AUGUST 2014
ISSUE 12
T H E N E T WO R K Developments at Kingfisher This year we are celebrating our 21st birthday at kingfisher - the year where we have 'come of age' and are moving forward as a mature, refined and focussed network. One major development on this front is the news that Ollie Bennett, the assistant pastor at Tredworth, is set to take on the role of full time pastor there from September 1st. Ollie currently works for the charity Turning Point, which provides specialist and integrated services which focus on improving lives and communities across mental health, learning disability, substance misuse, primary care and employment. Ollie has been a manager in that organisation for some years, but is responding to God's calling to pastor Kingfisher Tredworth full time, taking over this role from Senior Pastor James Burn. What will this mean for the church, for Ollie and Rachael and for James and Jan? For Ollie this means that he will take on the responsibility of leading Tredworth church full time. He will be developing the pastoral life of the church, overseeing the Connect groups, taking responsibility for developing the preaching ministry particularly in the morning services. He will be working with elders, ministry leaders and trustees to ensure that the church grows and develops. Rachael continues in her role of Children's Leader for Tredworth, and moves into the wider role of supporting Ollie as the Pastor.
and mentoring National Directors in those countries.
• Overseeing, mentoring and training the pastors of the local, UK churches • Developing and producing training courses • Providing oversight for the direction and spiritual health of the whole Network. For Jan, this means that the role she has been developing for the past two years - that of Community Outreach Leader - continues and develops. She has, and will continue to be, involved in developing the Social Enterprise, raising its profile with local and national leaders within city and county councils, regional and national NHS, Public Health England, the Care Quality Commission, NICE and many more. Thanks to Jan, we have had our model for community outreach presented on several occasions to the Cabinet Office in Downing Street. Jan has spoken at the national NICE conference, where our model for community was commended publicly.
INTERNATIONAL UPDATE: Kingfisher India launched a leadership training school in Haridwar, Northern India, 18 months ago. Haridwar is known as 'the land of the gods' and is considered by Hindus as being one of their most holy places. It is a tough place to have a Christian witness! And so, in true Kingfisher style, that is just the place that was chosen to put a training school! Using the training materials provided by us, the emphasis has always been on 'learn it then use it'. Consequently, the students are regularly sent out to practice what they have learned in the classroom, with the emphasis firmly on evangelism. The result? Kingfisher is now the biggest church in the region with 1500 people regularly attending church services! At the heart of Hinduism, a vibrant, growing witness to Jesus Christ has sprung up, with the vast majority of those 1500 people being converts to Christianity. What a miracle!
Kingfisher Africa continues to expand. James and Stuart recently visited the new Centre in Mozambique and commissioned that James and Jan will still be attending building, as well as the new National Tredworth church, will still be Director, Fuloresi Dempster (see thoroughly involved in events and ministries during the week and James article on page 3 for more details). will be doing the bulk of preaching at Meanwhile, our materials have now the Sunday evening services as well as been launched in Nigeria, thanks to a regularly preaching at both Tredworth growing relationship with a Nigerian pastor, called Emmanuel Praise. and Kingsway on Sunday mornings.
This is such an exciting development For James, this means that he will be for Kingfisher - God really seems to able to commit himself more fully to be strategically positioning people the role of Senior Pastor. This role has into key roles at the moment, in various elements: preparation for what is to come. If you have any questions about the • Developing the Network various leadership role developments, internationally, establishing do ask! Kingfisher in new countries and on new continents, appointing
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Pastor Praise contacted us a few months ago to request support, mentoring and resources. Now, our foundations course and Leadership course are being taught to leaders in Enugu State, Nigeria. Two new churches have already been launched in the area and we are praying for further developments!
News from Kingfisher Kingsway
On 11th July we went on our Summer trip to Cattle Country in Berkeley. Due to the fundraising that we’ve been doing throughout the year we were able to pay for all of the children to get into the park, and someone at Kingfisher Kingsway very kindly paid for a coach for us. It was a lovely warm day and most of the children, and some of the mums, enjoyed cooling off in the pool. There were just under 50 of us from Little Fishes and as you can see from our photos great fun was had by everyone!
We would like to wish all our Little Fishes who are starting school in September good luck and a happy reception year!
