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Making faithfest mission possible

Don’t you love bungy jumping?

Anticipation, the jump, falling, the pull back, and then dropping again! The cost is another matter! What amazed me most was how quickly it was all over. Faithfest 04 and 05 felt a bit like a bungy jump to me. First there was the build up, the exhilaration of the jump and then they were over! My wife, Ruth, is an amazing woman; while I played tennis and drank cups of tea, she

jumped out of planes! Parachuting-whoa! That is what I hope the next phase of Faithfest 07 and beyond will be like.

While on sabbatical in Dunedin, studying to finally become a fully-fledged Presy minister, Stuart Lange suggested to me the idea of running a Faithfest similar to the Mainland event that has been going on since 1987. (I know, it’s true: all the great ideas come out of the Mainland and we Jaffas are simply playing catch up!) Anyway, I returned to my Church now known as Crossroads Christian Centre, south of the Bombay Hills, and as a Church we bought 18 acres! (We needed a large carpark!) The idea of Faithfest hung with me and as I shared it in 2004 with Mo Mansill, Emily Wotton, Kevin Finlay and others I decided to go for it. When Ruth and I were at Connect04 we saw the PIPC Newtown Worship Team and the Z Amigoes and knew they needed to be at Faithfest04.

It was a big step of faith! God gave us marquees and staging through some very kind people, heaps of cakes through our Church, bands turned up, youth groups came and God came! Yes! So, in December 2005 we ran the second Faithfest. This time Geoff Lankow, Elliot Norton, and others, and everyone from my own Church contributed to it. It was bigger than 04 and God turned up again. We saw many young people connect or reconnect with Him. Awesome! Once again people gave time and money to the tune of thousands of dollars and through the amazing generosity of the Presbyterian Foundation we covered the costs and came out with a small amount of profit to put towards the 07 Faithfest. Where God guides He provides.

Now as we geared up for Faithfest07, it was another huge step of faith! We had an oversight team and we wanted it to really be a parachute drop rather than a bungy jump! You see, my original idea of Faithfest was never simply a camp; it’s to be a movement! A movement where the camp is the stepping out of our plane and we meet with God afresh and each other, and the prayer and the outreach team that will come out of Faithfest07, and the Youth Nights for the greater Auckland region in 07 are the parachute drop. And then this expands in 2008, 2009…and this not only encourages Youth Groups and Churches in our denomination in our country, but overseas in Scotland and other parts of our world too! The idea is that it will lead to young and old hearing the call of God on their lives to make a positive impact in this world for Jesus Christ as Bono and Mother Teresa and Billy Graham have! We have a whole generation who need to see and hear and feel the Good News of Jesus Christ.

To take Faithfest to the next level and start fulfilling the dream for it I needed lot’s of funding. In December, I received a letter from our Presbyterian Foundation to say they want to deposit the full amount into our Faithfest account to make it a parachute drop! Where God guides He provides. God and His people are amazing. If God believes in us, and the Presbyterian Foundation believes in us, how about you? If you want to be a part of something bigger in and through our denomination that I, and others, believe God is going to use: check out our web site and be a part of it - bring your parachute!

God is great and His people are amazing!!!

We can do some things better together than alone!

Steve Millward

Steve is the minister at Crossroads Christian Fellowship, and the enthusiastic changemaker that initiated Faithfest for the North Island. This is a local project that is already affecting the nation after just 3 years