Catrina Benham's Blog

I always get a bit fuzzy around the end of the month, and not great at looking ahead and turning the diary pages. So its quite a shock to realise that its May 1st this Wednesday! May still seems so very far away ! So I guess its about time that I looked ahead and calculated how many weeks and days we have until REAL  on 12/13 July! We are planning, preparing and praying for Kerith's women's conference - so that in every session, and in all your time spent with us, you are blessed, encouraged and challenged by God - and you experience His love for you! This week I've been Sampling possible food treats that we will serve to you (its a tough job...!) plus also writing letters of invitation to lots of other local Churches. I've been communicating with Kim and Abs , the other speakers and I've talked about tech sheets, timings, surprises, stories, drama, worship, creative openers ...all different aspects of REAL. Of course, nothing would actually happen if...

  Just a quick post to share Shauna Niequist teaching at her home Church, Willow last weekend. She speaks powerfully about resentment, and forgiveness, and "letting people off the hook". It's a great listen - it may be a life saving listen for you today! Listen here     We loved having Shauna with us for REAL last year, she made a great impact on us. After she left, many of us found we were talking about female friendships - the pains and joys, the challenges of building great ones. So that's a theme we'll be exploring in more detail this year at REAL when we can all look forward to hearing some more godly wisdom from our friends Kim McManus and Abs Niblock. Not yet booked in? You can do it right now, online here . (click on the orange eventbrite)

  Unique is running a Women's Bible Study on the Book of James to coincide with the Sunday Summer Preaching series. This is an 8 week DVD based course written by the author and speaker Beth Moore.  Topics in this study include joy, hardship, faith, wisdom, the tongue, humility and prayer.    Heather Pocock is leading this course, starting on Tuesday 23rd April at 7.45pm in the Kerith Centre. The cost of £20 for the course includes refreshments, a workbook and the course DVD material. You can register at Kerith Reception or online (then pay via Kerith Reception beforehand).   Come along on a journey to get to know both the man and the Book of James. Here's a short video to whet your appetite.   For more information,look at the What's On page of the website, or  email Heather at heather.pocock@kerith.co.uk   I've heard great things about Beth Moore studies, and all the women who do them seem to really love t...

What's your week been like? Mine's been mixed - highs and lows, achievement and frustration, celebration and sadness - that's life! We celebrated our beautiful daughter's 15th Birthday this week with a fun, sunny day of lovely times. Simon and I also celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary - enjoying a wonderful, posh meal out together. A combination of my being on holiday from work, and hormones (more another time... maybe! ) has resulted in a lot of activity : I pressure washed the patio; changed a fuse that got our not-working-for-last-6-months -cooker hood fully operational again,;cleared out the kitchen drawers; replaced lightbulbs; went to the tip, to recycling and the charity shop; and raked the many dead leaves from the front lawn! Now you'll be very glad to know that I have STOPPED and am having a cup of tea! Whatever your week's been like, however much you've achieved (or not), however happy you've been (or not), whatever the highs (and ...

Oh Your cross, it changes everything There my world begins again with you Oh Your cross, its where my hope restarts A second chance is Heaven's heart. ...Countless second chances we've been given at the cross. Walking along an extremely muddy bridleway at Fourteen the other week, I had the phrase "countless second chances we've been given at the cross" in my mind, and (as I was alone - it was a cold day!) I just kept singing it over and over again out loud as I walked. One particularly muddy section of the path covered my shiny black wellies with thick brown mud. Then as I walked through a clear stream running across the middle of my path, my wellies were washed completely clean, not a trace of mud. And I realised again that that's what the "second chance" looks like in my life - starting again, a completely clean and fresh slate, a second chance. I love this song Second Chance by Rend Collective Experiment. I love it that it says ...