Are you passionate about seeing the lives of children, the children within your community, transformed as they discover Jesus and become His followers? Arise Ministries are excited and driven by a desire to work with and through the local church, equipping the church to reach a generation.

Arise Ministries are running a day conference at Sandy Baptist Church, Bedfordshire on Saturday 24 March 2012 where they will be exploring how we can reach and release children with the Gospel and also help them grow as disciples of Jesus. There will be lots of opportunities to share thoughts and ideas with the group, as well as breaks to enable networking with others attending.

More information can be found on the Arise Ministries website: www.ariseministries.org.uk/support.htm.

A flyer for this event can be viewed and downloaded here.

This year our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes went to rural Swaziland. OCC were able to broadcast live on internet a shoebox distribution to school children in a small village called Kaphunga . If you missed it you can watch it here.  They lost their link the first time!  We are not responsible for any advertising added by UStream.

More details from: http://www.operationchristmaschild.org.uk/shoebox-live

It’s hard to believe that, out of the whopping 80 million chocolate Easter Eggs sold each year, not one of them mentions Jesus on the box. Until now that is.

The Real Easter Egg is the first and only Fairtrade chocolate Easter Egg to explain the Christian understanding of Easter on the box. It also supports charity and development projects.

Interested? The lead national retailer for 2012 is Morrison’s with the Coop leading on availability after that. Some Waitrose shops will have stocks and many independents. The other way to buy The Real Easter Egg is to order direct from the supplier at: www.realeasteregg.co.uk.  

Every day, people in the UK face darkness alone. The statistics are shocking:

1 in 15 people self harm -  the highest rate in Europe . 1 in 20 people have an eating disorder. 1 in 4 women have been sexually violated. 1 in 4 women require treatment for depression at some time.

The answer to their needs lies within the Church’s mandate to bind up the broken hearted and proclaim freedom for the captives . (Isaiah 61)

MPower is delivered by an experienced member of the Mercy Ministries UK team and consists of three main seminars focusing on:

Eating Disorders Self harm Keys to Supporting the broken

Mercy Ministries is a Christian charity with over 25 years experience in providing residential support for young women with life controlling issues. They are passionate about providing an opportunity for church leaders to be equipped, empowered and encouraged in order to maximise the church’s response to the [...Full item]

HELPING TO HEAL: HOW CHURCHES CAN SUPPORT SURVIVORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

A SPRING MINISTRIES’ TRAINING DAY – 3 MARCH 2012 AND 29 SEPTEMBER 2012

Sexual abuse, according to research, affects 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys.  That equates to about 10 million people in the UK who are survivors of sexual abuse.  A report by the Church of England said that 80% of churchgoing women will go to someone in church for help rather than a counsellor or other professional.

There has been a welcome increase in recent years in the availability of training around child protection issues in churches. But there is very little information and training available on how to respond well to adult survivors of child sexual abuse.  This training day looks to plug that gap.

On this ‘Helping to Heal’ training day we will look at some basic information, to lay a foundation, such as:

· what is child sexual abuse?

· what is the ‘spectrum of abuse’?

· what is the impact of abuse on people’s [...Full item]