News from the Network Commissioning the Kingfisher Training Centre in Mozambique In May, James and Stuart travelled to Mozambique to commission the new Kingfisher Training Centre building there. This building is incredibly strategic in its location – situated at the village of Mauza in the Tomila Region, close to the main road leading from the Malawi border deep into the heart of Mozambique. While work on this building began at the end of 2013, unusually heavy rains and difficult conditions – not to mention the challenge of transporting raw materials from Malawi across the border to Mozambique – made this a challenging project for Kingfisher’s National Director Charles Mithowa.Yet Charles persevered through these challenges and with the help of the surrounding
community, the project has been completed on schedule.
being done by Kingfisher in Mauza.
Mauza is the home village of the Kingfisher National Director for Mozambique – Fuloresi Dempster. Fuloresi pastors Kingfisher Church in Mauza, alongside Assistant Pastor Sugula.
Charles, Fuloresi and Pastor Sugula all have a strong vision to see new Church Leaders being trained at this building and sent out to plant new Kingfisher churches across Mozambique. We look forward to great things in the years ahead as the Lord Jesus is honoured and proclaimed by Kingfisher Church in that great nation.
During the commissioning service for this new building, leaders from 12 Kingfisher churches across Mozambique were in attendance. Some had travelled by bicycle for 2 days to arrive at Mauza in time for the celebrations. The village head man, and also a representative of the Mozambique Government were there during the celebrations – this gives a further indication of the importance of the work
News from Kingfisher Tredworth End of term Beach Parties A fantastic end to the summer term at all the pre-school groups with beach parties on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. A great time was had by all. A sad farewell to some of our children who are moving on to school and have been with us since they were babies! We are hoping to keep in contact with most of these families via our holiday clubs in the future.
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Fun at Fusion
This term Fusion changed to meeting weekly, much to the delight of the children. We regularly have 30 children from the local area come to each session. This term the children have been enjoying the hangout evenings with pool and table tennis as well as a craft night, a beetle drive and an end of term Stars and Stripes barbecue. Fusion runs every Tuesday evening, 6-7.15pm during term time and is for children in years 3 to 7 at school.
Mamma Mia Night On 5th July we hosted a Mamma Mia night for our Twins group mum’s. This was a great opportunity to build community between our mums without the distraction of having small children running around! Everyone who came had a great time. A huge thank you to Steve and Bill for organising and hosting this event. We are hoping to have another social in September.
News from Kingfisher Tredworth Counselling room revamp! The counselling room at Tredworth has been recently refurbished thanks to the artistic flair and hard work of Andy Davis! He has done a fantastic job, giving a warm and peaceful feel to the room. The team would also like to say a big ‘THANK YOU’ to those people who kindly contributed financially towards the costs.
Janet Gray (Hope Listening and Prayer Counselling) or Andy Davis (Soul Talk).
The counselling room is used for our Hope Listening, Soul Talk and Prayer Counselling ministries. If you would like to know more about any of these services, leaflets are available from the information desk in the main hall or speak to
Baptism service This year’s second Baptism service took place on 13th July at Kingfisher Tredworth, with Darren, Noy, Phillip, Carl, Lydia, Tammi and Sara all taking the plunge!
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! A big !Thank You! Thank you very much to all those who helped at the working party on Saturday 5th July. Much fixing, cleaning, weeding, litter picking, varnishing etc was accomplished!
News from Treasure Seekers Renovation of the new building continues The shop is going really well in it’s new location and great conversations are being had regarding both Treasure Seekers and Kingfisher Church! The renovation of the new Treasure Seekers building is coming along nicely, although there is still a lot of work to be done. Steve has played an integral part in the building work, both practically and in the way of advice.
Katie is working really hard applying for all sorts of grants for both the social enterprise and the church and we have recently launched a ‘Big Build’ scheme where we are hoping to raise £15,000 to continue with the
We have a great team of volunteers all giving their time and energy to get The cavern, which will be the youth cafe in the basement of the building, up to scratch!!
ABOVE: THERE’S STILL A LOT OF WORK TO DO RENOVATING THE CAVERN IN THE BASEMENT. LOOK OUT FOR THE ‘AFTER’ PHOTOS SOON!
renovations (more details on page opposite). Please continue to pray for the social enterprise - your prayers for this venture are very much appreciated!
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Š Kingfisher Church, 2013