Rachel's FP intern update

Rachel is one of our FP interns, spending a year serving our church community. Here’s her latest update…

Last week as interns we all went to Bedford for training. This time we covered loads of fun topics from prayer, to doctrine of scripture, to eschatology, or in other words the end of the world.

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Rachel with her dad

I learnt a lot at this training block, and have taken the email address from one of the teachers to ask them more questions about eschatology. One afternoon is really not enough time to discuss the end of the world, judgement and new creation.

This time was also spiritually significant. I frequently suffer from bad dreams, and on the second morning of training I'd gone in and asked the other two Durham interns to pray with me because I couldn't shake the feelings of my dream.

As the session started, the woman leading it stopped and said "I feel prompted to pray for those struggling to sleep". God knows exactly what we need!

There were a few times God spoke to me across this week. One of these was in a prophetic word from a woman called Linda who came to teach us. I won't repeat the whole thing, but about half way through she told me I was creative, and she didn't know this but even as she said that she was stood right in front of something I'd drawn in worship the previous morning. I don't know what the significance of her saying that was, but it reminded me that God really knows us.

I also had the great joy of visiting Victory Hill Church in Edinburgh! It was so encouraging to see what God was doing there, and great to spend time with some of our regions beyond family.

Thanks,
Rachel

Prayer, connections, training and more: Jonny's intern update

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Jonny with his goddaughter

We have 3 fantastic FP interns serving us in the church this year: Rachel, Becki and Jonny.

Here’s Jonny’s latest report on what he’s been doing, including his prayer life, connecting with other churches in our Regions Beyond family and FP training sessions. Enjoy!

Hey fam (slang for family - you’ll get used to it).

Firstly, whoever’s reading this - I’d love to get to know you. If you read any of this and at all think “this guy seems okay/fun/interesting”, please come chat to me at any time.

Not going to lie, being a church FP intern is literally amazing. I kinda thought it would be good and challenging but honestly it’s been 3 incredible months. It’s been tough and stretching at times but really I think that’s what I need (that doesn’t mean I’ll say yes to every job you throw at me!). The biggest thing I’ve learnt this year is that God loves me too much to leave me as I am. He is absolutely set on moulding me to be more like Jesus. And that can be and has been painful over the last year but let’s be honest would we have it any other way than His way?

I’m now going to go through a few areas in FP that have been particularly wonderful.

Praying

I read in a book recently that to pray is to change. Prayer is God’s central avenue to change our hearts and mould us to be more like Christ.

I’ve been more devoted to prayer in these 3 months than any other time period in my life and it’s really been a journey. I’m very okay with sitting down and saying a prayer for a couple minutes and then getting on with my day but I feel if I am to make prayer a life thing rather than a momentary thing then I think I should put some time into it.

So I’ve been spending some good time just sitting with God and mostly just listening (I think at its very core prayer is mostly just listening). It felt quite slow at first but recently I’ve just felt a deeper sense of God’s presence and a real hunger inside me for ore. I’ll keep pursuing this and get back to you on how it’s going in a subsequent report...

Regions Beyond Hub

This was great. It was interesting being in a large group of people where I felt everyone knew everyone and I didn’t know anyone but I got into a lot of good conversations with leaders about their lives and how their leadership call came into fruition. It was also good to share some of my heart and my calling with leaders who don’t know me and allow them to speak into my life.

Bedford Training

Bedford has been a blessing. It’s great in general as a week retreat from the weekly life of an FPer but the teaching and friendships there are just really edifying and build me up so much. I feel there I have found an amazing group of friends that I could see staying in contact with and supporting each other in our lives even after this year.

It’s also been really fun to learn some theology which I’d never heard of before (I’m not going to tell you about it as an incentive for you to come talk to me hehehe).

Something I genuinely didn’t expect this year was the amount of love from you guys as my church family. It’s been wonderful to make new and deeper friendships with people in the church and to receive a lot of love and support. Thanks!

FP intern update: Rachel

Rachel, pictured with her dad

This year we have three ‘FP’ interns, serving the church in various areas. Here’s an update from one of the three - Rachel.

It’s been a busy month as we’ve been to the Gloucester Regions Beyond Hub, Bedford for training, and Scotland for a youth weekend away, on top of normal FP life.

The Regions Beyond Hub was great because I got to see more what Regions Beyond is about, as well as the people that lead it. It was really cool to see what our wider family’s values are.

Bedford has also been great. All three of us have made good friends with the other interns. This block we looked at attitudes to the poor, worship, the arts, evangelism, youth work and the New Testament. It’s a really good mix of personal challenge (like the attitudes to the poor day) and theology (like the New Testament). I think these blocks have also taught me a lot about New Frontiers, and what their foundational theology is.

The youth weekend away was really good, as youth work has been a big part of my project this year so far. Jonny and I have been writing sessions for the older youth, trying to give them foundational skills when it comes to reading the Bible. This has probably been my favourite thing I’ve done so far this year because I love theology so much, and I love sharing it with other people, so being able to share that with the youth has been great. We’ve got some big thinkers in our older and younger youth!

I’m so grateful for all the support we receive from you, our church family, especially your prayers! Big love to you all!