To boldly go ...

At a recent service in our church, our preacher played us the mission statement that was quoted at the start of every episode of the TV series ‘Star Trek.’ He then asked whether we should include something similar at the start of each service or sermon.

It got me thinking! Should we do that? And if we did, what would it include? Here, with apologies to Star Trek, is the result of my musings:

‘The world, our final frontier. We are called to journey as God’s people, the church. Our continuing mission, until Christ returns: to step outside our comfort zone, to seek all who do not know Jesus Christ and share his love, to go boldly wherever God calls us.’

OK, that is a little bit flippant, although it does give me a chance to correct that split infinitive! Anyway, Jesus has already given us a very good mission statement at the end of Matthew’s gospel:

‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:18-20).

I wonder if we need this reminder every week? It’s easy to become complacent as followers of Jesus, and forget that we are only that because someone else made a disciple of us. It’s easy to say that our gift is not evangelism (i.e. sharing the good news of Jesus), and assume that the job of reaching the world is someone else’s.

Everyone has gifts that can be used in reaching people with the love of Christ. On 19^th June, some of us joined with Chris Duffett (President-elect of the Baptist Union of Great Britain) for ‘Saints on the Streets’. It was Father’s Day, and Chris had arranged a special free treat for fathers – a rodeo ride! Believe it or not, over 60 people took advantage of the free ride and the risk to their dignity, including this father! Everyone had a job to do. A couple of people made up goodie bags for dads. A few more people gave them out and told people who we were and why we doing it. One person sat at a table, helping children make a card for their dads. Someone else shouted out the challenge: Free Rodeo for Father’s Day. People were amazed that this was a free gift from the church, and it opened the door to say a little to some about the love of our Heavenly Father. Not everyone there would have called himself or herself an evangelist, but everyone took part in sharing the good news and going boldly into our city.

Isn’t it good to be part of the church in which Jesus does not expect one person to have all of the gifts need to reach the world? He does, though, expect us to play our part in reaching the world for him.

I’m sure we do need to be reminded – often – that Jesus does not call us to stay in our pews, but to go boldly into the world and share his love!

Cafe Kindness

Several times a year at my church, we run something that we have called Café Kindness. It’s happening again this week, as we prepare for Back to Church Sunday on 26^th September.

What is Café Kindness? It’s a place to which we invite anyone to come and enjoy a free cup of tea or coffee and some cake. We fit out the entrance foyer of our church building as a café, with easy chairs and tables. We open up for about three hours a day. Some of us go out into the nearby streets to invite passers-by to come along. And some do! We welcome them, we listen to them and, if it’s appropriate, having shared our faith through our actions, we also do it with our words. Through it, we have seen a Hindu couple join the church as regular worshippers, we have enlisted a couple of people on an Alpha Course, and we have ministered to many people through simply being there for them.

For me, the beauty of Café Kindness is that it is a non-threatening method of evangelism in which anyone in the church can be involved, whatever their gifts. Some bake cakes for us, some come along and serve tea and coffee, some are happy to converse with our guests, some will go onto the streets and invite and, of course, all can pray. In one or more of these ways, everyone in the church can consider themselves to be an evangelist! Often, too, those who would not think of themselves as gifted in sharing their faith in words, end up doing just that. They might be surprised by that, but not God. I think God knows just how to get the best out of people, and urges us on in ways we could not have imagined.

Thanks, Lord!

Pastries and Prayer

Yesterday morning, we had a visit from Chris Duffett, vice-President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Chris brought his own irrepressible personality and sense of humour to the children’s talk and sermon. Even better than that, after the service he took some of us out into Peterborough city centre to offer pastries and prayer.

It’s a simple idea! In two’s and three’s, we went into shops offering a free pastry and also free prayer to shop-workers. In other words, we were taking a gift of grace and of prayer to a group of people who would not normally be able to get to a church service, even if they wanted to. Some of us also offered the same to shoppers in the pedestrian thoroughfare.

The responses varied. Some accepted the pastry, but had no need of prayer. ‘My life is fine at the moment’ seemed a common comment. Others declined the pastry but were glad to pass on a request for prayer. A few were willing to be prayed with there and then. Between the twelve people who went out from my church as ‘saints on the streets’, we must have had some contact with 50 or more people who are not Christians during just an hour! I’m not aware of one of them taking offence at our offer, and many were genuinely pleased at our approach. My partner in the gospel was Chris, and we took prayer requests for a man having problems with the cashpoint, relatives of a woman who had melanoma, women with breast cancer and a good education for a secondary school pupil to name but a few.

It’s said that Christians and non-Christians share the same view of evangelism: neither of them like it! Yet pastries and prayer was non-threatening way of sharing just a little of the love of God. Next week, we will be sharing in the ‘Big Welcome’ of Back to Church Sunday. I doubt that we will have anywhere near 50 non-churchgoers joining us (although I’d love to be proved wrong). We hope the world will come to church, but perhaps we should be cancelling our church sometimes so that the church can go into the world? Now, haven’t I heard someone say that before?