New Wine Leadership Harrogate 2014

Just back from the  New Wine Leaders Conference 2014  in   Harrogate

It was the second time I had been to this conference and like the first I came back grateful for the opportunity to be there

There were things that I struggled with and things that I was blessed by and this post is about those things

                                                                                                   

7 great things about New Wine 2014

1. .      There is a passion for Jesus that is evident everywhere from the worship to the teaching they really do desire to put Jesus front and centre of everything
2. 2     The teaching of John Tyson from New York, I had never heard of him before but he was a very clear expositor of the Bible text and also applied it to our context
3. .      The seminar programme  was very helpful and stimulated lots of ideas as we think about our next steps as a church in Shrewsbury .There was also an excellent seminar on the impact of Fresh Expressions
4. .      The chance to chat together with other church leaders in a relaxed environment including and indeed especially those from our own church
5.       The encouragement and affirmation  of the ministry of women
6.       The worship band were again wonderful and introduced some beautiful songs
7. .      The missional focus of  many of the speakers. I am not sure New Wine were first to the missional party but they have certainly arrived

Things I struggled with (note I am not saying these are wrong just that I did not find them helpful personally)

The endless appeals to go to the front for a whole myriad of reasons –I don’t ever get the impression that quiet reflection is a New Wine value ! At one session I personally felt the need to leave before the message was appealed out of me  Sometimes it is enough just to allow the Holy Spirit to do His work

·        The  fact that after a healing meeting when scores of people claimed they had been healed ,there was no follow up or mention of individual cases in the following days that I heard It would have been good to hear those stories

·        I don’t think New Wine has yet decided finally whether it is the charismatic wing of the Anglican church or a trans- denominational movement. It claims to be the latter but behaves like the former nearly all the time.

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