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Sold out for Jesus!The New Word Alive conference is scheduled to take place at Pwllheli, North Wales, from April 7 to 11. EN asked Nigel Beynon, who is responsible for organising the event, to tell us how things are going. It feels like a long time since October last year, but I can still remember the day. It was October 16; the phone rang in the middle of the afternoon. It was Haven’s booking office, ‘New Word Alive is sold out!’ Around April 2007, UCCF and Keswick took the brave, exciting and yet sad decision to run New Word Alive. It was sad because ‘old’ Word Alive had run for 14 years with Spring Harvest but that partnership had now ended. It was exciting because we had a great opportunity to run an event that we felt would truly serve the evangelical church in the UK. And it was brave, because we’d never done this and had little idea of how it was going to go! And so in May 2007 we started planning, with a strange mixture of confidence and weakness. We had a clear conviction there was a place for an event like New Word Alive. We received a lot of encouragement and support as we announced our intentions. We trusted many from Word Alive would make the step from Skegness to North Wales. All in all, we felt the Lord was with us in this venture. It’s complicatedYet, while confident we felt very weak. Inevitably everything took longer than we thought. Issues were more complex than we would ever have guessed. Problems arose that we didn’t see coming. At times I wondered if we were really going to get off the ground. Finally we opened for bookings in mid-July — just as everyone was packing up for their summer holidays! Not a great start. Mid-September came and it was the time for hard financial decisions. I found myself in front of spreadsheets looking at ‘what if’ scenarios. What if we didn’t sell out? What if we couldn’t get things organised in time? Booked upAnd then October 16 came, and the wonderful news that all our accommodation had been booked! That has been a continued source of encouragement in the months since then. We are so very grateful to all those who have supported this event by booking to come, and very grateful to the Lord for a clear indication of his presence and blessing to our efforts. While our prayers were being answered in bookings, God was also leading us forward in our aims and programme. We have a clear desire that New Word Alive should be a place where evangelicals can unite together, unashamed of our core convictions about Jesus’s death, the Bible, God’s radical grace and mission to the world. Indeed, we want to be a place where we rejoice in those things together. It has been a great encouragement to see the programme come together, and we are very grateful to those who are coming to serve us. Don Carson will be giving expositions from 1 John. Terry Virgo, John Piper and others will show us what it means to follow Christ in Grace, Suffering and Service. We also have Bible Overviews, Doctrine Tracks and, of course, a full programme for infants, children and youth. Serving the Church, Reaching the WorldThe chair of the New Word Alive trustees, Hugh Palmer, said at our first meeting, ‘If we run an event which merely gives some encouragement to Christians we will have failed’. Of course he didn’t mean that encouragement was bad! Rather, this event gives the opportunity to do much more. The strap line for New Word Alive is ‘Serving the Church, Reaching the World’. While big events like ours can seem exciting and grand, they are to be servants of where the real action lies — the local church. God has gifted every Christian to play their part in the church so that the church can then reach the world for Christ. We want New Word Alive to have a distinctive element of equipping and energising Christians to use their gifts in serving others back at home, and so help churches in their mission to their communities and to the world. This practical training element comes out particularly in our afternoon seminars. For instance, we will have tracks on: * How to improve my home group To be honest, I’ve got a dream scenario in my head about next April. I dream about a group coming from a local church, each of them with their own God-given gifts and passions. Some are long-term home-group leaders, one has an interest in social action, a couple are potential preachers, others are trying to help friends struggling with depression, another has an interest in China, and so on. And, my dream continues, at New Word Alive, they each go to the seminar track suitable for them and find not only clear teaching and practical wisdom but also excitement and vision. And they each return home buzzing inside because they feel equipped and energised to go forward in their service of the Lord. And through them and their churches, the gospel goes to the world! Please join us in praying for the dream to become reality. Come and join us!It is still possible to join us at New Word Alive. You could book a cottage or B&B nearby and then buy an Event Pass (available via http://www.newwordalive.org). Or, we hope to have some more on-site accommodation becoming available in January/February — see our website for announcements. Nigel Beynon,
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