We had 260 at the Saturday, inspiration/ teaching day. It was all energy and expectation and was a joy to preach into such a vibrantly alive setting. It was a great example of what the Front Edge package does: because we are all in this together, have all invested already and are all stepping out in faith, the preaching that takes place on the Saturday comes with such relevance and impact.

Henk said that he felt it was the best day they had had together as Newfrontiers churches, which was tremendous as Front Edge is so integral to our mission to enable churches to reach their communities with the gospel. Another of the pastors (Joop Bakker from Groningen) said the same thing. He was overjoyed at the sense of camaraderie and good will that we experienced as pastors together.

The Saturday went well with the visiting evangelists teaching, and I had each of them pray over the whole group for impartation to the churches. We also had tremendous prayer for the Guest Services. The striking thing for me was the sense of unity and the high level of energy throughout the day. (I had personally felt a high level of ease and energy from the moment I landed in Holland and it continued. In fact I still feel strangely energized!)

In terms of the Sunday Guest Services the news is wonderful and I feel somewhat emotional even as I write. Remember this was the smallest Front Edge ever, with only six churches holding Guest Services.

Harderwijk

Had their largest ever service with 210 adults. Their previous record was 170 including the kids. There were two very clear and quick healings after which I preached. There was a sudden disruption: the keyboard player collapsed and apparently the nurses couldn’t get a pulse. We prayed, waited a little, and had the congregation pray again, and mercifully the man revived and was able to stand up and walk from the meeting waving as he did so! I preached and felt the power of God in the word and eleven precious souls came forward at the appeal. Almost all were first time guests! Henk said this service was definitely a breakthrough for them. I was overjoyed.

Utrecht

80 folk there. Good number of guests. Mike Sprenger spoke. Four responses. Two clear healings at the time.

Berkel

180 present. Vinu preached. Three healings were testified to, and six responses after he spoke.

Groningen

425 present. Something like 200 guests after their breakfast strategy, which obviously worked like a dream. Steve Hurd preached. There was one healing and then a great response of 20 to the gospel appeal!

Maastricht

84 present with something like 20 guests. A great increase for them. Steve Van Rhyn prayed for the sick and there was clear healing. He also prayed for legs and backs at the end where there were three tremendous healings. Seven people responded to the gospel.

Reeuwyk

110 present. 50 guests! Phil Moore spoke and God gave a healing during the general prayer time (ie, before Phil individually prayed for anyone) which was a great encouragement to him. Afterwards, the mother of the man healed also got healed! Eight responses to the gospel.

I don’t predict numbers for Front Edges, though I have often been asked what I am believing God for. In this case, I had said to Steve Hurd that if we got a total of 20 responses it would be good; if we got 50 I felt it wouldn’t be exaggerating to say it had been a breakthrough for our churches. So, if numbers build your faith like they do mine, then here are some more fascinating statistics:

Total attendance at the six services: 1129

Guests: 380

Responses: 56

Every church had responses, every church had testimonies of healing. Hallelujah!

In May in South East England we had 168 responses from 53 churches – an average of just over three from each church.

In the Netherlands we had 56 from six – an av

erage of over nine per church. That’s three times the response level on a church by church basis, which is important in terms of boosting confidence for success in evangelism. I think each church can come away from the weekend feeling like they had a success.

The encouraging news is that the response level in the Netherlands was roughly the same as in the UK, going by guests who respond to the appeals.

FE South East England May 07

168 responses from total attendance of 10675 = 1.57%

168 from 1009 guests = 16.65% of guests responded to the preaching!

FE Netherlands

56 from 1129 attendance = 4.96%

(so it felt really good for everyone!!)

56 from 380 guests = 14.73%

Our total responses from Front Edges so far is now 1367! Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus!

Henk was mightily encouraged. In fact, we all were. Stephen also stepped out in a new way in healing and came back buzzing that God gave him success. It was a great time. Thank you so much for praying and I hope this e-mail has brought joy to your hearts! God is with us! This is just the opening for Europe I am sure.

I began the conference with the word God gave me for Europe about His being the God of both the hills and the valleys, and demonstrating that by giving us a multitude. We are now truly seeing it happen!