Great news

We really are in a season of grace to see people respond to the gospel.  This Sunday just gone, two more guys put their hands up to accept Jesus' invite to follow him. They talked it through  with couples from the church and these two would now say that Jesus is  their Lord and Saviour.  This is incredible.  That makes 8 so far this year and all but two of those are on Sunday mornings!

As we gather together to worship Him and hear His word preached.  As we talk about Jesus and introduce Him to friends or family, we are seeing that they will turn Him.  Let's be those who continue to invite people along to either get them started on their journey or to see them cross over that line of faith to following Jesus.  Some events coming up:

1) Saturday May 14th - this is a Quiz Night and meal and is a low key  introduction to church for our friends.  Booking is through Roy Avis as you need tickets for the event.  These are £3 a ticket and that will cover the cost of the 2 course meal.

2) Sunday June 19th - to celebrate Father's Day we are once again going large.  After the morning meeting we will be having a BBQ and sports on the field.  There will also be some inflatables for kids and adults!  This is an opportunity to invite people to church and then on to a fun family environment where our guests can relax in the sun (let's pray for that) and meet lot's of friendly people.

3) Any Sunday - we are seeing salvation on Sundays as people come along, encounter Jesus and turn to Him.  It might be that your friend would say yes to coming this Sunday and they would then continue to come. One of the responses n Sunday was from someone who has been on Alpha's, Freedom in Christ and in church for years.  The other was of a guy who has read a bit of the bible and was in church for the second time!   At the end of the day, it is God who saves, it is the Spirit who enables us to have faith to receive him after several years or two weeks.  The wages are the same - eternal life with Jesus, starting from the moment we turn to Him with all our hearts!

we have dreamed of being a church of campanologists (bell ringers) and we are starting to see something of that because of God's grace!

A great weekend

This past weekend was fantastic. On Saturday night we had our very first acoustic night.  110 people came and enjoyed three great bands and a chance to meet new people and further existing relationships.  The atmosphere and comments that I had after lead me to think that that this could be something that we would repeat.  The links here are to Vimeo where you can enjoy something of what went on: Abi Hope, The Bambury Tree and Gecko Collective.

However the weekend got better and better.  Sunday morning saw one response to the gospel.  A guy who had been coming regularly for a year, put his hand up during the end response and committed his life to Jesus.  It was fantastic.  To see his him and his mum afterwards hug was amazing and a real answer to prayer.

Then, if that wasn't enough, in the evening another first time response to the gospel.  Someone who has been coming to Alpha, came to the acoustic night then came to the evening meeting for the first time and gave their life to Jesus.  I spoke to her and as far as i could tell the Spirit had moved mightily in her and had definitely given her faith to put her hand up and step into a new life of forgiveness.  We came back to the church office and the salvation bell was wrung for the first time this year!!!

All in all a weekend to remember and one to praise our God for as he was the architect of all that happened.

Alpha@87

So Alpha starts in approximately 3 hours and 24 minutes and the creative set-up team are currently here making the place look fantastic.  It's amazing what some table clothes and imagination can do to a room that is essentially an office space.  I'll hopefully get some photos on over the next few days as long as some are taken!!!

We have already got some quite a few people who have said they are coming and a dedicated team of 11 who have said that they will serve week in and week out in order to make Alpha happen.

On top of that we also have a team that will be serving tea and coffee to tables and reeling off cake choices in a style reminiscent Sweeney and Todd's (the Reading pie shop, nothing more sinister!  If you've never been it's a must.)

Already there are inspiring RFCers making this happen because they are in faith that people will come along, meet new friends, have their minds and hearts challenged and ultimately come to know Jesus and a living relationship with Him.

The course runs for 10 weeks and is open to new comers for the first three weeks.  It's not too late to come yourself or bring someone with you.  Alternatively, please pray that we would be ringing the bell again and again in response to Jesus changing lives and brining a people to Himself.

Join us to celebrate with the ringing of the bell

We are in a season where God is moving amongst us.  This past Sunday, We had two responses to the good news of Jesus.  One of those is being followed up by a great couple in the church, The second walked out of the morning meeting knowing Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.  This is so exciting, and is the most wonderful of all miracles.

We will be ringing the bell on Thursday evening as we gather to pray and give thanks to God for all he is doing.  We will also continue to pray in earnest for salvation and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, on a Tuesday evening, 8-9pm at the church offices.

Again! Again!

