This entry was supposed to be an update on what’s happened so far this year, but if I wait until I have chance to get around to that, I’ll never write anything!
This weekend I was asked to share at church about an outreach we did the weekend before, and it got me thinking about how God spoke to me in what we were doing. For those that don’t know, Greyfriars is a town centre church, and we’re fantastically positioned for being able to reach out to those who come into the town centre to shop.
As I pondered, I think the biggest thing that struck me was how God blesses what we’re doing when we work together as the body of Christ.
For a while now, a team have been praying, asking God how we can share our faith with people in the town centre. We’ve settled on asking people into the church for a warm drink, offering something to eat, and someone to talk with or pray with, if they would like.
The church had been asked to pray for what we were doing, and volunteers took minute long slots for the two hours that we had decided to run the outreach. We had people making tea and coffee and offering cakes, others interceding in church, people out in the town centre inviting people in, welcomers, and a prayer team praying for those visitors who requested prayer.
We had some amazing conversations with people struggling with questions of faith, people sharing painful life experiences, those needing healing in one way or another, and people who just wanted to come in for a chat. It was a time of feeling God was tangibly at work through the efforts of His body, the church.
Trough my personal interactions with people, God also showed me how it was all about what He had to give, not what I could give in my own strength. I was lead to people to whom I could offer nothing at all in my own strength, but who he could minister to in their deepest need.
Our God is indeed a great God.
hmmm…sounds similar to our ‘can we help’ stuff. it’s amazing how hospitality, weather in the form of welcoming someone in from the cold or giving them a bottle of water in the street, can open the door for amazing things.
one thing we pray when we do our stuff is that the physical gift being received will be symbolic of them receiving a gift from God, weather they realize it or not. we also pray that as we give something they can touch that God will give them the gift of hunger and thirst for Him.
that’s cool to be a part of a church that comes together around serving the community. that must’ve been a really great time.