Church of the Holy Spirit - Crawcrook
St John’s Church - Greenside
Church Office, Main Steet, Crawcrook
Ryton, Tyne and Wear
NE40 4NB
Testimonies
If you would like prayer for healing, please come to one of our Church Services. There are members of our prayer ministry team available to pray with you. If you wish to talk to someone about "Prayer for Healing" ring Revd Clive Devonish on 0191 4138281.
Ian Wallace from Crawcrook
I took ill on Monday 14 May 2008. Prayers were said for me on that evening by the Monday Home Group; they prayed for a Damascus type experience for me.I had a virus, it was rather nasty diarrhoea and sickness. On Tuesday evening prayers were said for me by Dawn, my wife, and Helen, on the bus from J John. At that time I stopped being violently sick; I assumed that this was a coincidence.
I went to work on the Friday, I felt well enough, I was content that I was not going to make a mess or die. I felt lethargic and cold all day. I returned home at 5pm and went to bed early at 10pm. I struggled to sleep as I was so cold.
I was lying on my side when a very bright intense golden light appeared. He asked me, ’Do you believe, do you believe, do you believe, do you believe?’
I said ’I believe in Jesus’.
He moved me from being on my side to lying on my back and he told me ’Raise your hands’.
I felt heat going through my body, wave upon wave from head to toe. I felt His love too. I was sobbing uncontrollably and my head was moving from side to side.
My wife Dawn woke up; ’Are you OK? What is the matter?'.
I said ’It’s Jesus, Jesus is with me.’ She said ‘You must be joking!’ She held my hand and felt the heat and energy too. She also felt a presence, the atmosphere in the room was thick. After a few minutes it passed.
I was very thirsty and got out of bed. I felt warm, completely free from any pain or discomfort in my body. My energy had returned too. I eventually fell asleep and arose at 8am.
My wife and I went to the village at 10am, the first person we met was Clive Devonish, our vicar. Another coincidence!
Before this experience I was a nice bloke, law abiding and very conscientious. Being an accountant my work can be stressful. I am now part of God’s family and am proud to call myself a Christian.
I attended Church on Sunday and was taken aback with the extremely warm welcome from everyone. I look forward to meeting my friends each week and am determined to attend as often as I can.
I have also enjoyed J John, a well known Evangelist who is presenting the 10 commandments at Gateshead on each Tuesday. On Thursday evenings we have Home Groups where we have a chance to be together as a group to sing, pray and understand the bible more; as well as having some fun.
I pray at least twice a day and read as much as I can during each day. I am very conscious that I have so much to learn and understand.
The main difference in me though is that I feel completely different inside. I am more relaxed and not as stressed as I used to be, I am much more content too. Although I would have swore a few times during each day; I have not thought of swearing and have not spoken a foul word during the past 4 weeks. I care more for others, more compassionate and loving. I am generally a much happier person too. This has totally changed my life.
I understand the importance of telling as many people of my experience and have told my family, friends and colleagues at work. Most were amazed and pleasantly surprised.
I will be pleased to share my experience with any other groups.
IW 140608
The Miracle of the Mobile Phone (from Clive's Blog 22 Nov 2007)
A few nights ago some young people were hanging about outside the Church of the Holy Spirit, Crawcrook. John Spencer the Alpha course administrator was setting up for Alpha invited them into the hall and began to chat with them. They later left the church building. Sometime later that evening they began to make a disturbance outside. One or two people responded by going outside and talking with them. They were asked just to respect what was going on inside the building.
After a short while I began to chat with them, while the Alpha talk was going on in the church. We talked about various things and I eventually asked them what sort of world they would like to see and be part of - various responses came back. One young man said he would like to see a drug and violent free community; another mentioned that she wished that a gang of kids would not make so much noise outside her grandmother's house which scared her gran.
