Parachute Jump

Rachel, Beth and Den all dressed up an ready to go!


To all who like to follow Dennis' exploits - he, together with Beth Powney and Rachel Aston managed to do their sponsored tandem parachute jump at Old Buckenham airfield near Attleborough last Friday, 31st October. The day couldn't have been better - it was cold, clear blue sky and when leaving the plane at about 1,000 feet the temperature was -14C!

Den floating back down to earth

Dan Wicks and myself went along to record the event, Dan filmed it and I took lots of photos - some of which are included here. When the footage has been edited we will be posting it on the Viz-A-Viz website.







Den coming into land - ending up on his knees!

Rachel, Den and Beth with the instructor

and their precious certificates

Den will be updating his blog shortly with his version of the days events!

However it is not too late should you wish to donate to the amount raised from the jump as Dennis hasn't stopped collecting yet and hasn't had his 50th Birthday yet - that is not until mid November.

Please go to http://www.justgiving.com/jumpdenjump to donate. £5,120 has been raised so far!

Diane

Summer Events!

Dennis is still alive!

It has been such a long time since I last blogged that I wonder if you were in any doubt about my still being alive.

The good news is that I am still alive and have been continuing to take a number of exciting ministry opportunities over the past few months. Below are just some highlights!

Solid
Viz-A-Viz Ministries is a partner in an exciting youth summer festival called Solid.

This festival is for young people from across Essex and East London and attracts around 800 or so young people and around 500 children. This year I was overseeing the programme and also speaking. It was really exciting to see so many young people respond to the gospel many making first time commitments and many others deepening their relationship with Christ.
http://www.solidnet.org.uk/


Leading Edge
Viz-A-Viz also partners with the Baptist Union of Great Britain on a Baptist bible week called Leading Edge. This attracts Baptists from all over the United Kingdom. This year we explored the theme ‘Travelling Light – Living in the Light of Eternity’. This theme was explored by children, young people, young adults and adults who are not so young!
Again it was exciting to see so many people moving on in their relationship with God. Out key guest this year was Philip Yancey (author of ‘What‘s so amazing about Grace?’). It was also great to have a number of speakers from across the United Kingdom. I led a seminar stream on Evangelism and also spoke at one of the evening celebrations. It’s a real privilege to be used by God in this way and to hear about the things that God is doing in the lives of people who come to Leading Edge.


BWA Living Water Conference Freeport
As well as ministry in the UK I am continuing to develop ministry with many opportunities around the world. Over the summer I was pleased to be able to travel to Freeport in the Bahamas with Lynn, my wife (this was made possible with the help of a generous donation from two of our greatest friends and supporters). Having survived Hurricane Fay which involved spending two days at Miami International Airport! We travelled to Freeport and spoke at a conference for leaders from across the Caribbean. It was exciting to have this opportunity to speak to so many leaders about ways of engaging people who are becoming less likely to attend church. I had many great conversations with people after my sessions and made some key contacts.

Addition to speaking at the conference I was privileged to speak at the Sunday service of Zion Baptist Church in Freeport. It was a great time with lively worship and God spoke to many people!

As well as speaking at events I have been going to the United States recently and am planning to do so again in the near future both to deepen partnerships with Conventions on the ground but also to meet up with again with LifeWay (the publishing organisation for the Southern Baptist Convention) who have now agreed to publish and licence the More to Life DVD in the United States and we are in the process now of exploring other aspects of More to Life that will be included and made available to Churches across the United States.

As you can imagine this is quite an exciting development for Viz-A-Viz Ministries and for me and I would value your prayers that we would discern the way that is most effective and applicable.

There is so much other stuff that has been going on that I will to try to write again soon to update you on developments as they occur.

Thanks for your prayers and support. Dennis

Out and About

For those who like to keep up to date with Dennis' adventures this is being posted by Diane, Dennis' PA as Dennis has not been in the office very much of late!

This week Dennis has been out and about spending a couple of days at the National Christian Resource Exhibition, Sandown Park, Esher with various members of the Viz-A-Viz team. Envizage Theatre company have presented regular entertainment thoughout the 4 days presenting various amusing sketches. He has certainly enjoyed catching up with many old and new friends, but wished he had been able to talk with everyone he saw!

Members of our Optimum Gap year programme together with Beth and Lindsay (our Training Director and Optimum Project Manager) attended on Thursday, which is the Youth Day. They too had good conversations with many young people who are considering what to do in the next few years and may consider taking part in the Optimum year out programme.

Dennis has recently been speaking a number of Men's Breakfast meetings - last Saturday at a group near Cambridge and this week will be in Hildenborough, Kent. He has also been preaching several Sunday's at a local church and will over the Bank holiday weekend be leading a Church weekend in Eastbourne with the focus on Mission in the local church. If you would like Dennis to come to speak at an event or service, please contact us for more information!

