Including Others

As we have been heading towards September, I've known that our 4 year old Amelie would be starting school and I would have more time again to give to church. Whilst on holiday in August I managed to get an hour or so a day to have ‘God and me’ time. I have a favourite bench on the cliff top path, which overlooks the sea in North Wales and it was there that I reflected on the forthcoming changes in my time and what I wanted to do with it as a result.

I journalled, prayed, reflected and read and sensed a number of areas that I knew I should give myself to for the next season. One of these areas was something I’ve got excited about again – including others into God’s love. As a student, I loved sharing the reality of God’s love with friends, inviting them to experience the gift of God’s transforming power that would bring freedom, identity and purpose. I was so captured by the gift of God’s grace and the offer to be his child that I couldn’t understand why everyone else wouldn’t want it too! And it seemed others did! Some of my most treasured memories of studentdom, are those occasions when I had the privilege of talking with and praying with friends who wanted God’s involvement in their lives. And then standing back and watching God speak to them, empower them and inject destiny into them. Amazing.

After graduating and planting Open Heaven, life got so busy, it was hard to create the space for developing the kinds of friendships that had been so life-enriching at Uni. Until, that is, a little person came along in the form of Amelie. Suddenly I realised I needed friends, real friends, who were experiencing the same wonderful, exhausting, overwhelming changes that parenthood brings. I went along to a group for new mums and looked around at a room of then strangers and thought to myself ‘I really hope that some of these become friends’.

Four years later, my life is so enriched by the close and supportive friendships of a number of these women. On Thursday we went out for a meal and raised a toast to the friendships between us. As we said ‘goodbye’, two of my closest friends said ‘see you  Sunday’ because they now both come along to OH2. I realised again that I feel no greater sense of privilege on earth than when I am playing a small part in showing those I love that God is for them, loves them and wants to be involved in their lives too.

I’ve realised again that it is not hard to invite people to God’s party if you just develop real genuine friendships, are open about your love and your experience of the great God you know, discover people’s stories and follow God’s promptings for the next steps. It’s so easy to lose our confidence in the gospel and assume that no-one really wants to know about our faith. As that happens our friends miss out on the reason for which they were born – to know their God.

So, one of the areas I want to give myself to from Oct to Dec is putting on an evangelism training course running every fortnight. This won’t be evangelism in formulas or methods. This is evangelism as defined by developing great life-enriching friendships, naturally sharing your experience of God’s love and learning how to answer the questions that are provoked by that. As I’ve shared this idea to equip us all for sharing our faith, I’ve met a groundswell of support for it, with many people feeling that it’s exactly what they want and need right now. I really sense this is God’s timing for us as a community and pray it results in many of those we care for, discovering the God who loves them.

Posted by: Ness Wilson on Thursday Sep 13th, 2007

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