Shoalhaven Mayor Paul Green and his
lovely wife Michelle with Justin and Lisa Rickard
founders of the Shoalhaven Awakening
Praise, worship and prayer meetings started at Justin & Lisa Rickard’s home with only seven people in September 2008. Those early nights were very precious meetings as we all began to grow closer in the Lord with people from Berry to Ulladulla in a genuine and beautiful move of the Holy Spirit.
The group grew and soon there was not enough room to hold more than sixty people in their home so the meetings moved to the Nowra Showground. Then, in September 2009, the meetings moved to Victory Centre at Bomaderry. Pastors Doug and Pat Collins and their team very generously allowed us to use their building for the fortnightly Tuesday meetings. (NB. This group was not run by Victory Centre but by people from a number of different churches).
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SHOALHAVEN AWAKENING
The Shoalhaven Awakening started with some Shoalhaven Christians. The Lord lay on their hearts to organise united praise and worship at the new Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre and use this as a tool to unite the churches of the Shoalhaven in preparation for a move of the Holy Spirit through the region.
In mid 2008 we met with Paul Green, our current Shoalhaven Mayor, who linked us together with other Christians who had approached him with the same visit.
Our City's First United Praise and Worship Service held on May 7th 2011
On May 7th 2011 the city had their first united praise and worship gathering at the Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre which was a great success and significant moment for many Shoalhaven Christians. We filled the entertainment centre with people from our area and afar. People said they loved the worship/band and felt so moved to be in one room worshipping God with God's people from all denominations.
Next United Praise and Worship Service will be held on Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 at 3.00pm, at Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre, with the same band we had on May 7th.
Glory be to God!
The pastors, and many local Christians, have said that the beauty of this movement is that it is a grassroots, non-denominational, informal movement being built by the people inside a God-given strategy to unite local Christians across denominational lines and be impartial communication to Christians via email about what Special Christian events are happening in the Shoalhaven.
We were encouraged and blessed to be part of the cities first 24 hr praise and worship which was held at the Victory Centre which was organized by Rod and Jill Rose and Elliot Bonser. There was live worship bands from Shoalhaven churches and beyond who came together on June 25th 2010 to lead the people in Praise and worship over a 24 hour period.
The Shoalhaven was very blessed to have such excellent musicians joining forces with the grassroots people from churches all over the Shoalhaven, to forge a pathway and change our regions atmosphere & future through praise, worship and prayer for "Gods kingdom be done in the Shoalhaven". Please visit our worship seminar page and listen to Ps Tom Inglis teaching on "Changing a city through worship".
In 2010 we were busy putting a carefully selected band together with people of one on heart and great musicianship. The Lord handpicked the most amazing band for us to lead our region in praise and worship. The band rehearsed in Sydney and led Nowra City Church in worship on a Sunday just before the event. Ps Peter Pilt from Nowra City Church very generously allowed us to use his great building for 3 rehearsals.
Every meeting was different. The Holy Spirit always directed beautiful and powerful praise and worship led by Christine Moussa, Shelly Curtis and our amazing band assembled from seven churches. We often had riveting testimonies and brief lessons from the Bible, always relevant to the direction God was leading the group. Then we moved straight into praise and worship which was different every week and was always very powerful for the people. We feel these meetings were creating a portal to open up the heavens for God to move into the Shoalhaven. Each fortnight the presence of the Lord was very strong and real in the meetings and the Lord always spoke to the group as a united whole.
From the beginning we have been very aware that we need Pastoral oversight so we organised an informal “board” of local pastors who we met with occasionally. On this board are Pastors Trevor Aspin who is a pastor at Nowra City Church, James Halliday from Mannahouse Ministries, Doug Collins from Victory Centre and Brendan Handel from Berry Community Church .
We also held a series of day long worship seminars drawing and especially musicians from all over the Shoalhaven, teaching the principles and practice of praise and worship.
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