New venue and more people than ever came to Poole

Due to the success of previous years events, we were invited by Poole Council to use Poole Park, the premier venue for such events in the town. There was a real climate of faith and expectancy when we erected Tim’s tent.

This year we started with an evening of classical music provided by a string quartet, which was an excellent low key event to get people into the tent. We set the tent up informally with tables and chairs and kept these for the evening meetings as well. These consisted of music, mime, testimonies and presentations which all were sharp! There were a good number of outsiders in these “evangelistic” meetings, and people were prayed with while conversations continued over coffee.

In addition to our own people we had people come and support us from KC21 network of churches, Christian Life Church Bradford, CCR Duisburg Germany and from Harvest Church Edgware. These formed a very gifted team providing a mixture of live music, mime and mixing during the evenings. During the days the team worked with both children and adults. Our programme was varied and aimed to reach people from all age groups and varying backgrounds.

It was the best yet. It was a mixture of the local people getting to know us, spiritually building through prayer, presence and saturation, plus a much better venue.

We had a lot more people through the tent. At times there were so many people that it was difficult to cope! We had local people through, holiday-makers from Britain and some from overseas. Lots of seed was once again sown all over.

The Tent Event has a tremendous binding together effect upon the members of the church. It is hard work but fun, and so good to be sharing one’s faith and meeting people that are open to the good news. I have to say that the good news is a mixture of the presence of the Lord, message, the Tent itself, which people find attractive, the activities, and those working on the event.

We saw a man 17 years away from the Lord restored; 3 young people were prayed with! There are a number who have said that they want to do Alpha. Quite a few of these are known to members of the church. We have had some young people say they would like to come along. On Sundays since the Tent Event there have been a number of new people in church as a direct result of it.
It has all been paid for as I write, which is a tremendous testimony to the Lord and His people.

There was a spontaneous desire from all to do it again next year. This was at the end when everybody was exhausted! The Council are allowing us to use the same venue at the same time. Either we are mad or it is God! It is God and it’s almost impossible to describe being part of something so exciting!

by Bill Rice