortford spoke passionately, in particularly emphasizing his relationship with Anderson from Brasa Church, which connection has revolutionized the church he pastors. Paulo Oliveria from Igreja Cristã Familia Sao Paulo, on Sunday morning helped us understand the bigger picture of God uniting the nations together from the ‘end of the earth’ from the west, using South America as one of these outposts and the Chinese churches vision of ‘back to Jerusalem’ along the old silk route, comparing this second wave as a truly Holy Spirit inspired and led ‘crusade’ to Jerusalem unlike the crusades from Europe one thousand years ago which were, political, human and very destructive, the ramifications we live with even today.
Many Pastors came for the first time to understand more about the vision of GTTN and brought people from their congregations. New contacts were made and relationships deepened and strengthened. Indeed the network increases organically day by day and lives are changed for the good purposes of seeing the Kingdom of God extended across the world.
Peter Wilks
(GTTN web and communications Manager)
