Catrina Benham's Blog

Where to start? We had a great weekend at Butlins Bognor Regis , helping out with the Youth event. Lee, Zoe and the Youth band were FANTASTIC - it was such a privilege to see what went on and to be part of it all as we prayed for the young people. We had fun with friends and family; the children loved the swimming pool, the amusements and the dodgems. Great food - and they even had lattes! But the biggest thrill (and greatest challenge) was to see young people worship and be so responsive to the gospel. Their honesty and lack of pride as they came forward for prayer , was a powerful challenge to me for when I can so often be hard hearted, proud and independent. Our youth band were terrific, we were so proud of them as they led us all in worshipping Jesus. One memorable song for me was "This is Life" with the chorus: Treasures come and treasures can go in a moment But Jesus You're eternally mine You are all that I need You are all that satisfies me What can the world offer

Exposition, the newly-formed Unique writing group met for the first time last Friday evening. Here's a report from one of their members (and frequent commentator on blogs!) Irene Mooney. Exposition.....when I first heard that Jacqui Webber-Gant was about to start a writers group within the Unique women’s ministry...I immediately thought....Oh yes...that’s for me.!!!..As someone who has always written...letters.... cards....lists....notes...and more recently a blog...it appealed to me to see what God would do with a group of women ..passionate about God and passionate about writing.... At our first meeting Jacqui shared her vision and I was caught up in the excitement of where this could lead to.....Jacqui talked about how we were looking to.... 1) find our voice 2) pray for and speak prophetically to one another 3) expect to grow in gifting and anointing 4) expect to change lives through the words that we write 5) discipline and accountability We spent a bit of time writing....as y

Unique's book club Activate are meeting again this Saturday evening. Exciting news is that the book club has been growing, so there will now be three venues and hosts. Check out Activate on the website for details about the locations of the new venues, the book being read and how to contact Ope who leads Activate. For those who want to get ahead, the next book will be "Get Out of That Pit!" by Beth Moore. I love reading , and have always got a variety of books on the go. I wasn't expecting any books for Christmas, so I bought myself a present (!) it's a very challenging book called "Boundaries" by Henry Cloud. Think it's going to be a bit of a landmark book - watch this space! So, what are you reading at the moment? x

Well, the 3 Sunday meetings went fantastically well - God was with us; and the tremendous effort and planning of many hard working people really paid off. There were first time visitors at all our meetings; and there was a real buzz - it was fun to see people chatting and connecting as they came and went between the 2 morning meetings. The evening was a great experience - I thoroughly recommend getting there early for the lattes and the hot chocolates :) The brilliant thing is This Is It now - we get to do it all over again this week! For the record I helped in creche at 11 , so only got to hear Simon preach twice - both great! Nancy Beach is from Willow Creek Church in Chicago. She is coming over to the UK at the end of this month with her seminar "Gifted to Lead - Women in Leadership". (More information about Nancy Beach's seminars in the UK here ). She is a great speaker - I had the privilege of hearing her twice last year. I'm going to Battersea on Saturday 31st J

Just a quick blog before an early night, because Sundays are now going to start even earlier than a school day for our family! Church is on at 9, 11 and 7 from tomorrow, so it's a bit of a milestone as we move to 3 meetings. We're also beginning the Elephant in the Church series - this week it's on Hypocrisy. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing Simon's sermons 3 times. Think I'll need to bring one of those cute pens with 3 colours in, so I can add to my notes each meeting. Can't wait - see you there x

The Christmas tree has been dragged out for recycling; the decorations and lights are packed away for another year (will they work again when we unravel them?!); the children are back at school and we are back to work. We've still got some Thank You letters to write, but yesterday I got round to doing some tasks that I had been literally putting off for months. When I got down to them they were manageable and fairly quick to do..and the sense of relief was enormous! One thing I realised last year ( like many other women?) is that I live with a constant sense of guilt.."I haven't done enough" in what seems like most areas of my life. So I'm trying to do something about that - choose to not feel guilty, to tell myself I have done enough - and to get on with those tasks that I put off, and which then contribute to me feeling guilty! I'll let you know how I get on x PS My son told me he needed cooking ingredients (chicken soup) literally 3 minutes before leaving