HIM FAMILY NEWS
HIM Leeds Church 11th Anniversary
Hope Leeds Church celebrated its 11th anniversary on 2 September 2012. The majority of the church members are families and most of the ladies are nurses. Due to the nature of their work, one of the major challenges of the church is to find a common time for any activity that everyone can join. However, in this event, we can see the unity of the church. The theme was Jubilee, Finding God’s Favour. On the one hand, it coincided with the year of the Queen’s Jubilee in the UK.
On the other hand, I believe it’s gonna be the year of God’s favour upon the church. We have agreed that the Church anniversary is an event not just for the church members, but our friends and visitors. It is our desire to utilise all our activities to reach out to the pre-believers. With that intention in mind, this event saw many friends, most of which had attended our previous evangelistic events. Every one was impressed by the talents of the church leaders and members in their presentations and performances. These included Silhoutte dancing and black light handmine. Our visitors were touched by the family spirit and unity of the church. I can’t be more proud being the pastor of this church.
Written by Pastor Prakich, HIM Leeds
HIM Thailand Annual Conference
From 28 April - 2 May 2012, H.I.M Thailand celebrated its annual conference under the theme "Extraordinary" at Burapha University in Chonburi Province. Ps Simon Eng, President of HIM International, was the main speaker and also led a workshop. Altogether, 1,200 people attended the conference.
Highlights included:
1. Teachings from the book of Ruth, which challenged us to rise above the ordinary and pursue the extraordinary.
2. Workshops on various topics of interest.
3. A grand dramatisation of the story of Ruth illustrating the miraculous plan of God.
4. Sports for fellowship and fun. Celebratory and revival worship concerts were lead by various churches from HIM Thailand.
Speakers included Ps Simon Eng, Ps James Loke, Ps Choochart Chaisombat, Ps Chaiyaphreuk Piwreungnon and Ps Thammarak Thiangtham. Everyone listened very intently and enthusiastically and responded to the teaching from the Word.
The conference was a great time of encouraging and strengthening and challenged everyone to change from living mediocre lives to living miraculous lives.
HIM Philippines’ 15th Anniversary: “New Wineskin” and “Stretch up to Worship”
We were able to celebrate God’s unending goodness and faithfulness over the years, together with many new friends during the celebration of the church’s 15th Anniversary held on August 19, 2012 with the theme “New Wineskin”.
The program started with the members of the Performing Arts Ministry performing a wonderful dance number that surely blessed all those watching. Soon after, the worship team led the congregation as people began to sing and dance, praising God. They were also able to hear an amazing message about worship from our guest speaker, Pastor James Loke. With his topic “Stretch Up to Worship”, we learned about the two prerequisites, (openness and spiritual hunger) and the two fundamentals (worshipping in spirit and worshipping in truth) of worship. It was an interesting topic to learn and it was a nice reminder of how important worship really is in our walk and relationship with God.
The event was not only spiritually refreshing, but it was also an opportunity to build and strengthen relationships with friends, both old and new, from both the English and Tagalog services, through fellowship with them, as the Performing Arts Ministry once again presented another meaningful performance. The presence of the Lord was truly evident through the entire duration of the event, both in the morning and afternoon services. It was truly a fun and blessed time, but I look forward to seeing the same zeal, enthusiasm, and hunger for the Lord that they exhibited during this event in every church service, as well as to see the people continue to constantly grow, not only in number, but also in their relationship with the Lord. We are thanking God as we had 500 attending this celebration. Many also accepted Christ as their Savior and Lord on that day. May God continue to work His mighty ways and all glory and praises be given to Him!
Written by Sharee Bernardo
HIM Brisbane 19th Anniversary
Arriving early on a warm Sunday to serve, I was greeted with a flurry of activity. Volunteers from all departments across all services were frantically running around setting up in appropriately donned “I love my church” t-shirts. Today was Hope Church’s 19th Anniversary, a great milestone, especially since we were celebrating it at Unidus for the first time. Before long, masses of regular church attendees and new visitors bore the fierce heat to engage in corporate prayer before service. In between handing out communion elements and bulletins, I was once again in awe of the power of prayer across a whole church.
The service was welcomed in by another fantastic routine from the dance team, who in a month’s time had rehearsed long and hard to produce an engaging performance. It was also incredibly heartwarming to witness the Kids for Christ children deliver their own rendition of ‘Cornerstone’ – you are never too young to worship the Lord! A powerful session of praise and worship followed, with the musicality accentuated by the ever growing church choir and use of talented orchestral musicians. It was so inspiring to see new faces – particularly those from my own service – on stage serving and fostering quality praise and worship as the church proclaimed God’s glory and a desire to seek Him and His presence, over and over and over again. “I long to look on the face of the One that I love, long to stay in Your presence, it’s where I belong.” Yes and truly, Lord!
Pastor Wilson’s preaching ensued, focussing on the important of modelling the church on the person of Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of not only the church, but also, our lives. He highlighted the essence of community in our church, drawing back the focus on who it should always be on – Jesus. Encouraging and simple, the message spoke volumes into my own personal journey with God and my ministry. There is no bigger sense of unity in God’s house than when we have combined services at Hope. Knowing and seeing that despite our various differences, backgrounds and personalities, that we are all serving and worshipping together the same almighty God is something truly worth beholding. May Hope church come to see many more years to pass. Happy 19th Anniversary, Hope!
Written by Sara Leong