You may have noticed various links on the left hand side - a new one has recently appeared - jumpDENjump - Dennis will be 50 later this year and will have been in ministry for 25 years and to celebrate these two momentous events he has decided to take part in a sponsored parachute jump. We still have to confirm the date but are asking for friends and supporters to sponsor him in this fundraising venture. If you would like to sponsor him please just click on the jumpDENjump link. All donations and amounts sponsored welcome!!

Den will no doubt be updating his blog shortly with more information on all of his adventures and happenings! Have a great weekend! Diane

Seek Serve Follow - on the road

Last week I spoke at the first two of a seventeen date tour spreading throughout the rest of this year that will be raising awareness of Seek Serve Follow.

Seek Serve Follow is an exciting discipleship course that Viz-A-Viz Ministries has produced alongside Girls’ Brigade England and Wales. The purpose of Seek Serve Follow is to encourage and equip Girls’ Brigade leaders to become closer followers of Jesus thus enabling them to become more effective in reaching girls and young women with the gospel.

Both events were really encouraging with a really positive response and level of interest from leaders attending. Please pray that this initiative will play a significant role in helping many girls and young women to know Christ in the coming days.
http://www.girlsbrigade.org.uk/html/ssf.html

I also spoke recently on the east coast at Skegness at the Salvation Army East Midlands Area gathering. Several hundred attended the rally and I was able to speak about the power of changed lives in communicating the message of Jesus to people today.

The response was incredibly enthusiastic and I spoke with many regarding their commitment to take steps forward in making Jesus known.

As well as travelling and speaking, over the past few days I have been at meetings considering the development of Arise, our children’s ministry in partnership with Girl’s Brigade. It is our intention to begin 100 new ‘ALF’ clubs that will enable children with no knowledge of church to discover Jesus and become his followers. We are currently exploring partnerships with churches and denominations across the country to establish these clubs. Please pray that God opens the right doors!
http://www.ariseministries.org.uk/

This week I will be at Optimum training speaking to our first and second year students about such things as Hero’s of the Faith, The Spread of the Gospel by the Early Apostles, and even taking them out onto the streets to engage in personal evangelism!
http://www.optimumgapyear.org/

On Sunday I will be preaching locally in Billericay and then off to Northern Ireland for the second leg of the Seek Serve Follow tour and in the midst of all this there are some hugely exciting developments in the United States. I will keep you in touch!

Adventures in America

Somebody said to me recently that receiving my blog is a little like receiving an annual newsletter! I have to agree with them and apologise that once again it has been an age since I last blogged – I will try to get better at this!

I thought you might be interested to know about a few things I have been involved in recently.

A good chunk of my time over the past couple of months has been spent overseas. Back in February I was in Virginia at the 21C Evangelism conference.

It is a thrill to be working with the Baptist General Association of Virginia on ‘Causing Heaven to Celebrate’. A key aspect of this initiative is recruiting people who will engage in effective evangelism and 21C was a key part of this recruitment. The highlight of the conference for me was the evening when I had the privileged to speak to the conference regarding God’s passion for the lost. At the close of the evening the response was unquestionably God inspired. People were in the presence of God and kneeling, lying down, praying, rejoicing and weeping as they responded to God and connected more deeply with his heart for the lost.

Following a week back in England while I was able to spend some time with my wife Lynn and see something of Gregg, Scott and Amy, who are now pretty busy living their own lives, I then went back to the United States and on to South Africa where I was speaking at a number of Evangelism conferences.

Far too much happen for me to mention here but again some highlights:
at each conference I was speaking about how the church can reach out to people who have never been to church. The greatest memory for me from each of the conferences was the countless conversations I had with pastors and leaders following my sessions. It just seems like many of the people I spoke with actually got it and began to really understand the need for the church in the United States to do things differently in order to reach people outside of the church. I was also able to follow up on some exciting possibilities regarding long term partnerships.

An interesting development during the trip was a visit to ‘LifeWay’ (The publishing house for the Southern Baptist Convention). Of all the times for my suitcase not to arrive at the airport and for me to have to make a visit without being able to shave or even bring the resources that I had with me this was not the best one!

Further in spite of all this I had a great time at LifeWay and was able to speak at some length regarding ‘More to Life’, a combination of DVD training and an enquirer website that can help churches to reach out to the unchurched.

Following our meetings I submitted a proposal to LifeWay regarding their publishing ‘More to Life’ in the US. I should hear back from them by the end of April. This would be an exciting development and could be significant in helping many churches to reach out to the unchurched.

Following my time in the United States I then went straight on to South Africa to speak at the Baptist Union of South Africa National Evangelism Conference. Again my theme was helping Christians to reach the unchurched. As in the United States I spent much of my time speaking with pastors and leaders following my sessions.

My activities for the period since then will (hopefully) be in my next blog which will be posted soon!