They tell of the glory of your Kingdom

“God has been teaching me recently how if you really do trust everything with him, He blesses you for it! A couple of weeks ago I was feeling led to give a certain amount of money to the church offering, but part of me kept thinking but how can I when I still don’t have all the money to fund my mission trip to Africa this summer. But I knew that this is what I was to do and I was to just trust in God. Later that week I got a letter from an organisation saying they wanted to give me some money towards my trip and this was about ten times the amount I had given!

Truly when we give, we really do receive, this may not always be financially, but we will be blessed from it. And there is so much freedom for us when we live in this! To live not needing to worry, but give it all to God and trust in his promises that he will provide.”

“This term has been really hectic and hard work, but time and time again God has totally just given me peace about it and has really pulled me through and provided time when there has not been any. boom!”

“Had some great answers to prayer at Glen TAT base last Weds; again God provided an awesome team and we started by putting on the armour of God. God was speaking to us about moving from a place of victory not for a place of victory! 

We encountered some familiar and new faces throughout the night. Some of our ‘more opinionated’ friends text in and we were able to share the Gospel of truth with them. We handed out several Gospels and a few why Jesus? Booklets! I truly believe God is releasing a thirst for the Gospel over this campus and it shows in how hungry people are for the word of God! 

We went on a prayer walk during the evening when it was quieter and just thanked God for the people living all round Glen and claiming them as the Lord’s people. At one point we were praying for a specific group of people to text in, and within a minute of saying amen a text comes in! We were blessed to spend time sharing the Gospel and what Jesus has done for us and how we can share in His glorious riches.

We keep finding as we walk with a thankful heart and in obedience to the Lord’s will, we are becoming more and more aligned with the Father’s plan to bring the restoration of family to Southampton University. I look forward to when the reaper will meet the sower! Let’s keep being equipped with the Lord’s gifts and love so we are ready for the Harvest!”

We had a really fantastic night doing Text A Toastie at Wessex last week. We made so many toasties that we ran out of ham! The first 20 minutes were very slow but after some prayer the questions just didn’t stop coming. The whole team felt God moving and were so motivated and energised to see more of God in our university. We had some brilliant conversations, including chatting to the publicist for the atheist society and the last delivery not finishing until 1am. We also felt really encouraged by a growth in the relationship between ourselves and the people who text in. Many regularly text in with questions and the building of relationships is such a great answer to prayer. Thank you God!

“A very exciting night at Text-a-Toastie @ Glen last week; the thirst for the Gospel seems continues across this University!  In particular we prayed midway through the night for questions that would be free from the secondary issues that we often get asked about, and that instead people would just ask us to explain the Gospel. Not long after this we left to go answer ‘How can a holy God allow sinful people into heaven?’ Amazing! We ended up with several team members in this one flat, chatting to a group of 6 or 7 all about the Gospel and having the incredibly opportunity to be able to tell them in a genuine way how much God loves them. Two in particular talked a lot about this idea of God sacrificing himself to save us and trying to understand just how big the love that involves is. We gave these two Gospels and they seemed keen to read what was in them. In total we gave out ten free Gospels to interested people; I’m not sure we could have ever dreamed of that a few short months ago, God is on the move here with TAT big time!

In addition, God has provided team wise - 3 people offered to help just as it was getting busy!”

“Yet another fantastic week of answered prayers at Alpha. One of the biggest areas of potential worry is that discussion groups would have the right distribution of people in each to allow good, genuine conversation. This is almost entirely beyond our control because people will pretty much just go sit wherever they feel like, but it has such an effect on how the night goes. So far we’ve really lifted this up to God and asked him to be in control of this. From the feedback we’ve been getting it seems that this has generally worked out really well and in fact seems to be improving further each week. That’s probably one of the most important variables for Alpha, but God has also had his hand over all the rest of the details as well, too many to list here!

The feedback from this week seems to be that there were some great conversations, people really starting to open up further and engage with serious life-changing issues, as well as genuine friendships starting to form and strengthen. We prayed as a course for the first time this week, and there are definitely people who have responded well to that. What fruit we will see in that regard we don’t yet know but no doubt we will! Perhaps the greatest testimony from this week was that 4 people decided they wanted to take Bibles home and begin reading them (and we haven’t even talked about the Bible yet; that’s week 5!).

Finally, after praying in the last week for wisdom and guidance as a team to decide what to do for the weekend / day away, it seems that things have really lined up to confirm to us that we should do a day away, and we have provisionally both a speaker and a venue, which has taken a real stress off of the leadership team. 

