CAMBRIDGE

About 30 people attended the seminars organised by the OLEM Renewal prayer group (“Soul Food”) at Our Lady & English Martyrs parish (26th April -24th May) using the “This Promise is for You” DVDs (short testimonies & talks given by Charles Whitehead and Michelle Moran). Sandy Hobson, one of the organisers comments, “Although of course it is better to have live speakers sometimes this is not feasible when you have a small group, and these DVDs are really excellent and provide all the content that you need. We also invited Charles to come and give one of the talks live and also had a special concelebrated Pentecost vigil Mass with 3 priests that went on for 2 hours in which we incorporated the praying over. It has been a very worthwhile exercise and in the process of organising it I made lots of very helpful connections, particularly with priests in the area whom I didn’t realise are open and interested in the Renewal, so I’m sure there will be great fruit in the future from this.”

THORNTON HEATH, Surrey

About 150 people attended the All Nations LSS and Pentecost Celebration at St Andrew’s Church Thornton Heath. (18th April – 6th June). This was hosted by Simon Maduekwe and Christ the King Charismatic Renewal Fellowship which meets there, but involved the participation of almost a dozen different prayer groups as well as the Goodnews office team. The music was led each evening by a different music ministry in their own particular style. These included the Lord of Pardon Prayer Group(Filipino), Jesus Youth(Indian), Shalom(Brazilian), Gesu Risorto(Italian) the Westminster Cathedral prayer group, Soul Food, the Syndenham prayer group, Maranatha and members of Christ the King CR Fellowship(African). Speakers over the weeks included Fr Patrick Okoye, Charles Whitehead, Kristina Cooper, Jenny Baker, Alex Chaves and Gabriele Sedda. Although there was a core who came every week, there was also quite a large number of people who were floaters and did not attend the whole seminars for different reasons but came to a few of the evenings. This meant that although there was an average of 150 people each night, they were not the same people. The highlight of the seminars was the special event on Pentecost Sunday. This began with an exuberant Mass, with music in different languages reflecting the diverse background of those attending, celebrated by NSC member Fr Mark White OP who also gave the homily. About 250-300 people attended this Pentecost Celebration. Damian Stayne was supposed to lead the praying over for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit but at the last minute sickness prevented him from attending. The Cor et Lumen Christi ministry team, however, did come, and partnered with the small group leaders in the praying over. The seminars were remarkable for the number of different groups participating and the networking that happened between leaders old and new and the sense that the event was a prophetic sign for the charismatic renewal in the London area. It demonstrated the richness there can be when the different nationalities come together, despite all the challenges that this can involve.

HORNCHURCH, Essex

About 90 people attended these seminars (18th April -30th May) organised by Fr Angelus and the Brentwood DST at St Mary’s parish in Hornchurch. Maureen O’Brien, one of the team, received the inspiration in prayer that they should have a special small group for young people and advertised this in the parish newsletter. twelve 14-18 year olds responded and Matt Spiller from the Sion Community ran it. He commented, “I have been working for Sion for 8 years and on a national youth level, but I have never experienced something like this before with young people. They were really well formed in their faith, and open, just by the normal channels of parish, school and home. It has been a real sign of hope for me that our Catholic system can work, when it is done properly and made me reflect a lot. None of the young people had been to New Dawn or Celebrate or had exposure to charismatic events yet they were really interested and open. It was strange. They knew about tongues and baptism in the spirit although they hadn’t experienced them personally, but they were open to learn. The seminars – neither through the music nor the talks – were geared towards their age group - but they all enjoyed it. I could sense the finger of God on it all and I feel God has a special plan for them. To have so many young people like this in one group in one parish is a sign and I feel that something is going to happen through them in Hornchurch in the future. The next step will be critical and it will be important to listen to the Spirit to know what to do.” Next year the Brentwood DST team will hope to run the seminars in a different parish and they used the event to draw people’s attention to other charismatic events happening over the summer.

CARDIFF

The St Peter’s prayer group in Cardiff ran the Life in the Spirit seminars as they do every year in the Easter-tide period, using the “This Promise is For You” DVD talks (mentioned above). This year the seminars, however, were part of a 14 week series of Tuesday night teachings. These covered Lent, preparing people for the passion of the Lord, then the seminars after Easter. This culminated in an equipping weekend, led by Ros Powell over 4th-5th June. Spiro Sueref, the leader of the group, said, they had the largest numbers ever attending the seminar programme since they started in 2004. Between 30-40 people attended and stayed the course. Among these were small groups of people from the Valleys and Swansea whom Spiro believes the Lord is going to use to get things going in their own areas. He comments, “the seeds have been sown, and I think things may well go quiet in our group for the next couple of months, but come the autumn, we will see the Lord bringing new life and areas that seemed dead will be resurrected to life.”

WOKINGHAM, Berks

Twenty eight people (including a core team of 7 people) took part in the LSS run at Corpus Christi Church in Wokingham. The parish has a strong CaFE group and run one or two CaFE programmes every year and it was decided it would be a good idea to run the Life in the Spirit seminars as a follow up to the “I Believe” series on the Creed. Julie Hughes, who has been part of the CaFE team for the last couple of years and is a secondary school teacher was asked to give the talks. She comments, “It was the first time I have ever done something like this, but some of the people who were experienced in the Renewal thought I could do it, so I felt I should give it a try. It was a big growth experience for me, preparing and praying about the talks. I used the Ann Arbor outlines but made the presentation my own.” Julie’s husband Richard, who plays in a secular rock band in his spare time, and who has only recently started getting into the praise and worship ministry, led the music with another man and members of the parish choir. Julie comments, “He really enjoyed preparing and practising the music and I know grew a lot personally through it all.” The parish priest was very supportive. Julie was struck that the day when she stood up to talk about the seminars in the parish, one of the readings was from Isaiah “See I am doing a new thing…” This was the first time that the such a programme, with live music and live talks, had been run in the parish, and she felt what that they had done is part of some larger plan that the Lord has in mind. One of the fruits of the seminars has been the way people’s individual giftings have been made apparent, whether it was in leading the small groups, or leading the praise and worship, or general organisational giftings. Another key factor was the special intercession team who prayed together regularly for the success of the seminars.

HIGHGATE, North London

Thirty people attended the LSS organised by the charismatic prayer group based at St Joseph’s over the weekend 8th-9th May. Leader Pat Riviere commented, “Our group has been going for over 30 years. There are only about 8 of us now and we had not had a seminar for many years so we felt it was time we had one. In the past we have run seminars over seven weeks, but we have such a lot going on in the parish that we couldn’t see parishioners committing themselves for this length of time. We asked the Westminster Cathedral prayer group to help us and they came and did all the talks on the Saturday and helped lead the small groups and provided the music, helped by Manuela and Rafael from the Italian community “Gesu Risorto”.

On the Sunday Amanda and Richard Taylor, the leaders of the Stamford Hill prayer group, and Tim and Mimi Turner from Antioch gave the talks and led the praying over. The music was led by Billy, who often plays for us when we have healing services. Our own prayer group members were wonderful and helped a lot too and there was a wonderful sense of community over the weekend. Afterwards everyone was asking when the next one would take place.” As a result one new person has joined the prayer group, although Pat said she was sad that there was not more interest from the parish as the original impetus has been to touch the parish. She added, “They went so well, however, that we are thinking that we should run them annually in the Easter-Pentecost period!”