WorshipCentral

Day One of our first conference. Highlights include meeting Pastors who had travelled further than us to be there, a guy who was healed of an eye condition and the team doing amazing stuff…

We woke up this morning after a few hours sleep and shuttled to the venue. James, Ali and Simone had loads of preparations to do, working with the local team to sound check, prepare the DVD's and generally sort out the conference.

Here's James 'Tour Manager' Welsh with his road crew. Classic!

Then Ali did one set of worship on his own, but things really kicked in with the addition of a local percussionist. Boy, these guys like to clap. My arms are aching.

There were about 120 people here, mostly church pastors, and they tend to drift in and out of the conference to other meetings. When we opened the conference, only three locals knew anything at all about Alpha… we had our work cut out! What is really encouraging is that the average church size here is about 400 people, so these leaders represent a huge amount of people and the potential of them catching the vision is awesome.

There were some pastors who had travelled by bus from the other side of the state, travelling for a day in 40c heat. That’s longer than it took us to fly to India. Humbling!

All the sessions seemed to go really well. In the morning I spoke on 'What is Alpha?' then Andy Wedderburn spoke on 'How Alpha Works' (below)

Then I led a session on 'Small Groups'. Then in the evening we had a Model Alpha session, with Anthea giving the 'Who is Jesus' talk (below).

Here's James with a guy who he prayed for the night before - this pastor had responded to a word of knowledge for an eye condition in his right eye. James went to pray for him and he was healed, which is cool.

There is an extraordinary need here in the church in Gujarat. One pastor was describing how grateful he was to us for coming, as many of the other Christian organizations skip Gujarat  as it's not as large as some of the other states. It's still bigger than the UK, and the first city we've been in is the size of London - it's not even the capital of the state.

It would be great if you could pray for us - the main things are:

-    Lost in Translation – very few people speak any English, and even the interpreter is stuggling a bit. Please pray for them to be able to communicate the teaching effectively. They don’t have a word for wrist in Gujarati…
-    Ministry Times & Worship – for people to encounter God more
-    Energy & Health for the team
-    For many courses to come from this conference

Here is Simone’s new best friend who has been singing songs to her…