Only yesterday, I posted that we would be ringing the bell for Becky. Well last night at about 10pm I had a text message which read:

"Hi Scott, you can ring the bell now Andy&Karen"

This was a text message that filled me with great joy as it was announcing that my friend Andy had accepted the invite of Jesus to follow Him. This has been a great journey that I have travelled with Andy over the past year. He came to the first Alpha@CoffeeRepublic in April last year and has been a regular at church on a Sunday morning with his family. He did the foundations course in September but still couldn't make that step of faith. Now he has!!!

These are the text messages/ emails/ phone calls that I live for, they give life to me and I hope that reading this will give you courage and confidence to persevere in relationships and keep praying and let God work in someones life in his timing. Just be ready to rejoice when you see someone come to faith in Christ.

The bell to ring again

Last term we ran Alpha where we saw one young lady commit her life to following Jesus. This last weekend I also heard of another young lady, Becky, who whilst at home over Christmas realised that she too believed in Christ and she committed her life to following him also. This same young lady took part in communion for the first time on Sunday morning and was baptised in the Holy Spirit.

we shall therefore be having another bell ringing on Friday night at the prayer meeting to celebrate another saint being rescued from the darkness and being brought into the light.

This excites me so much and fuels my desire to see more lives changed. Not for me, but to bring glory to the Father through his Son, Jesus. It's what I want to see more of as we take our step of faith this Sunday in starting the evening meeting; as we continue with Alpha in April; and as men and women and children of RFC go out into the workplaces, schools, mum and toddler groups, university halls and houses, wherever it may be and shine bright for Jesus in word and deed.

I trust that this year we will once again be ringing the bell of salvation more than once a month, but with a greater frequency. If you have any stories of opportunities you have had in sharing your faith either through words or through actions please let me know either here or on my email.

God is good and so is his gospel that we steward, let's get it out there and see more Becky's welcomed into his kingdom and the church.

Bell ringing! Let's go again!

It's been almost a month now since we last rang the salvation bell here in the office. That said we have had he great joy of ringing it 13 times this year; that's 13 responses to the good news that Jesus came and died for our sin and rose again to declare victory over death.

This term will see Alpha once again run at Coffee Republic. This is one way in which we will corporately be involved in sharing the good news of Jesus. However for this to be successful we must all be taking the responsibility as individuals to be witnesses to who Jesus is and what he has done in our lives. We have the invite in our hands to give to our friends in order that they may know this Jesus and the hope that you have in him. Without our friends, work colleagues or family members, the Alpha course will comprise of a few Christians who already know about Jesus gathering to rue the fact that we didn't invite anyone!

This Sunday we will be looking at what it would be like to be in a church where we are seeing people who are being saved, added to us daily. We will also be putting an invite to Alpha on every chair. It is my prayer that both of these things spur us on, not just to invite to Alpha, but to continue to grow into a company of campanologists who are ringing the bell on a daily basis as we see those we respect, love, care for come to know the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ through us living a life that reflects Christ in thought, word and deed.

Good news...

I never did finish blogging on my Lithuanian adventure and that now seems such a long time ago. On reflection it was an outstanding three days with a man whom I respect and admire, but more than that, a weekend where I saw afresh the vast reach of the global church of which i am part. To go to a place that geographically I couldn't put a pin, and to be welcomed so warmly, helped me to see beyond the end of my nose. I am definitely one who focuses on the things that are immediate!!!

Since, B and I spent the week at a youth camp, joining with Newfrontiers churches around the country. We saw young people inspired by hearing about their God and seeing him at work, as well as going out and helping local churches in their communities. As a church we took 12-16 year olds with us and saw three of those respond to the invitation to follow Jesus. We also saw three of them healed of varying ailments. What a joy it is to see 350+ youth respond to the gospel, especially knowing that 3 of them are people you can share the moment with.

However God is not constrained to do things just at big meetings. Even yesterday, Darren, a new friend of mine from the last Alpha course came in to the office and committed his life to Jesus. He rang the bell with the understanding that his God was rejoicing at his turning to follow Jesus.

It may be the Great British getaway time of year, but God is not on holiday and He is still revealing his love and grace to people in Reading and He has a people here ready to respond in leading those he has chosen into a new life, birthed by the Spirit, lived for Jesus, to bring glory to the Father.

A company of bell ringers

Since the turn of the year I have had the joy of reporting of 5 people turning to Jesus. I have the joy of telling of at least two others.

On May 21st I had coffee with a young Lithuanian guy in our church. For 2 hours we discussed Jesus and what it meant to commit to following him. After 2 hours we returned to the church offices where he did commit his life to Jesus and he was wonderfully baptised in the Holy Spirit. To see him ringing the bell then and at the prayer meeting was immense. There was so much genuine joy that I couldn't help but worship God!

