Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Off to the States
Dennis recently recorded a blog which is accessible via the Viz-A-Viz website - http://www.vizaviz.org/latestnews/ - with an update.
Enjoy!!
Friday, 9 October 2009
Dennis spent a lot of time recently with
Saturday evening at
Saturday’s, Premier Christian Radio:
1305, 1332, 1413 MW
Sky Digital 0123
Freeview 725
Dennis has told me that they are having great fun in recording and producing the programmes aided by Steve Fanstone of Premier Radio. They are talking with many people in and around
Dennis is now in the States for four weeks during which time he will be updating his blog and sharing some of the exciting things he is getting up to! To help you pray for Dennis while he is away his itinerary is below.
Friday 9 –
Evening taking last session of More to Life Training at church
Monday
Tuesday 27 Oct –
Tuesday 3 –
Wednesday, 9 September 2009

I am writing my latest blog sitting in a hotel room in Panama city, where I am speaking at a Living Water conference with the Baptist World Alliance.
The past month has been a mixture of a number of different things:
Writing
I have now almost completed the writing of the 6 session training kit ‘Engaging through story’. My draft has been sent to Lifeway and it is being edited by their assigned editor, Philip Nation, a great guy with a heart after God and a real passion and commitment for what More to Life is aiming to achieve – please pray that we will be inspired in the final workings of all the More to Life materials and that they will be used to help thousands come to faith in Jesus!
Please pray that the More to Christmas DVD, along with Discover More to Life, will be really well used by churches across the UK this Christmas and beyond.
Recording – we have now recorded some of the programmes for the new radio show that I will be presenting on Premier Christian Radio as a key part of ‘Premier Love London’. The show is called ‘Wind of Change’ and it is aimed at encouraging churches to see that they can engage in evangelism that works. Please pray that these shows will be effective and also that we will be able to complete the recording of 6 more programmes during September. If you are aware of a church that is involved in evangelism that works (It doesn’t have to be spectacular) then please let me know.
Living Water, Panama - I am currently in Panama speaking at a Living Water conference to Baptist Leaders from the six countries of Central America. God has really used the sessions I have delivered and it has been so good to engage in meaningful discussions with so many leaders who want to take back things they have learned an ‘do things differently’.
Mini-Reformation - As well as lots of ministry, I have been involved in what we are calling the ‘mini-reformation’ of Viz-A-Viz Ministries. So much has changed as we have refocused on what we really believe the contribution of Viz-A-Viz Ministries should be. I would appreciate your prayers over the next couple of weeks as we consider a whole range of things like, setting up a company to manage the ministry, considering how we best structure for the rapidly growing international ministry, looking how to raise funding that will enable us to deliver the massive opportunities that we have – your prayers and any suggestions you have would be MUCH APPRECIATED!
We also had some news that, on the one hand is really exciting, yet, as parents makes us a little ‘sad’. Our eldest son, Gregg, will be moving to New York in the next couple of weeks with his work. He will be living in Manhatten. This is great for him and we are excited about it but, I guess we just love him to bits and will miss him –please pray for us.
I will update soon but please keep praying for me and if you have any thoughts you feel I should hear, please let me know.
Thanks,
Dennis
Friday, 10 July 2009
More to Life
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
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
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
Friday, 1 May 2009
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
Friday, 3 April 2009
to Life initiative that is being produced in the United States in partnership with Lifeway.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!!