The same girl said that she had a physical problem which affected her temperament and also shared that earlier that evening she had also lost her mobile phone somewhere in the park. I suggested to the girl and the other young people that we can pray for both situations - the medical problem and the lost phone. They began to giggle. I shared with them that God was a God who wanted the best for them and that they were extremely precious in their sight. I asked them: "Has anybody ever told you how precious you are? They replied, “No!” They then began to share with me some of their broken family history. We eventually began to pray (they were still giggling at this stage). I said that the God I worship is a God of love and miracles and that He could heal the girl with the medical problem and will help to find the mobile phone.
After praying they all went off to do their thing. The next morning I returned to the church building and guess what - a mobile phone was lying at the entrance of the doorway. I picked it up and saw that the battery was missing. I began to look around and there in the middle of a bunch of autumn leaves was a battery. The phone was then stored in the office.
The following week just before the Alpha course started the same group turned up outside the church and once again they were invited in. The first thing one of the girls said was something like "Your prayers did not work and your God did not find my phone"; I said to her “Hang on a minute” and went to get the phone from the office. When she was presented with it she looked flabbergasted and went and kneeled in front of a picture of a cross and blessed herself and said thank you to God (she was still slightly play acting). But as she left you could see the excitement on her face and she shouted to the people going into church, "I believe in God".
We pray for that group of young people - that we can continue to reveal the God of love and miracles to them.
When sitting down to write this I became a little confused as what to write. The reason for this is there is so much happened to my life since I became a Christian on 28th of March 2007. I could write a book not just a testimony!
I could have written about my life’s journey and how I believe God’s hand has guided me right through my life to living in Greenside and coming to this church. Or I could have written about prayer and all the pray that has been answered in the short time I have known God.
However I have had so much prayer answered in the last four months I have enough to write a book on my prayer experience alone! As you can see, there are many things that have changed in my life since becoming a Christian. My understanding of certain words have changed considerably. So I have decided to use this testimony to explain the difference between my old and new understanding of certain words, in the hope that it may help you, the reader, understand a little more of the life changing experience that occurs when you accept God into your life.
Church: My old understanding – A building where a few people who were religious went on a Sunday to sing old songs with an out of tune organ. My new understanding – A church is a group of people that come together to worship God and grow His kingdom. That group of people could meet in a house, tent or a big old stone building with a bell in it, it’s irrelevant.
What matters is they are bound together with their love for the Lord, their love for each other and their love for all people. The buildings themselves are irrelevant and I personally think they should be called something other than a church to stop the confusion. A church is a group of people not a building.
Christian: My old understanding – A Christian is someone born in a Christian country. If they want to reinforce the point of being a Christian they could go to church. My new understanding – I am a Christian because I have accepted Jesus Christ into my life.
I am now in Christ and He is in me. Therefore really we should be called (in Christ I am ians). However in man's wisdom we confuse things and call ourselves Christ ians.
God: My old understanding – Now with God I found it a little less complicated because, like most people, I always knew there was a God. Even when I made the classic statement of all non Christians (I don’t believe in God and if there is one, why is there so much wrong in the world). But deep down I knew that God existed. I think we all have a hole inside which we try to fill in different ways. The old me tried to fill that hole with so many different things, including money, booze, drugs, football, music, sex, successes, fame, cars, holidays and a host of other materialistic items.
All of these things fill your hole with desire while you try and get them, but once you achieve them, then they satisfy you for a very short time. Once that fades then you're left with the gaping hole of desire again and a frustration as how to fill it.
My new understanding – God fills that hole right up. You go from having a hole to becoming whole. Once you have accepted God into your life it can be overwhelming the love He shows you. The thing is we are born to have a relationship with God. If we are not having that relationship then we are left with a big hole in our lives.
For me, being a very successful business man with a strong 17 year marriage and two great kids, I thought I had it all, but it was nothing without God. Nothing could fill that hole – Until I found God
The Bible; My old understanding – A book full of stories about such things as David and Goliath and a man performing miracles of wine to water and healing the sick. My new understanding – The bible is a manual for life! In its simplest form you can read the bible from start to finish. It will document mankind starting in the past right through to finish in the future. It will tell of God's early relations with mankind and how He is developing us and teaching us. It tells how Jesus the Son of God was sent to earth to save us all and triumph over the devil. It also tells us what will happen in the future.
