Reflections on REAL

This weekend I was lucky enough to attend REAL 2011. It was my first ever full Christian conference and I was incredibly unsure about what to expect. Once getting there I was amazed by all the effort the team had made to make the Church all feminine and wonderful, from the writing on the toilet mirrors to the lovely young men in suits greeting the ladies at 8:30 in the morning. Rachel Hickson  opened for us and gave an incredible speech about closing doors on both good and horrible memories. Catrina spoke to us about transforming moments and how we need to get out of the habit of jumping to the worse conclusions and Liz spoke to us about tough moments and how God is with us throughout them. All 3 speakers bought something different to the conference and all had inspiring words that I'm looking forward to looking back on in the future.

There was also other little moments, such as hearing a large room of woman worshipping, me and Beth Rutland trying to "sign" the worship lyrics which bought even more emotion to the worship. It was also very lovely to see both Dave and Anna Hulme on stage playing keys together. Then there was our senior pastor Simon Benham singing amazing by Bruno Mars to his wife Catrina which yet again set a whole new mood to the day. Overall the REAL was an incredible experience for so many different reasons. I definatly can't wait for next years.