Event Recap: Amplify
Amplify 2023 was a great opportunity for us to gather with the elders and senior leaders, along with their spouses, from Commission churches across the UK. We met at Welcome Church in Woking for fun, food, friendship, and a chance to encounter God together through worship, teaching and ministry.
Friday evening was a relaxed social time where we ate together and had the opportunity to catch up with friends old and new. We enjoyed a glass of Prosecco on arrival, followed by a three-course meal. Towards the end of the evening, Chris and Sarah Hawes led us through our very own version of the well know TV show ‘Gladiators’. Contestants pitted themselves against the Gladiators in a series of ridiculous competitions to win prizes, ably refereed by Chris Kilby from Life Church Southampton. In the end, Catherine Kimbangi from Hope Church Guildford was crowned the Amplify Gladiators 2023 Winner, and Bev Landreth-Smith from Bridge Church Newbury, who played the part of a Gladiator with unwavering tenacity, got a cheesecake in the face (which some say she thoroughly deserved). All in all a lot of fun was had.
After gathering for coffee, the Saturday morning started with a vibrant time of worship served by the excellent Welcome Church band led by Jo Petch. There was a powerful sense of God’s presence as we sang together and a deep awareness, through the various Spirit-led contributions and prayers, of God speaking his name over us as his people.
The first teaching session was led by Andrew Wilson who spoke on life ‘After The Crash’. Andrew Looked at the examples of Moses, David, Elijah and Paul, showing how each of them had experienced a ‘crash’ where life took a significant turn for the worse, and how in each case God intervened and led them through the crash and into a better future. We considered how we will all experience ‘crashes’ ourselves sometimes, situations where life collapses around us in church, in the world or in our own personal lives, and how God can and will help us recover to a better place than we were in before the crash happened. This led to an excellent time of ministry.
Rachel Wilson spoke in the second session with the title ‘Limited Leader, Limitless God’. We saw how we all have human limits, but that God has never called us to be infinite, self-sufficient, unchanging, omniscient, omnipresent, omniscient or sovereign; He is all of these things, and we are none of them. We considered how sometimes the circumstances of our personal life, our church life or our family life can create limits on us. We considered what it might look like to co-operate with God in our suffering, and what it might look like to model vulnerability well. We were also challenged to consider if there were constraints in our own lives that we are interpreting as ‘limitations’, but which are actually part of God’s good design for our flourishing as human leaders. There was a powerful time of ministry after Rachel’s talk too.
After lunch Steve Petch spoke from Hebrews 12v1-3, talking about God’s call on us to be kingdom-focused Joy Bringers to those around us. We considered how fixing our eyes on Jesus will release us to know HIS joy in our lives and free us to share that with others, wherever God sends us. After this Guy Miller reminded us of The 10 Acts of Commission and led us into a time of prayer and prophetic ministry. Ian Hodgson from Mosaic Church Basingstoke brought a number of shaping words for various people, churches and situations that we also prayed into.
With increasing numbers of leaders in our growing family, and with the desire to run our own Commission Leadership Conference again in 2024, this might be the last time that we run Amplify. If that turns out to be the case then it was certainly a high note for us to go out on. Don’t forget that the talks are available here for you to watch if you missed it.
