British Easter Conference
by Joanna Langley

Easter conference time again—but this year at a brand new location— King’s Park Conference Centre, just two minutes’ drive from the British fellowship home in Northampton. The care and attention we received throughout the week from the centre staff gave us a truly ‘WOW’ experience (a rare treat in England—as was the glorious spring weather!)

From the outset of our time together there was a focus on total living. The abundant life of Jesus Christ was evident in every aspect of our time together, from helping people to own and confess sin in their lives, to selecting an appropriate movie for leisure time.

One person was determined to hold on to the view of herself as being a ‘treasure,’ contrary to Scripture which says “there is no one righteous no not one” (Rom 3:10). In fact the one and only Treasure is Jesus Christ living in our earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7). Much time was spent with this person discussing the various situations in which she sees herself as this and the lies she chooses to believe to support this view of herself. She remained in bondage throughout the week, which manifested itself in Satan’s typical sin behaviour around the light by being quiet, self-conscious and looking to others for approval. We were unable to help her breakthrough before the end of the conference, but we continue to exhort and encourage her to agree with God about herself.

Another person was seeing himself as a child who needed to be taken care of, and instead of honestly communicating that he wanted to take part in an outing and participating in the planning process, he just tagged along the way a child would. The insanity of Satan was also illustrated by the fact that he also saw himself as someone in authority and therefore entitled to special treatment. Thankfully, he took God’s view and believed the truth about himself. The youth were excited to be studying the book of James, prompted by Scott Prewitt’s article in the last issue of The Intercessor. Thought-provoking questions about a particular chapter led to interesting discussions and personal sharing on various temptations and how James’ advice can be applied to each situation.

An invaluable evening was spent with the youth and adults combined, where role-plays were used to give two of our younger members practice at handling a difficult and painful situation with their unsaved father. Pent-up emotions were spontaneously expressed in a safe, caring and supportive environment. Both children were visibly delighted at being given permission to be real and honest about their situation. On Wednesday afternoon the male adults took the youth go-carting and on Thursday the whole fellowship celebrated a special birthday by going out to supper at The Old Coach House, a traditional English village Inn where Guy Fawkes was said to have hatched his plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.

For many of us, the joy of the conference was that we were all pulling together, Jesus Christ was just ‘being’ through us as individual members with our own contribution but one team…one body (1 Cor 12:27). Although we missed absent friends, we said in true end of conference style, “this was the best yet.”

Jo Langley is a full-time student at De Montfort University, Leicester, England and shares a house with Kim Rogers.