INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the July 2005 issue of the Council Newsletter!

In this edition we bring you all the buzz from the Annual International Convention in Perth, Western Australia. These days, there are more and more local Rallies being held around the Australian States as well as in Asia, USA, New Zealand, and Europe, but everyone looks forward to this international event once per year. We’ve included plenty of photos to give you a good feel of what went on over there.

Coinciding with the Convention are the bi-annual Council Meetings and the Annual Pastors’ Meeting. There is a short report of what took place in these in the next section.

In the last section, we bring you snippets of news from around the world. There are some wonderful things the Lord is doing in little-known corners of our vineyard. We hope you enjoy reading about them.

CONVENTION 2005

What a great time!

The Western Australian assemblies of Perth, Mandurah and Bunbury welcomed the 500 visitors who swarmed in from all over the world to swell their ranks in a wonderful week of outreaching and fellowship.

Saturday and Sunday Rallies were conducted at the new Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre (PCEC), nestled between the picturesque Swan River and the Perth CBD. The PCEC’s 1200-seater Plenary Auditorium was the perfect venue for plenty of testimonies of God’s healing and restorative power, 10-minute Bible talks from the visiting pastors, and plenty of friendly, family items. There were mini slide shows and movie clips of assemblies all over the world. You couldn’t help but be moved by vision of assemblies singing choruses and conducting meetings in grass huts and baptising folk in the jungles and savannah of Africa.

The theme of the Convention was “A New Beginning”. This was chosen in part to help the Perth assembly get away with installing a massive 8-metre banner across central Barrack Street (and similar banners along key arteries in Fremantle). This was augmented with bus stop advertising, posters in shopping centres, universities, backpackers, free radio and newspaper spots, etc.

TV advertising, using several remarkable healing testimonies along the lines of the New Beginning theme, complimented all this on Community Channel 31 and commercial station, Channel 10.

Perth’s 1.5 million people really knew we were in town.

In the central Perth malls the local assembly had booked a prominent spot for their miniature Prophecy Display Boards which proved a great attraction to get passers-by talking or at least take one of the 50,000 leaflets produced for the weekend. Nearby, the Forrest Chase stage attracted onlookers with the Adelaide puppet show, the Gosford “Billy Cart” band, and a host of local singers. There was no shortage of people to evangelise about the Good News.

Many new folk attended the weekend Rallies. By Sunday night 21 had taken the plunge and been baptised. Almost all received the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. Praise the Lord.

And there was plenty of time for talking and catching up with friends from the other assemblies. Saints had come in from PNG, Fiji, Singapore, New Zealand, Holland, UK, South Africa and Kenya. Each evening visitors could choose one of the many ‘open houses’ from the suburbs of Perth to head off for more fellowship and get to know visitors from other assemblies.

“A thousand unfinished conversations” is an apt definition of a Revival Fellowship Convention.

The Monday was relaxed with no planned evangelism. Everyone was invited back for a BBQ and Closing Rally at either the Revival Hall in Yangebup or the Laguna Hall in Dianella. Again the testimonies were great, the talks edifying, the stories of overseas works wonderful and the items entertaining.

For those with any energy left the next day, a Tuesday Bus Tour was organised to show visitors the sights of Perth and Fremantle. All in all, a great way to cap off a wonderful week and a small taste of heaven.

We have truly received something wonderful from God.

“Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.”

Next year’s Convention will be held in Brisbane. So, if you couldn’t make this year’s, why not start planning now to head to Queensland in 2006?

COUNCIL MEETINGS

All nine Council pastors made it to the Perth meetings, which were held on the Wednesday and Thursday leading up to the Convention.

The Council discussed a wide variety of practical and spiritual issues facing the Church.

We heard reports from as far afield as Cameroon and Vietnam, Brazil and Bali. There are pockets of revival breaking out in some unusual places. In addition, many of these centres need our practical help and these needs must be balanced up with the funds available to service them.

Planning support for these new centres is important, as it is the first few months that prove crucial in helping them become established along solid scriptural lines. The African centres are expensive to follow up, so a new scheme was adopted of entrusting more work to local Kenyan pastors under Pastor Sammy Mwanzia, as well as Pastor Ron Carslake in South Africa. The new centre in the Philippines will be helped with brother Joseph Cantong becoming a pastor there (see story below).

Pastor Steve Gillespie, the UK’s Council representative, reminded us that smaller UK assemblies welcome enthusiastic saints or couples from larger Australian assemblies to come over and stay in one place for a while (up to a year) to help with evangelism. Accommodation is available in all the UK assemblies. He reported the new centres in Hull and Manchester have both enjoyed baptisms.

The new Revival Fellowship Intranet site is up and running and should prove helpful to a variety of assembly ministries.

A new Testimonies booklet is available from Adelaide.

A council meeting in progress

ANNUAL PASTORS’ MEETING

Nearly 50 pastors from around the world managed to get to Perth for the Annual Pastors’ Meeting where we heard news of what the Lord is doing in our corner of the vineyard.

There was plenty of encouragement and advice, and, as you would expect with all these pastors ~ lots of talking!

…AND HERE IS THE NEWS

ZAMBIA

The assemblies there have continued to grow rapidly from nothing less than 12 months ago to over 400 saints ~ located in12 assemblies, in 5 districts, spread across 500km, from Ndola to Mufumbwe. (Don’t worry: we can hardly keep up with where all these places are either! But the Lord knows. And so do our African pastors. And that’s the most important thing.)

GAWLER

With further growth north of the city, Adelaide has decided to open another extension meeting at Gawler, some 25 minutes to the north of their existing northern meeting, Elisabeth.

The Adelaide assembly now consists of the Vogue, Woodcroft, Elisabeth and Gawler centres.

Tony Sheridan has been appointed the new local pastor.

PHILIPPINES

The Manila assembly now has a new companion assembly in the Philippines at Umingan. This town is located some 5 hours drive to the north of Manila. The new assembly has about 30 Spirit-filled folk and attracted quite a crowd when Pastors Colin Tan and Graeme Hazledine were visiting recently. They conducted another 8 baptisms whilst there.

Manila Revival Fellowship	Joseph Cantong, recently appointed pastor in Manila
New meeting at Umingan	Ps Graeme Hazledine conducting one of the recent baptisms at Umingan

CONCLUSION

The message of the Convention week was a simple one:

We have a simple and wonderful Fellowship by the grace of God, spreading around the globe. It is based on the instructions in the Word. Don’t let it become tainted by either the world or by the unscriptural habits and doctrines of many Pentecostal churches.

“Preach the word! Be instant in season and out of season.”

“In due season we shall reap if we faint not.”