14 people responded for salvation when I spoke at the Kerith Centre in Bracknell, Berkshire, yesterday. This is a church that has 3 Sunday services and an appeal for people to become Christians at all 3 meetings, every Sunday. That works out at 156 invitations to respond per annum! Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that Kerith Community Church grew by around 100 people last year, and it was great to spend the day with pastor Simon Benham, who I first met when we did our theological training together in 1996-98.
I’ve become good friends with Simon and Catrina www.catrinabenham.com and it was great to have lunch with them and Zac, Jacob and Alice. We even watched Match of the Day!
The lady who led worship Helen told me that she’d been converted through reading my book The Shock of Your Life. She said she’d sent a copy to her brother, writing “I now know where I’m going” inside it. He refused to read it for 2 years. Then she got a text from him 2 years later saying that he’d now read it and had also become a Christian.
Another blessing was chatting to one of the most inspirational figures in my past, Ben Davies, who was pastor at Bracknell for over 40 years. I first saw him preach at Queens Road, Wimbledon in the 1980s, and it was probably the most memorable visiting speaker event of my early Christian life. Anyway, Ben did a seminar at the Downs Bible Week, probably sometime around 1987 called “Preparing and Delivering a Bible message” which I got on tape, and it was the first preaching training I ever heard. I still remember some of the bits of wisdom he put into that talk, and it was tremendous to be able to encourage Ben yesterday that his ministry from 25 years ago was so appreciated by people like me today. Under Ben’s leadership, the huge Kerith Centre was built, at a time when new church buildings on that scale in the UK were highly unusual.
I drove back to London feeling very grateful for the privilege of partnering in the growth of the church. They have around 1000 attend on Sundays. The youth work there is exceptional.