Past Events

28th December 2007 - the birth of Christ

The theme for this month was an obvious choice and we hoped to give an opportunity for people to reflect on Christmas and its message after the business of the actual day and preceding week had died down. Faye Leteve gave a testimony of how God performed an act of healing in her life in the summer whilst Gaz Simmonds and Kat Witham talked about their recent trip to Kosovo as part of an Operation Christmas Child distribution team giving out the shoebox gifts.

30th November 2007 - preparing the way

This theme was chosen for November since the event fell on the eve of advent, a season of preparation. During the evening we looked at how others had prepared the way for God in the world and in our lives and thought of how we could prepare the way for God in the lives of others. This was done with the help of a testimony from Jake Howe and a time of meditative prayer lead by Julie Lomas. The prayer area this month was laid out as a path to help people to think of faith as a journey with God leading the way.

26th October 2007 - love

Love is such a huge theme to explore that we probably could have done more than one event on it. As it was we focussed on it just for October looking at how great God's love is for us and how in response to that we should love Him and those around us. Steve Willis gave his testimony of how he realised God's love for everyone including himself and David Mouncer, in his last month as rector of St. Thomas', told of how in the same evening that he accepted the love of God he also met his wife for the first time! 'The Father's Love Letter' (a collection of Biblical verses) was read during one of the sung worship times to help people think of the huge length, breadth and depth of God's love.

28th September 2007 - mission

At the start of this event we played a video that we had made from clips of different people in our church explaining what the word 'mission' meant to them, we asked people to consider during the evening how they defined 'mission'. Testimonies were given by Jane Simmonds, who works for the mission organisation Samaritan's Purse, and Alastair Langton who coordinates youthwork in Derby Diocese, working to reach out to young people across Derbyshire.

31st August 2007 - keeping aflame

We chose this theme for August because often people can have a really good time in the summer and feel encouraged by the good weather and holidays they may go on such as Greenbelt and Soul Survivor. But when they get home it is hard to maintain such a positive attitude and the realities of everyday life make the summer diminish to a distant memory. We wanted to look at ways we could continue to be on fire for God all the year round regardless of our situation. As part of this we heard testimonies from Josh Wheeler and Church Army Captain Alan who have both had high and low points in their Christian lives but try to live everyday for God.

27th July 2007 - service

We addressed the theme of serving God by looking at how Jesus served people using the song 'My Jesus' at the beginning of this event. We also sang worship songs including 'We must Go' and 'Servant King' which are written around this theme. Ruth Bird and Hannah Willis gave their testimonies including ways that they have served God in their lives.

29th June 2007 - creation

We began the evening by taking a walk round the church, observing and appreciating the wonderful and amazing world the Lord has so carefully and intricately created, that we so commonly taken for granted. Gemma Machin (St.Thomas' youth worker) and Denise Glover gave their testimonies about how God has created and re-created in their lives. In the prayer area we had a water feature and some plants to help people contemplate some of the different elements of God's creation.

25th May 2007 - grace

The act of grace is at the heart of Christianity, therefore an obvious theme for Furnace. It also coincided with the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery and the release of the film 'Amazing Grace'. One of the Furnace leaders Kat shared her testimony as the topic of grace means a lot to her faith. David Sanderson also shared his experiences of being a church army representative.

27th April 2007 - celebration

We began this month's event with the fitting new song 'Happy Day' (Tim Hughes Version) which has since become a Furnace favourite. Phil Herrick, the worship co-ordinator at St. Thomas', gave his testimony as well as Mick Jackson who spoke of how he found God through the work of Church on the Bus. As a quieter worship activity a worship song with DVD accompaniment was shown on the projector.

30th March 2007 - the cross

This event began with a reading of Jesus' last hours on the cross. Phil Michell shared his testimony of how although he had always been taken to church that he had realised as he grew up that God loved him as an individual and that God died because he loved him. Josh and Kat also gave a short talk about the 'Stop the Traffik' campaign. To begin the prayer time the moving video of 'Those were my nails' was shown.

23rd February 2007 - getting through the hard times

The initial Furnace, Julie Lomas and Leigh-Anna Bird gave their testimonies. Julie shared with us different moments from her life using visual aids and spoke of how God had helped her through difficulties. Leigh-Anna delivered an emotional account of her early but somewhat difficult years explaining how she found God in her teens and in God found love and acceptance. We also had the footprints poem read during the prayer time.