This is the second installation of my training week in Bristol. I know there has been a very short time gap between the posts, however a lot has happened since, which is brilliant.
The chapel was a very beautiful little room, fitting at most around 200 people sat on benches, not pews. This was because Wesley believed that benches were more suitable because they could be moved around easily as the chapel was also used as a place to distribute medicine and care for the poor and needy.
Sunday, we spent the morning at City Church. Simon Walker was preaching from Matthew 16. In the afternoon we went back to our host families and we all went out for a bike ride across the downs. The views were spectacular, if you ever get the chance to come to Bristol, go out on the downs!
Yesterday (Monday), Simon Walker was teaching us on grace. We worked our way through Romans chapters 1-6 and then also explored chapter 8. Simon then summed up chapter 12 for us as we were running out of time. The teaching was brilliant and Simon worked it so we had to almost teach ourselves. We had to pluck the truth from the scripture, which really helped in getting a true understanding of it. Grace has always been something that i have understood, but not fully, and when you explore it in such detail it really hits you about how amazing it truly is.
As i have not mentioned so far, it was also my birthday yesterday so it was great in the evening to all go out and eat together and just socialize as a group...all 27 of us! I'm sure the pub loved us. As the night was coming to an end, a few of the group stayed at church for a bit and prayed for each other to be healed of certain physical ailments. All of them were healed! One girl had pain when she turned her head, one guy had a hamstring problem which meant he couldn't touch his toes because of the pain. God healed them all. Pain was removed from their bodies and they are fit and well again, praise God.
Today, Howard Kellett travelled from Cheltenham. He is an avid church planter and God has use him to plant a couple of churches now, Cheltenham being the one he is planting now. They currently have around 15-16 adults. Today's sessions on the Doctrine of Scripture and Hermeneutics. He delved into the canon of scripture and taught us how the bible came to be put together as a book and why the certain books were chosen and why some were left out, which was interesting. However, I generally found these subjects to be quite challenging and hard to follow at times. I just need to review the notes and try to grapple with them a bit more.
Tomorrow, Simon is back with us and he will be teaching about the Holy Spirit and his gifts. I'm expectant that it will be a great day where God will reveal a lot to us as a group.
It has been an amazing week, God has really met with us in a big way, and I can't wait to get back to Poole and put my new found knowledge and experiences into practise to further the Kingdom. I'm expectant that God will change us all (for the good) this year and build us into the people that he wants us to be.
Until next time...
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