The bible though above all else is – The living word of God. God speaks to me through the bible. All of life’s answers are in the bible. I can refer to the bible for any aspect of life. When it comes alive it is an amazing feeling.
I could have read a chapter or verse three times before being a Christian, and not taken a great deal from that chapter or verse. Now, if I'm needing an answer in life, and I'm reading a chapter or verse that I've read before, it just springs out of the page to answer your question - sometimes before you even know you needed to ask the question!
You see, God knows you inside out, He knows you better than you know yourself. So the Bible is God's living word, a tool He can use to speak with me. God uses His Living Word to comfort me and encourage me as well as teaching me, and answering my questions.
Prayer: My old understanding – As a child I prayed every night even though I did not fully understand what I was doing. Why, as adults, do we stop doing this? Other than that, like most people I only prayed when I was in trouble. I thnk most adults do this . Even though we claim not to believe in God, we pray like the clappers when things go wrong, when we are in trouble or our life is in danger. My new understanding – Prayer is the most wonderful gift given to mankind. Anybody can talk directly to God through prayer. He loves to listen to us through our prayers. You can speak to him in any language. You can speak in the Queen's English or your best Geordie. God understands me better than I understand me. I can talk to Him any time I choose through prayer. God not only listens but He answers. I have had every question answered through prayer (not always the answer I wanted), but every prayer answered.
Once I accepted God into my life through Jesus Christ and had faith in the lord then all my prayers have been answered.
Jesus: My old understanding – A mythical Character whom I was told about at Sunday School and Infant and Junior School. My new understanding – Jesus is too big and wonderful to understand or write about. but I will try to give some witness here.
One of the first things to strike me on coming back to church was Jesus. The miracles He performed in healing the sick and the poor, that are documented in the Bible, were wonderful. However the many miracles that He performed in His ministry while on earth are dwarfed by what He has achieved since. These are the miracles carried out every day for the last two thousand years in His name, since Jesus was last with us. The power of Jesus is such that by the mere mention of His name the crippled are cured and the sick are healed.
Jesus is so powerful that it is way beyond our comprehension. I’ve just read and witnessed his huge power on a daily basis in wonder and awe since coming to Christ.
His words and teachings could not be spoken by a mere man. There are many of these great teachings in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. However the one which if applied could sort all our problems is to:
Love your neighbour as you love yourself - If we truly loved our fellow man as we love ourselves then all the worlds’ problems could be solved.
- We would not lie to anyone as we would not lie to ourselves.
- We would not envy anyone as surely we would not envy ourselves.
- We would not hate anyone
- We would not try and be better than anyone else.
If the entire world applied that single teaching of Jesus – Love everyone the same as you love yourself. The world would be put right. Terrorism would stop; wars would cease; the rich western world would share with the third world and eradicate poverty and hunger.
NO MAN COULD SPEAK SUCH WORDS OF WISDOM.
ONLY THE SON OF GOD COULD SPEAK SUCH WISDOM.
Barbara from Crawcrook July 2007
I don't remember very much about church as a child, but I do remember collecting all the prayer books and Bibles from the pews, stacking them into piles and playing libraries! That was fun! I dropped out of church in my teens but I did still believe in Jesus.
When I was 21, I went to
Two years later I was excited about getting married and moving to Crawcrook. I started going to the Church of the Holy Spirit and after a little while I prayed a simple prayer and asked Jesus to come into my life. I can remember walking home and feeling very light, as though I was walking on air.
That was nearly 14 years ago and I’ve been learning ever since. I’ve got some things right and some things wrong. I’ve been through some tough times emotionally and spiritually.
Last year, I took part in an Alpha course, which helped enormously because I was able to say sorry to God and repent of some things that had been wrong in my life. As a result, I was filled with such a joy and peace, and a love for Jesus that it is almost impossible to describe. I simply adore Jesus.
God has poured out His love into our hearts by His Holy Spirit.
