The frustrations of the strange times in which we are living have provided a unique opportunity for the North West Gospel Partnership (NWGP) to present their next Annual Conference in an exciting and peculiarly appropriate way.
Next month their conference will take place over five weeks, with eight different sessions being streamed on YouTube, beginning Saturday 23 January. They had already planned to do the conference differently.
Having revisited their purpose as a partnership of local churches seeking to reach the North West with the gospel, they have divided up the partnership into eight smaller regions. The conference normally has eight sessions, which dovetail well with the regional breakdown, and so they planned to have eight different speakers, one from each region of the partnership. Mark Pickles, Director of Training at the NWGP commented: ‘It is a wonderful testimony to the fruitfulness of the partnership, that when it first started nearly 20 years ago, we would have struggled to have found as many excellent, Biblically-faithful, gospel-hearted preachers in the region as we now have, in fact the difficulty was not who to ask but how to limit it to just eight.’
Alongside the eight speakers, there will also be a video from each of the eight regions giving news updates and prayer requests from each session. Presenting this online will allow them to connect across the whole partnership with each region within it, so all can be informed and focused in their support and prayers for one another.
In describing the teaching content, Mark went on to say: ‘Best of all, we will be expounding Philippians! It is hard to think of a better book of the Bible more suited to enthuse us in gospel partnership, cause us to delight in and exalt Christ, encourage us in suffering, and reassure us that the Sovereign God ensures the advance of the gospel even in the midst of seemingly insurmountable problems.
‘… and just when you think: “Could it get any better?” – because this conference is all online, even if you have the misfortune of not living in the North West – you can still tune in and watch, without having to travel or be forced to eat pies, fish and chips or mushy peas!’
