The Junction 2006

There were over thirty people at the weekend, and despite a number of setbacks, it was incredible. We had Ali Wilson (Open Heaven, Loughborough) and Tim Stone come to cook for the weekend, but on Friday night the food car was delayed, so when we arrived at the Ichthus Prayer Centre in London it was straight into a session, with musical worship and a short talk by Vicky Earll. We then had tea, lasagne to be precise, at about 11pm! Didn’t get to bed (‘bed’) till 3.

Judith Forster was supposed to be coming to speak to us on Saturday but couldn’t make it, so Debbie Forster (Ichthus Trust, London) did sessions on creation and freedom, with music, and ministry. This term at The Journey we’re looking at the whole area of sexuality, which is a huge, and sometimes challenging area to cover. The weekends teaching was based around this topic as well, and values, and freedom…]

 

Saturday afternoon we had The Conversations, which were groups chatting about stuff.  The groups were talking about sexual experiences, homosexuality, and healthy relationships. With a bit of free time, we then had Cell Time and people got together in cell groups to chat about the weekend.

In the evening we had musical, writing and Psalms worship, and a talk by Heather Davies, using the onions and layers clip from Shrek – she talked about her testimony and how we have different layers, how they got there, and how to break them. There was a longer time of ministry, and there were other people from Maidenhead there to pray and speak and things.

 

Then the cabaret, which was hilarious! Another late night.

 

Sunday morning Phil and Ruth did a session on discipleship and mentoring, and we talked through our spheres of discipleship out, and spheres of discipleship in. We then did some musical and dance worship. Vicky then shared some round up stuff from the weekend, and more about freedom and values, and then we had a big sharing time. This was amazing. We were supposed to leave at 2pm and didn’t leave till about 4pm because people had so many stories and testimonies to share about the weekend and life.

 

We cleared up and went home.

 

Highlights for me were

- Looking around and thinking ‘I love my church, I love Jesus’

- One of the Maidenhead crew on Sat eve prophesying over me the same as what I had said last summer, and the implications.

- Hearing the stories, and seeing the changes and realisations of values in people I’ve seen grow over the past two years

- Moments like hearing stories - so many testimonies - God is so good, I love my church.

- Spending good time with good people, having good food, and running into a set of metal chairs when trying to catch a disc.