More to Life

July 2009

Life has been busy!!

A couple of weeks ago we filmed the sessions for ‘Discover More to Life’ in the Lake District and London – below are a few pictures for you to look at.

When we began filming in the Lakes we spent time with God and asked that he would make the conditions and lighting in his ‘studio’ just perfect for what we wanted. In the most remarkable ways it felt as though he was going before us, the locations we were led to, the people we met who guided and helped us, and even the weather! God was with us and what was filmed looks great! We had a similar experience filming the opening and closing sessions in London.
I am now in the final stages of writing the text for the ‘journal’ that will be used for the Discover More to Life groups. Please pray that God will guide me to phrase the questions and comments in just the right way so that, as they are used, people will come to know Christ.
As well as the writing and filming for More to Life, developments have been taking place regarding our partnership with Premier Christian Media and ‘Love London’. More to Life is key within the evangelistic expression of Love London and we are producing a new DVD for the UK – ‘More to Christmas’. We have filmed 7 people from very different backgrounds talking about the difference that faith in Jesus is making in their lives. These stories can be viewed as a montage including brief excerpts from each or, the viewer can select and view each story in full. We are filming the final part on Thursday 23rd July. I will be presenting the message of Christmas by drawing out little snippets from each story on the DVD to demonstrate how the story of Jesus is still impacting lives today.
A key feature of our partnership with Premier is a new radio show that I will be hosting. It is called ‘Wind of change’ and will feature interviews with churches that are engaging in evangelism that is working. They may be small or large churches doing incredibly creative or seemingly ordinary things – the key is to help those who listen to see that God is still changing lives. My prayer is that this show will help to increase the hope and expectancy of many churches who have lost confidence in the life-changing power of the gospel.
I have just recorded a trailer for the show which will be played during the summer – the first show will be at the beginning of September.
As you can see, the last month has been filled with ‘More to Life’. God is still opening amazing new doors of opportunity in the UK. The US and in many other parts of the world. I will be having some key meetings and discussions throughout the summer so will update you as things develop.
As well as all the activity with More to Life I have been giving some attention the what has been described as ‘Viz-A-Viz’s biggest reformation since it began’. This is not an exaggeration!
I would again appreciate your prayers as we seek to restructure the ministry in such a way that we can move forward into the opportunities that the Lord has for us. If you feel any prompting from the Lord that you feel i should hear then please email me.
Thanks for your prayers. Dennis

Blog update

26th May 2009.

This latest blog is being written in my hotel room in New York City. I have spent the last 10 days or so in the United States – the first part of this trip was in Virginia where I am working with the Baptist General Association of Virginia on an evangelism initiative called 670.

This visit was a little different in that as well as speaking with some groups about outreach, preaching in a church in Richmond and discussing strategy with Wayne Faison (team leader for evangelism), I also spoke at the State conference for youth pastors and leaders.

I took as my major theme the reality that things are changing and if young people are going to become disciples of Jesus and impact their generation, rather than merely survive by retreating into the church, then a new approach was called for where, in some senses, young people must lead the way and help the church in general to know how to live and communicate the gospel into the world today.

As always, i met with some great people who are so passionate and committed to seeing young people become followers of Christ – my prayer is that they will be able to make the adjustments necessary to be able to help young people and churches be in a place to impact people with the gospel in the days ahead.

I guess another highlight for me was preaching at Calvary Baptist church in Richmond – i tag preached with Pastor Bubba (a cowboy pastor) – he started, i finished. It was great to hear that 6 people made decisions to follow Jesus at the service.

Following Richmond I travelled to New York City to spend some time with Richard Taylor, the Director of Evangelism for the New York Baptist Convention. I spoke at United Trinity Baptist church – a church in the middle of a ‘high rise city’ called le frak – a population of tens of thousands of people. The convention is planning to use More to Life in a significant way on this estate so it was great to see it and get a sense of the opportunity and the challenge facing the church. (I will include some photo’s in my next blog – i forgot to bring the lead to connect my camera to my lap-top).

