Unsung heroes
I recently was preaching at a church and given the title Transformed lives from Ephesians chapter 1 – a great theme. Before I spoke in the service they showed this great testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnL6HOSZ8hk
It resonated with me for a number of reasons:
It reminded me of the lifestyle of many of the young people I work with.
It reminds us that no one is beyond the reach of God. No lifestyle, no life situation cannot be changed by Jesus.
Darrell and Nicky Gumble are in the spotlight here understandably. But what struck me was the unsung heroes, the real heroes are the retired nuns and the muppet with the clipboard. People you would not expect in those situations, People you would not probably chose in those situations. But they chose to do what they did and God chose to use them to do what He did.
Unsung heroes. That can be us wherever we are whoever we are.
If we chose to do what God wants us to do.
Will you?
Review for view:
23rd April Spoke at Great Leighs Free church about the forgiveness and righteousness Jesus gives us – great to talk to someone afterwards about how recently their faith had come back to life after a really tough time.
24th April and 22nd May SYM meetings focusing on preparing for a schools week 5th – 9th February 2018 with LZ7 (http://www.lz7.co.uk/) ending with a live gig on the Friday night.
29th April, 6th, 13th, 20th May led Chelmsford Diocese’s Certificate of evangelism course with a group of 5 people from local churches who wanted to be equipped to share their faith more and encourage their churches to. Some great discussions and questions, the group responded to all our challenges to reflect and put things into practice both at the time (e.g. we send them out at one point to talk to people in the community) and later (some declarations of wanting to work more with their churches to move things on).
14th May Spoke at Broomfield Road Evangelical church about 3 big questions of life that depending on how we answer them, can lead to a transformed life – see above.
30th May Meeting to discuss encouraging local URC churches to pray for people to come to know Christ as part of https://www.thykingdom.co.uk/
Preview for info and prayer:
4th June Encouraging prayer for people to become Christians at North Ave URC.
7th and 14th June Meetings with individuals to follow up Chelmsford Diocese’s Certificate of evangelism course.
17th June Leading a workshop for Chelmsford Diocese ministers and their new parish evangelism enablers.
(St Luke’s who I also do a lot of work with are running a family play event as part of a wider community day on 17th June – please pray for that as well).
18th June Speaking at Broomfield Road Evangelical church’s The Edge service for people on the edge of the church or beyond about the God of encouragement.
25th June Speaking at Christ Church URC Chelmsford about sharing our faith – why, what and how.
Starters
During the recent evangelism training for the Chelmsford Diocese, we had a number of suggestions about how to start conversations about faith, usually as part of a wider conversation. Here are some of them for you to consider / trial / adopt / adapt:
Do you think there is more to life than this?
Can I pray right now for you with that situation?
Have you asked Jesus to help you with that?
Can I add that to my prayer list when I next pray?
Have you heard the news? (asked on Easter Sunday….)
Do you know what the local church does?
What do you think this community needs?
I have experienced something similar to that, I found trusting Jesus helped by….
Stuck on a question?
Too often we think we need to know all the answers before talking to people about faith. We don’t. People are usually more interested in our attitudes to them and our actions in life as a result of our faith than having slick answers.
But it can still help to have thought about them in advance and can boost our confidence in conversations – and Andy Bannister can help with that through:
His regular Apologetics ( which means defence of the gospel but in a positive way) column in Inspire magazine which many churches get.
His website https://www.solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/ which has short 4 – 5 min videos of answers to some of the questions we are likely to get asked.
His book: The Atheist who didn’t exist which looks at the usual arguments of atheists and where they don’t always hold up in the way people think they do.
He has a good readable, accessible style with a good dose of humour too which is always useful.
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