59 people responded to the gospel yesterday when I preached morning and evening in Newcastle.

There were 34 in the morning meeting at City Church, Newcastle, and 25 in the evening at Youth For Christ’s Ninth Hour event.

I travelled up on Friday 23rd and met with the elders of City Church http://www.city-church.co.uk/ all afternoon. We discussed the church’s evangelistic strategy. The elders were joined by Ken Riley, who for 16 years was the front man of YFriday, and is now City Church’s new director of worship. YFriday played at Festival Manchester when I preached there in 2003, and it was great to see him again.

I then spoke at a meeting of students and student leaders from churches around the North East. I met up with Zoe Robertson, who remembered me from Reigate & Redhill Community Church days. She and her husband Simon are leading the student work at the multisite Beth Shan Church, which meets in Newcastle, Sunderland and Durham!

On Saturday morning I did an equipping in evangelism seminar to some folks from City Church, who were joined by other churches from the region, it was great to see leaders from the newfrontiers churches in Hartlepool and Northumbria there.

Then on Saturday evening, I was back out at City Church for a gathering of regional evangelists, including Philip Ballard, who leads an extraordinary ministry gathering around 200 non-Christian international students in Newcastle, called Globe Café, which comes under the umbrella of Jesmond Parish Church (of which more below). It was amazing to listen to the leader and founder of Newcastle Street Pastors, Sam Douthwaite, who described a typical night in the big market, where between 60,000 and 90,000 drinkers gather in a one-mile block at the weekend. Meanwhile Joanne O’Connor described her prison ministry, and she also gave her colourful testimony just before I preached the following morning.

So on Sunday morning, I was in the famous “Turbine Hall” where City Church meet, a huge space where before the war, turbines powered Newcastle’s Tram Trains. Ken led the worship, Joanne shared her story of coming over from Northern Ireland and being converted as a first year student. There was lots of new students from Northumbria University there experiencing their first weekend on Tyneside.

I preached the unsearchable riches of Christ, or at least tried to, and I could really feel God’s presence in the appeal. The leaders said they had to put out extra chairs, so everyone seemed very happy at the end.

I then went to see my Dad’s Cousin, Rev David Holloway, who for nearly 40 years has been the vicar of Jesmond Parish Church. Taking a congregation of 200, he and his wife Joy have seen the church grow to well over a thousand. It is by some way the largest church, so I am told north of Bradford.

David visited Rick Warren’s church in the USA in the early 80s, and also the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea, and came home to tell his Parochial Church Council that God had given him a vision to build a church of 1,000 in Newcastle, something that probably seemed rather unlikely at the time, but it happened fairly quickly. JPC has a huge influence, and a massive fringe. They’ve also planted the 250 strong Holy Trinity Gateshead, and most of the time we were together we discussed church planting. David’s thesis is that everywhere else in the world, mega cities have mega-churches, apart from in Western Europe, and that to reach the large urban areas of Western Europe, someone needs to build mega-churches to influence the city. It was truly staggering to be exposed to such a visionary couple who show no signs of flagging in their determination and vigour at an age when most of their contemporaries might have long since retired!

So having spend such a invigorating time with the Holloways, I was really in the zone for Ninth Hour. I hooked up with another friend from Festival Manchester days, Chip Kendall, who is no longer with the Band With No Name, and they got me to read the football results when introducing me, as a throwback to my media days! John Hawsksworth who leads YFC in the North East had asked me to preach from Revelation chapter 1, which I did, producing some massive keys when I got to verses 17-18 where the resurrected Christ declares that he now has the keys to death and the grave.

So there were 25 hands up in the darkness for the appeal, and all 25 came forward to the front of the stage where we talked and prayed, so that was also encouraging. I guess there were around 650 people there when adding the morning and evening crowds together.

But in many ways the highlight of the weekend for me was staying with Ian and Heather Galloway. I met their two youngest children, who are university students, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Galloways’ company. Ian is incredibly well read and is one of those people whose views on anything and everything are very stimulating. Ian and Heather were both converted while students and I got on really well with them. I sat on the train home praying that when our children are all grown up that I’d be as wise and fun as Ian & Heather are. It was a great laugh being with them, and I was enriched by the experience.

The whole weekend was organized for me by Duncan Podbury, who it seems to be has vastly underestimated his talents. Despite a fairly breathless schedule, Duncan has been a continual encourager.

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