The most significant part of my time in New York was a meeting with the key leaders of New York Southern Baptist Convention (NYSBC) and heads of evangelism and church planting from North American Mission Board (NAMB).

This meeting had been arranged by Richard Taylor to explore the possibilities of More to Life being used as a significant resource in some key projects in New York City and nationally as part of the Southern Baptist GPS (God’s plan for salvation) initiative – the potential of the latter of these is enormous.

It was a really great meeting, helped hugely by the fact that people from Lifeway (who are publishing the More to Life training and discovery materials) joined in by ‘conference call’. Chris Johnson and Philip Nation were able to speak so clearly and enthusiastically about More to Life and how they hoped and believed it would be such a significant resource for outreach in the US and beyond. They spoke so highly of the uniqueness and effectiveness of the principles of More to Life as well as the quality and relevance of what is being produced.

Following this I presented some of the vision and philosophy behind More to Life and how it can be so effective in releasing believers into personal evangelism. A really good discussion followed this presentation – considering ways that More to Life may best be used to reach the increasing numbers of people who are lost across the United States – and beyond.

It was also great to hear Richard share how he was so convinced that More to Life works because both he, and his wife (who is not a natural faith sharer!!!) had used the DVD themselves and were now in conversation with unbelieving friends. His enthusiasm was tangible! He then outlined plans to use the DVD in 2 or 3 high rise residential areas where churches are meeting in apartments as well as in a suburban area and an more rural area upstate..
The people from the North American Mission Board were very enthusiastic about ways More to Life may be used to significant effect as part of their evangelism initiative – some of the possibilities they mentioned are incredibly exciting and result in tens of thousands of people hearing the gospel. I can’t go into detail at this stage as no plans have yet been ‘agreed’ – watch this space!

As a result of this meeting, the potential for More to Life to develop with and beyond what i had anticipated with our partners in the US and is now very real. I confess that I have no game plan worked out for all of this – it just seems to keep growing and More to Life could become a significant tool for outreach across many parts of the world, for now I will just keep on following where he leads. ‘It’s all about Jesus!’ He came to seek and to save the lost and it seems he may is opening up unique opportunities for us to join him in his mission.

Blog update 28th May 2009

I am now sitting at Nashville airport – on my way home!
I have spent the past few days filming with Lifeway in Nashville. I have been filming the six training sessions for More to Life and it has been a great time. The location for the filming was perfect – a loft in the city centre that did not look in any sense churchy – it was beautifully lit – really creative artwork decorated the location which has exposed brick walls and really great windows that served as a perfect background.
As well as filming at the location we also filmed in different parts of town and these again were really creatively done.
Following the filming i was able to meet with some key leaders who have huge responsibility for different ministries within Lifeway – their enthusiasm for More to Life seems to be beyond what i could have ever expected and when the resource is completed and then launched early 2010 who knows what might happen?
When i get back to the UK we will be filming the four sessions of ‘Discover More to Life’ in the Lake district. I will soon be completing the scripts for these and then working on the accompanying notes that will be used in these groups. I would really appreciate your prayers as i do this – i want to get this just right as it is likely that these materials will be used in many parts of the world reaching enormous numbers of people.
My next update will focus on Love London with Premier.
Dennis

Blog update



Over the past week or so life has been rather filled up with a major initiative I am involved with at the moment which is writing the materials for the ‘More to Life’ project that is being launched in the United States in December this year.

Much of my time over the past few days has been spent writing the ‘Training Kit’, part of More to Life. This training kit includes 6 sessions which are all aimed to help believers get involved in personal evangelism. I am currently in the process of writing the scripts that will be used for the teaching aspect of the training kit. For each of the 6 sessions I will be delivering a 15 minute or so teaching section that will be filmed onto DVD and used by the group taking part in More to Life. Please pray that these scripts are really effective and help people to gain the confidence and inspiration to become involved in sharing their faith with lost friends and neighbours.

As well as writing I have been involved in speaking. This has mainly been local to where I live, which is a good thing because soon I will be travelling away again to the United States for 2 ½ weeks.

