It was with much excitement that we gathered for the Saturday of Pursuing His Presence : The Academy with almost 50 students booked in for our first academic year it was a very exciting moment.
Our excellent academy team got stuck in immediately and the hall was all set up and laid out within 30mins. The majority of the team then spent the next 20mins praying for the day whilst our worship team got set up and practiced.
Students started arriving from around 9.15am, travelling from far & wide to be with us, some of them from as far as Cockermouth in Cumbria!
There was a real buzz of anticipation, we kicked off with a wonderful time of worship lead by Caroline and Shereen.
Then Naomi shared on the subject of Identity:
a) I am Accepted
b) I am extremely valuable
c) I am eternally loved
d) I am fully forgiven
e) I am fully capable
David then looked at the subject of our walk with God with the title: “Life In The Secret Place” looking at how our created purpose was to walk with God and know a close and intimate relationship with Him - he shared a number of different ways for people to help develop their times with God over the next few months - a number have already shared that they were going to try some different ways to see if this helped their walk with God over the next two months.
Rupert & Izzy then looked at the subject of Biblical Foundations For Prophecy which was an excellent time sharing the biblical foundations of prophecy, showing how in our culture prophecy isn't such an odd concept and looking at specific examples in the Bible.
These sessions were a great introduction to the whole trajectory of the course with our aim being to bring everyone in the room up to the same level, ensuring that we all had the same background of teaching going forward into the rest of the course.
Following on from our lunch break Graham shared about Baptism in the Spirit and then the team prayed for people, sharing the prophetic words they had for people and praying for those who responded to these. It was an excellent day and a great start to the academy!
We’ve already had some really encouraging feedback from those who attended and are really looking forward to our next gathering in November. We’re going to adjust a few things to help make the day run even more smoothly and be even more helpful for those coming along! Some of the tweeks have been suggested by students whilst others are things we felt would work better following our first session.
We'd really value your prayers for the Academy:
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