New Shoes
Well, we are coming towards the end of September, and we have now had 2 Sundays in the new venue. They have been such encouraging times, as we launched on the 15th, with a number of new and visiting people, it was great to celebrate being there and welcoming Jesus into that space!
Then on Sunday, it was so powerful to baptise Maria and hear her testimony, of how God brought her through some incredibly tough times, and is transforming her life. Please do continue to pray for her as she starts studying at Moorlands Bible College this week.
This term we’ve had to buy Norah some shoes for going to school. And if you’ve ever had new shoes, you will know that at first they are often a bit stiff and not super easy to get on and off, sometimes a bit big for room to grow, but for most children (and myself) after a while they soften and you start slipping in and out of them more easily and with greater comfort.
I feel like that’s a great picture for us as we start to settle in to our new venue for Sundays. There will be a few things that take a bit of getting used to, a need for the edges to soften a bit, but it’s the right thing to enable us to Go and Grow.
God has brought us on this journey, and has a purpose and mission for us. Let’s be ready to Go, to reach those around us by being Jesus to them and inviting them to explore who He is. I like the model of the i61 Movement that we talked about last year. Find ways to:
Share Life with people through our day-to-day interactions, making sure we don’t just exist within a Christian bubble.
Share Faith with them, by sharing what Jesus means to you and what he’s done in your life.
Share Jesus by inviting them to encounter Him for themselves.
And be ready to Grow. To invite people to join us on Sundays, to find a place of belonging, even if they don’t believe the stuff yet – lets be an inviting church that invites people! We’ve got some little business card size invites around at the moment. Why not grab a few and see if you can give them to people who you’re doing life with.
Let me know how you get on! I’d love to hear stories of what God is doing in our communities. Where have you stepped out and see God come through? Or where have you tried something and it not gone as you hoped?!
I’m so grateful that we get to be church together.
‘And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.’ Hebrews 12:1-2