Recently I was speaking at a dinner arranged by a local Christian Vision for Men group in Benfleet. It was great to be able to chat with people about my own story and how God is using my ministry and the ministry of Viz-A-Viz in reaching out to people across the world. I had great conversations with people afterwards many of whom were encouraged and inspired to become more involved in evangelism.

Following that I was speaking at our Optimum Training week at St Mark’s in Saffron Walden. It is always a real thrill to be speaking with the people who are doing our year out programme. Our strap line is ‘Let God bring out the best in you’ and it is so exciting to see God doing just that in so many of their lives.

This week I have been taking the second years and looking at how we can communicate the gospel in ways that are relevant and effective, so many of them are just so good at taking hold of truth and communicating it in ways that are creative and effective. This is always inspiration!

Check it Out

As well as writing More to Life I have also been involved in some of the writing and final editing for a new youth resource Viz-A-Viz is producing called ‘Check it Out’. Joy and Andy Clark and Claire Parry of Taste have been doing a huge amount of work on this and I have been working with them to ensure that Check it Out is a really effective resource that will help young people outside of church to discover who Jesus is and how they can become his followers. This is now in the final throes of production and we are really excited to think that very soon this will be available for churches to use in helping people to discover Jesus.


Love London

In addition to the writing and speaking I have also begun discussions with Premier Christian Media regarding Viz-A-Viz and my involvement in an Evangelistic initiative called ‘Premier Love London’. It is likely that we will be very involved in this and I personally will be delivering a weekly radio broadcast and other broadcasts called Love London which will be looking at ways that churches are making an impact in their local community and helping people to come to know Jesus. This provides a great opportunity for us to work very significantly in London over the next couple of years and to help churches to reach out in new creative ways.


As you can see life has been rather busy dominated quite a lot by writing and some by speaking. In the coming weeks I have critical deadlines to reach with regard to writing More to Life before travelling to the United States later in May to speak at conferences and events in Virginia, to film and meet with people at LifeWay in Nashville and then to have some significant meetings in New York State regarding how More to Life may possibly become a national initiative for evangelism in the United States.

Will update soon.

Dennis

A new role!

Over the past few weeks something rather significant has taken place regarding my ministry. In the light of the ever growing opportunities for ministry in many parts of the world and the potential impact of More to Life in and beyond the United States, as from now my rather grand sounding title is 'International Director'. I am not one for grand titles but am ok with this because it actually describes what i am now doing. Please pray that God continues to open doors and opportunities for this ministry!

MORE TO LIFE PROMO FILMING

Over the past few days I have been filming a promotional DVD to begin to raise awareness of the More to Life initiative that is being produced in the United States in partnership with Lifeway.

It was great to be able to film this in the new Viz-A-Viz recording studio that has just been completed. Having this. along with the editing and design studios is very exciting and provides so many opportunities for the future.

Scripting and then filming a promo is always a really interesting thing to do because it focuses the mind so much. Trying to say 'everything' in three minutes is a challenge but always fun!

The final words that i delivered to camera were: ' More to Life takes seriously the challenge of our times and rather than fearing this challenge, considers it as an opportunity for churches and believers to discover again what is at the very root of our faith - God's passion for the lost - a passion that leads believers out to share the best news in the world, to experience the thrill of seeing lives transformed, to cause joy in heaven.'

It is planned that this promo will be made widely known across the United States linking people to a website landing page that will enable them to use More to Life in their outreach. Please pray that God's passion for the lost is grasped and becomes the motivation for many to become involved so that more and more lost people will hear that God loves them.

There is so much more i could share now but i will be blogging again in around 10 days or so with some exciting updates on an evangelistic initiative in London. But now - i am having a weeks holiday!!

If you have anything that you feel the Lord has laid on your heart that you want to pass on to me or, just want to make contact - please feel free to email me: dennispethers@vizaviz.org

Dennis

March 2009

I have just returned from a series of meetings in the US. I have outlined what happened below - these represent a great opportunity for more people across the world to hear the gospel!

