Last night the ‘Churches Together’ meeting was held at Furlong Road Methodist Church and was attended by people from a variety of local churches:
It was good to worship and pray together, as well as to find out all kinds of obscure facts about each other! For example, I discovered that Eileen likes pickled onions, Amy-Jo from the Salvation Army has read all the ‘Harry Potter’ books in English and Dutch, Debbie has been skiing and Andrea is grumpy in the mornings! Not only is it good to get to know each other in this way, Karen (the minister from Furlong Road) used this to remind us of Jesus’s Great Commission (see Matt 28:16-20).
Sometimes we feel daunted by this task and do not feel ourselves to be evangelists. All of us can, however, talk to people and have people we meet on a regular basis in a variety of settings (at school, at work, when we are shopping, when we are at the gym etc.) These people often need a listening ear and friendship. When we allow people to talk and we listen to them, we create an atmosphere where we can later share the Gospel with them. We have to be intentional, acting as a guest in their environments, consistent, offering pastoral care (which is all about listening and caring.) When we see a need, we can then do something about it, for love in action is evangelism just as much as open-air meetings or large crusades. All of us are called to witness to Christ and this is best done in the context of personal relationships.
The next ‘Churches Together’ meeting will be on Saturday 19th July at 6 p.m. at the Salvation Army church on Straight Lane.