Rhys Scott shares his highlights of his recent trip to the UK and the Christ Central Devoted event.
It was a joy to be at Devoted as part of my trip to the UK in August.
Devoted is the new annual UK conference for the churches in the Christ Central part of the Newfrontiers family of churches. Almost 2,000 people gathered together for four days, camping and meeting together at Newark Showgrounds in Nottinghamshire.
One highlight was the morning family worship times. Each morning the day started with a half hour or so of pumping, energetic worship where families were encouraged to engage together. It was fantastic to see children getting thoroughly stuck in to worshipping Jesus alongside their parents! After that the children headed off to their activities, and adults were invited to the LifeZones.
It was fantastic to see children getting thoroughly stuck in to worshipping Jesus alongside their parents!
The question: “How does our faith shape the workplace and the culture around us?” was a key one for us at Devoted. With that in mind we set up four LifeZone streams, each focussed on a different area of engagement with the workplace and culture: business and leadership, social action, the family, and Public Services. Some of the stories of people working out the Kingdom in ordinary life were inspiring and challenging!
The afternoons were packed with sports, other fun and seminars. The evenings were a mix of wonderful worship times, outstanding preaching by Jeremy Simpkins and Terry Virgo, and prayer around the world for different church plants and social action projects.
It was a joy to connect with many friends during the breaks. One particular highlight was having some time with the church planting team who have recently moved to Gothenburg in Sweden – full of faith for what God is going to do in that city!
The talks from Devoted 2015 were recorded, and I commend them to you. You can find them here – Devoted 2015
And if you have a couple of minutes talk a look at the review video – it’ll give you a flavour for the event. And maybe convince you to take some time out in your summer in 2016 to join us at Devoted!
