CAP Update - What has been happening recently?

I have been pretty rubbish at updating over the last couple of months... but I have just been really busy. Sorry, hopefully this give you a brief overview of the things that have gone on! I'll start by going through what has gone on in terms of CAP things, and then move onto what I've been up to in my job.

So CAP has a pretty huge vision for 2010 - with the plan to open 80 centres over the year. This will get us to about 180 centres by the end of the year all being well. We have already started this and we currently now have 125 centres scattered across the country! The following map shows our coverage. It is just so exciting to see this vision starting to be fulfilled by the power of God.

As CAP grows it could be very easy to get complacent and focused on being a big organisation - but this really isn't the case. We are all focused on seeing lives changed, the poor becoming debt free and the lost being saved. This will never change. When CAP gets to 650 staff members and 750 centres, I believe with all my heart that CAP will not change its focus or get complacent! I believe that God will continue to mould and make this organisation better through everyone who works for us. CAP has some amazing leaders who really care for their staff and who are just really great people! This has been shown recently by them winning the Sunday Times Best Leader award.

CAP has fought off competition from over 500 other companies to win the the award at the Sunday Times ‘Best Small Companies’ award ceremony. Building on previous recognition for excellence, CAP's Chief Executive, Matt Barlow, and Founder and International Director, John Kirkby, co-won the prestigious award. Matt says:

"We are delighted to receive this award. We hope that it demonstrates both how dynamic and in touch Christian organisations can be and the example they can set for other organisations. Whilst this award is a prestigious accolade, we’re not going to get complacent.  With 60 more debt counseling centres opening this year alone across the country, there’s plenty left to do to tackle the most pressing social problem affecting the UK today."

With all this faith for growth, head office expansion is also starting to take place! We have recently purchased an old derelict school just opposite our current building where we will be able to expand into with more offices and a conference floor where all our staff will be able to fit for meetings etc. If all continues to go to plan parts of this building will be in use by the summer. But a lot of things need to happen first. Please be praying for the refurbishment of the school and for the council to accept our plans.

CAP is continuing to train new CAP Money coaches across the country with many training days this year (we have one in Edinburgh this weekend) which is just really exciting. Our CAP Money course is growing extensionally with churches from all over the country starting to run the course. It's such an exciting way to equip current members of your church to manage their money well - but more importantly it is a great way to offer your community a service that will transform their finances, and hopefully by the Spirit of God, their lives as well!

We are currently launching all of our Sponsored Events for the year with a sponsored abseil coming up in a couple of weeks in Leeds. These events allow us to connect with our supporters, giving everyone the opportunity to raise some money to help and support the charity. Its still not too late to take part, or why not think about doing something later in the year? Have a watch of the following video and see if anything catches your attention! More information can be found on our website: www.capuk.org/events

Wow. Just writing some of the things above, just shows how exciting this year is going to be! There is so so much more that I just haven't got around to writing. I am hoping to maybe post a few more updates soon with other things that I have missed out to keep you all in the loop! But if you want weekly updates, why not check out John Kirkby's weekly video blog: http://www.capuk.org/blog/blog.php, or let me know and I will get you added to CAP's monthly e-shot.

OK, so what have I actually been doing? When I started back after Christmas, I was given the opportunity to switch roles within my department. So still within Partnership (the best department...) I am now heading up, organising and planning all of the conference exhibitions that CAP goes to in order to promote what we do, find new supporters and new churches to open centres. For example we will be attending both Spring Harvest and New Word Alive over the Easter period. This is such an exciting opportunity to be able to attend events with thousands of Christians and tell people how they are able to help and poor, broken and lost in our nation! Many of our centre churches first heard about CAP from one of these exhibitions, so I feel really privileged to have been given this responsibility. The role itself involves a lot of organisational type stuff, lots of excel spreadsheets, planning different things, organising our volunteers, negotiating good deals and generally lots of exciting things (well I think so anyways!). Those of you who know me well hopefully agree that this sounds like the perfect role for me :) - I'm loving it!

The internship part of my year (REACH) is also going really well. We are currently in a section of training on managing others, having already covered practical management and managing yourself. Over the next couple of months we will also be looking at leadership, recruitment and organisational leadership. All very exciting and really useful topics. Each week we get excellent teaching and training from great people who have experience in these areas, followed by time to discus what we have learnt and then often putting it straight into practice with projects in the afternoon.

The last couple of months have totally flown by, but have basically been a nice transition between my old role of helping to organise church talks to this exhibition stuff, but I am still totally loving working for CAP, working in such an exciting and challenging environment and being part of God's amazing plan to see this nation turned upside down! We are still seeing God saving our clients on a daily basis - with over 45 clients coming into relationship with Him in February alone - this is just so exciting! I heard a clients story last week which was just so powerful. A couple who had built up massive amounts of debt and had both become drug and alcohol addicts. Through all of these problems they ended up splitting up and getting themselves into more debt. During this time the woman got very depressed and ended up being in a mental hospital for a couple of weeks. She then heard about CAP from a notice outside the centre church and made her first appointment. She is now on her way out of the debt and is totally back on track not having taken alcohol or drugs for many months now. Both her and her ex-husband went on the church's alpha course and both came to know Christ. At this point they got back together and are now fully integrated into their local church living their lives for Christ, getting married in 2 weeks time and in control of their finances - how exciting!

If you have managed to get to the end of this having read it all - very well done! I hope that you feel like you know a little more about what I get up, and that you now feel inspired and encouraged about what God is doing through CAP. I'd like to thank everyone who has already offered financial support when I have asked previously. CAP really can't exist without people like you supporting and getting involved with its work! If you feel like you are able to make a small monthly donation of £2 a month - seriously that is only £24 a year - you won't even notice that leave your account then please let me know :) and if you want to be the special person who pushes me over my £2000 fundraising target head to www.justgiving.com/dankingsley. Setting up a monthly donation also goes towards this target. You guys are all amazing, and I totally value and appreciate the support and prayer that I get from each one of my friends! Thank you :)

Dan x

Posted by Dan Kingsley on Wed, 3 Mar 2010