My first meetings were with Lifeway in Nashville, Tennessee. Lifeway is the 'biggest publisher in the world.' At these meetings we agreed that Lifeway will publish a More to Life training kit and Discovery course to accompany the More to Life DVD in the US. I will write these materials and they will be made available to churches across the USA and beyond. As well as writing the materials i will present the teaching aspects on DVD that will be included in both the training kit and discovery course. These will be released by December 2009 and accompany the DVD which will be marketed at Christmas. A great opportunity to reach thousands of lost people with the gospel.

Over the next couple of days i will be scripting and presenting a short promo DVD that will be shown by Lifeway to key church leaders in the US preparing them for what is to come.

In case you are interested the More to Life materials will consist of the following:

TRAINING KIT
o Session 1 – Causing heaven to celebrate – to motivate people to join in with God’s passion for reaching the lost – use will be made of Luke 19 and 15.
o Session 2 – Reaching the lost (Far off people) this will encourage people to identify those that they may reach and introduce the four story approach as a way to make this possible.
o Session 3 – story 1 – practical help in enabling people to gain the confidence to give the outreach DVD to another person – very practical session.
o Session 4 – story 2 – help in telling ‘my story’ emphasis on it being a story that is present tense and that will be told in such a way that it is helpful to the person that is hearing it.
o Session 5 – story 3 – encouraging people to learn how to listen to/get to know/develop a friendship with the other person rather than just hitting them with the gospel and expecting immediate response. We will look at the four encounter stories that are used in the Discovery course and highlight how Jesus listened and understood the person’s need rather than just talking at them. This session will also include a preview of the Discovery Course.
o Session 6 – story 4 –helping people to present the gospel – major focus will be on the Discovert Course, but it will include presenting the gospel outside of the Discovery Course.

The DVD aspect of the Training Kit will be filmed in Nashville in front of a small live audience in an informal setting.

DISCOVERY COURSE.

This is made up of four sessions each based on a personal encounter with Jesus in the gospel of John - I will include more details of this in my next blog.

Following on from my visit to Lifeway, I travelled to Washington DC to attend and contribute into the annual meetings of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) . I am a member of the Evangelism and Education Executive Committee.
I had been asked to make a presentation to this group outlining some of the key trends happening around the world regarding people’s receptivity to the gospel and to suggest some key considerations as to how the BWA may speak prophetically into this situation. The presentation was very well received along with a firm conviction to develop this at the next meeting and to produce a plan that would inform the international evangelism strategy for the next five years.
I was also invited (during the meetings) to address the youth committee and facilitate a similar exercise with them – it was again a really fruitful time with this group also resolving to prioritise some key steps forward into enabling BWA to help churches engage more effectively with emerging generations.
In addition to this input, I was able to network with a significant number of key leaders from around the world. I also spent some time talking with David Coffey regarding the ministry that I am involved in – this is always such a useful and helpful time and I really appreciate it.

After the BWA meetings I met with Lamar Duke and Richard Taylor – from the Baptist Convention of New York (BCNY).
I had met Lamar when he was a Director of Mission in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was keen to explore More To Life when he moved to be State Director for church planting in New York. He had introduced MTL to his colleague, Richard Taylor (Director of Evangelism). I met with Lamar and Richard in Scranton, North PA and outlined MTL, highlighting the 3 ‘ingredients’ (Training Kit, DVD, Discovery Course). Richard was absolutely taken with the whole approach and is keen to make MTL the state-wide initiative to deliver the North American Mission Board (NAMB) National Initiative for evangelism. (This is known as GPS). He was also extremely keen to present the More to Life approach to the national office and encourage them to see More to Life as a key component of their national initiative. This, linked with Lifeway, could be even more enormous than the potential of Lifeway alone!! We have pencilled in some time in May, between my visit to Virginia and filming with Lifeway, when he will ask them to come to meet with me in New York City.
The picture continues to unfold in an amazing way – i moved on to Pennsylvania where i met with a group of pastors who are keen to develop More to Life in their region.

Back home i am now developing a major evangelistic initiative in London and am soon to have a new guy working closely with me - he is just passionate about Jesus and I can't wait.

More next time.

Dennis

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