God has once again shown that alpha is totally in his control; and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“I’d like to praise God for the Girly Prayer Breakfast that happened on Saturday - it was great to get to know each other without the guys being there with all their banter!  A couple of us said that the atmosphere changed completely with just us girls being there, which was a nice change, and it was a great opportunity to start off the day well by prayer with each other.

I personally learnt from it that we can worship God through our artistic skills and through our passions for things, which was really encouraging and has really broadened my view of the gifts God has given us: God uses us in a variety of ways, whether it be through writing poetry, drawing and painting, or just in our people skills.”

The Text a Toastie team at Glen has seen some great stuff recently…

“In the last few weeks I believe a thirst for the Gospel has been released over this place. The depth of questions has significantly increased over the last few weeks. We have handed out ‘Why Jesus? booklets and a number of Mark Gospels to people who are hungry to find out more about God.

There are 2 blocks in particular that have been very responsive and interactive with the Gospel, with long discussions and hungry hearts receiving the word of God. We met one person who had said they had already experienced the Holy Spirit on a number of occasions and she is exploring Jesus in greater depth. 

A recent testimony which is really exciting : we prayed over one block of flats where we’ve never had texts from, and that night someone text in and again the week after! Not only that but they asked one of the most amazing questions I have heard: “Is Jesus among us!?” How very exciting. They both received Mark Gospels and and we’re looking forward to seeing what God will continue to do in their lives. 

We have also had the chance to pray for some people including, sight for impaired vision and also for a dead leg! We are grower bolder in confidence for who Jesus is and how he loves to heal and encounter his people!

“Alpha so far has been a fantastic case of seeing God’s faithfulness when it doesn’t always seem that he’s going to come through. So far we’ve had three sessions; the launch party and discussions surrounding ‘Who is Jesus’ and ‘Why did Jesus die?’. Logistically, we’ve just seen so many things go wrong (some of them our fault, some no-one to blame!). We’ve had to contend with venues being cancelled last minute, problems with the SU, problems with food, problems with catering, problems with the kitchen, technical problems, problems with sound, etc etc, many of which could have been a total catastrophe! But in spite of these, it’s all somehow come together (by the Grace of God and not a lot more!) and seems to have had no impact on the general performance of Alpha. 

We’ve seen something like 40+ people turn up each week, which has been very encouraging. It seems that people are really enjoying themselves and for the most part getting stuck into good discussions about things that matter. For some of them this is the first time they have ever heard the Gospel; for some they know it quite well but have never really got it. We’ve also been so blessed by what God has provided from within the CU as well; a fantastic team of Alpha group leaders, a CU ready to rally round in prayer and support when the need arises, a dedicated Catering team, sound team, worship team and countless others we couldn’t list here! What has been most encouraging though has been seeing the beginning of what look like pretty solid relationships forming in the discussion groups. There have been people going to the pub each week to carry on chats and get to know each other better.

It’s early days yet for Alpha, but so far what a lesson in God’s faithfulness and our humility!”

“We had a really great night with loads of questions and fantastic conversations. Last night was a massive answer to prayer as the last few weeks had been a bit quiet.

I would also just like to share a couple of bible verses. 
Ephesians 4:15-16, talks about “speaking the truth in love” and how we are all important parts of a whole body working to share the gospel
Colossians 4:2-6, for me this just totally sums up what text a toastie is about…being rooted in prayer and God’s strength to go out and have conversations “full of grace, seasons with salt”

An update from our friend & cu member Ruth Redman, who’s on her year abroad in Germany.  This is from a youth weekend in Germany:

“On Friday God gave me a word to share and gave me the words to share it to the people with boldness and pray over them. Was an amazing weekend. People encountered God and he dealt with much in the way that was burdening people and holding them back from going fully with him. God showed us glimpses of how massive he is, how great he is and he wants to let his will be done through us. Pray that God keeps this in people’s hearts and that as a result they will go fully for him.

Personally I really wanted to be open to God just taking charge and his will be done with me… and he spoke and used me for his glory.
I have the feeling God is already starting a revival here and my prayer is what God did in people at the weekend will be a part of it. Pray that I and all of the people would live in so close a fellowship with God, that we get to know him that closely, that his will and ours merge. Imagine the prayers answered and his purposes working out!”

Praise God for the wonderful work He is doing at International Cafe this term. Last Monday we had a Pancake evening, which was brilliant. Students from Europe, Malaysia, China, Singapore and beyond came, in numbers we haven’t seen in a while. Friendships were made and strengthened. Many went to the optional Bible Discussion entitled: ‘Who is Jesus, and why did he come?’. Thank God for his faithfulness to us, and for the students we have contact with each week. Please pray that international students would return, new students would come and those that came to the Bible discussion would be longing to find out more about Jesus

Praise be to His glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory

Psalm 72