In Depth:  Keswick Ministries

The Keswick Convention has invited disability expert Kay Morgan-Gurr to help them make the event more accessible.

Having trained as a nurse, specialising in children who had disabilities, Kay stepped into full-time ministry as a Children’s Evangelist nearly 30 years ago. She’s been passionate about inclusion since she was a teenager and saw her ministry to children as a way to make a difference. Today, she works solely in ministry with and alongside those with disabilities and additional needs and is co-founder of the Additional Needs Alliance. She also serves on the Evangelical Alliance council, as well as working alongside other Christian events.

The planning application for development into a conference of the Pencil Factory centre is due to go before the Lake District National Park planners in December.

The pencil factory warehouse and admin building will be demolished to create space for the 2020 in time for the main tent Keswick Convention.

If a holiday cottage could write, it would fill many a book.

Visitors come and go and the cottage is woven into the tapestry of life. More often than not, the cottage forms the centrepiece of the annual holiday highlight. It offers four walls of protection from the hustle and bustle of the daily slog, a much-needed haven. Depending on its setting, it will also serve as a door into another world, a world of beauty and escape.

Thirteen members of the Keswick business community and representatives of the town council met with Keswick Ministries on 6 September to discuss better ways of working together.

Suggestions were put forward to help find more synergies between the Convention and businesses in the town. Keswick Ministries are introducing initiatives including a quarterly town liaison meeting; offering businesses physical and online advertising space during the Convention, as well as promotion from the stage; and cutting back on the afternoon Convention programme so people can have more time to enjoy what is on offer in the town.

I became a Christian a few weeks before my eighth birthday. It was in my father's Sunday School class that I realised that the Lord Jesus had died for my sins. And so, in my childlike way, I received Christ Jesus as Lord and knew that I belonged to him.

When I was in my teens, I used to think that was a very ordinary thing to say – dull even. Sometimes I longed to have a more exciting story to tell, of a dramatic rescue from a lurid past. But as I have got older and, perhaps, a little wiser, I have come to understand that my rescue is just as unique and extraordinary an example of the magnificent grace of God as any other.

Less than five minutes into the conversation with James Robson it becomes apparent that he is passionate about teaching people the Word of God. Wrestling with Scripture is at the heart of what motivates him, as is his desire to follow Jesus and be changed in the process.

As a child, James, one of three boys, loved all kinds of sports and games. Everything was a challenge and a competition. While one of his brothers became one of England’s top professional bridge players and the other runs an investment bank, the Lord had different plans for James.

Steve Brady, Principal of Moorlands College in Dorset, will tell you that he is from Liverpool and a true Evertonian.

Steve Brady loves football, but truly comes alive when talking about the Word of God. Steve comes from a mixed church background and had little to do with church during his childhood.

Keswick Ministries’ Board of Trustees revealed the vision for its development plans, named The Derwent Project, in mid-November.

As part of this, Keswick Ministries (KM) acquired the former pencil factory site adjacent to its existing Rawnsley property in Keswick. The decision to purchase the site came as a result of KM’s continued growth.

2015 sees the 140th anniversary of the Keswick Convention and the possibility of an addition to the current site.

The possibility of securing the land adjacent to the Rawnsley site in Keswick, through purchasing the former Derwent Pencil Factory site, has arisen. In looking at how best to manage a growing event and being keen to integrate many things at one main site, this new step forward will secure the future for a growing summer convention, as well as allowing for an extension of activities at other times of the year.

The annual Keswick Convention held during July and early August saw an estimated 12,000-15,000 people visit for bible study and worshipping God together.

Weeks of almost unbroken sunshine went together with record attendances. Around 3,700 people were at the Bible readings with Oxford University mathematician Professor John Lennox, plus around 800 children and young people in groups. A 95-year-old local lady, Sally, was there again: she has been coming to the Convention since she was five!