Romans 5.5
I need Jesus every day. I depend on Him and am so very grateful to Him for His love and faithfulness. I consider it a privilege to be a Christian.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
Out of the mud and the mire;
He set my feet on a rock And gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song into my mouth, A hymn of praise to our God
Psalm 40 verses 2-3.
With your grace Lord, let me continue to serve you by the power of Your Holy Spirit. You deserve all the glory, honour and praise and I give it all to you.
Annie Brocklebank, 80 years old, from Greenside Feb 2007
Nearly five years ago, I fell and dislocated my right shoulder, and my arm was limited as to how far I could raise it. I had therapy for weeks but that didn’t do anything; I just had to live with it.
But on Thursday 8 February 2007, Revd Clive invited me to go to a Blessing and Healing meeting at Holy Spirit Church, which I attended. The speaker was Stan Smith and his wife JoAnn from
I went home and when I got up on Friday morning, I had a premonition that my shoulder felt different; lifted my arm and it went straight up. To me, it was a miracle from our dear Lord.
Many thanks to Clive, our vicar, and to Stan and JoAnn. May God bless them for my miracle cure. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ who is our Saviour.
Alan Gaynor from Crawcrook Dec 2007
17 years ago, I was diagnosed as having sciatica and osteoarthritis. It was extremely debilitating and resulted in me spending long periods of time lying on the floor in order to get relief from the pain. Despite the best efforts of my physiotherapist, the pain persisted. But I placed the problem in God’s hands. After another eight years I found it increasingly more difficult to carry on with my job as a plumber and so took early retirement. At one stage, my wife Norma even had to put on my socks and shoes for me!
All this changed last year, when Randy Vickers from the Northumbrian Centre of Prayer for Christian Healing, was invited to our church. He shared about God’s healing and that he felt called to pray for someone with ‘back’ problems. As he laid hands and prayed for a lady, in front of the whole church, I had an immediate sensation of intense heat on my spine. And I knew that God had touched and healed me, through the power of His Holy Spirit.
A week later, I woke up with these words in my mind “He touched me, He touched me, Oh the joy that touched my soul. Something has happened and now I know He touched me and made me whole”. It’s now 2007 and my healing is still there. Here in the grace of God I stand.
Testimony by Clive Devonish
God speaks through His Holy Scriptures!
After about five years of interviews at a local level and responding to the many recommendations given to me, I had finally made it to a Selection Conference to become a Vicar. At last I made it, I had managed to jump all the hurdles they put in front of me!
The interview that lay ahead of me was three days long at Chester Retreat House. I can recall going to there with a deep excitement in my heart. Day One, the first part of the interview, as far as I was concerned went well. So did Day Two. On the Saturday evening of Day Two, when I was in prayer, the Lord clearly told me to read a passage in the Old Testament - Deut 2:7.
"The Lord your God has blessed you with everything you have undertaken. He has watched over your journey through this great wilderness; these forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have gone short of nothing."
The amazing part of this scripture was that I had just reached the age of forty, and I knew God's calling was upon me and was very aware of His presence in my life. Although I did not always acknowledge His presence when I lived in the wilderness, He still watched over me and I went short of nothing.
This scripture was to be my support for the news which was revealed very shortly after my interview - I was not recommended for training for full-time ministry. This obviously was a great disappointment to me. It was certainly an emotional time for me - questions such as - 'Why God?' 'Why have you led me to this situation' - Why this - Why that?
He kept leading me back to the passage in Deuteronomy. Then I realised that it was all in His hands and that whatever happened there must be a purpose in it. After all, He had blessed over forty years of my life and whatever happened, I believed good would come out of it.
I subsequently went for an interview with my local Bishop, who was also disappointed (after all he recommended me). He promised to send me again, in two years time, for another Selection Conference (two years being the minimum time between interviews).
During those two years after my initial disappointment and loads of self-pity I experienced the most wonderful times with the Lord. He led me into areas where my faith grew stronger and stronger. I experienced miracles and an immense power and fearlessness in my life. It was a wonderful preparation for the calling upon my life in full-time-ministry.
The good news is that after the break of two years, I went back for interview again at a Retreat House in Northampton - where I was recommended for training.