The second story came only yesterday. As I was getting ready to go to Alpha last night I had a phone call from Elli, a student in our church. She was extremely excited and it soon became evident why. A friend of hers who had been asking Elli questions deckared to Elli yesterday that she wanted to follow Jesus. Following a conversation Elli had the privilege of leading her friend to Jesus

God us doing a work amongst the people of Reading Family Church and I for one am looking forward to more bell ringing escapades!!!

A week of stories!!!

One of the things that is important in life is to be inspired. There are many things that can inspire us, but I am someone who becomes particularly inspired by others. This week I have been totally motivated by the stories I have been sent on facebook, text and email. I shall outline a few of them below. If you are anything like me you will hopefully read this and hopefully feel that speaking to people about our faith or inviting people to meet Jesus is quite a natural thing to do.

Stuart works in a multi national company. He speaks to people around the world in the course of a day. He has acquaintances as a result in India. One of those got into an instant message conversation. The upshot of which gave Stuart the opportunity to share the reason for the hope that he has. He pointed the lady toward passages in the bible which surprised her but also enabled her to say that she had been to church when she was younger but had 'drifted away'. He writes this to conclude his mail:

"We have since prayed for her in our Life Group that she would find calm, patience, and peacefulness and although she had a very difficult weekend (28th/29th March), she was able to find strength through praying which is something she never would have done before."

Carol and Mike are a couple who have just joined our church. They are a fantastic pair and have really started to get their sleeves rolled up. At the end of last week, Carol sent me this:

"This is just to tell you that this morning I have had a long talk with someone who has some extremely complex and difficult circumstances in which she lives. I have invited her to Alpha. At present she's not sure she could really even fit Alpha into life (as she has lots of responsibility for others). I talked about her needs being met and that she needs God to take on her burden and see her through!

I know her well and we have had talks over a couple of years ... but today's was the most direct, with reference to God in my life! "

What a great email to receive!!! Carol is also going to be serving on the Alpha course!

Lawrence has been prolific this week. I have had three texts from him telling me of his exploits. The first of which was inspired by Karen's story that I told during my preach on Sunday morning (link here). He was sitting in the barbers chair and was able to tell his story to her. His second opportunity was to tell his geography admin lady (he's a student) what his mission trip to Poland was all about. He wrote this:

"The opportunities are there even though we think we don't make the most of them!"

Since those first two texts, he has also been able to share his story with a waitress and a ceroc dance instructor. He's on the front foot and loving it!!!

I share these with you as they have encouraged me to action this week. I made my first invite to Alpha in years on Monday night. There was no resounding "yes" but my good friend did say he would think about it. I am praying that he will come.

The bell rung once more!!!

On Sunday morning a young lady who has been coming on a regular basis prayed a prayer of commitment. As I lead a prayer during a time of response she said it quietly under her breath. She then approached me before she left and she told me that she had said the prayer once before but had said it again this morning because she wants to follow Jesus.

This is wonderful news. Jesus came to die for us, to set us free and to make peace between us and the Father. He did this because of love. That is now two people for whom the bell hath tolled this year. My prayer is that many others will come to know the saving grace of Jesus and respond to him.

We must be those who are loving and compassionate - looking for the lost as the Father looks for the lost - and to fulfill this we must be those inviting people to meet Jesus out of relationship, by showing them the real Jesus of the bible, by telling our stories or simply by taking every opportunity that comes our way.

Being bell ringers is what we are about, let's be expectant that we will all have that thrill!!!

Stories from the field!

Coming in this morning I knew I would be blogging today to update on the challenge from last week laid down by the Holland cell group (catch the story here). That being that a poster arrived on our front door last night continuing the challenge and letting us know that they already have 12 signed up to come. As we went round our cell last night - we have 0 as of yet!!! So we prayed!!!

However, the bigger stories were awaiting me in my inbox. Jo, a girl in our cell, went home last night to invite her friends again to the quiz night. She ended up having an hour conversation about Jesus, where they ended up talking about the Alpha Course and expressing an interest in coming! This was an immediate answer to prayer as Jo had just prayed for them at cell!!! God is so good. She said:

"Am praying that we see that bell rung again!"

The second mail came from Tom Riches who was writing about the encouragement of his cell last night. Out of 11 of them almost all had a story to share about a conversation , an event or a new relationship that had been built. He said this:

"What was also really good about this was that some of the people seem to be getting close to accepting Jesus as Lord and Saviour, obviously we don't want to be complacent but peoples' friends look to be searching for and seeking something and the cell seems to be on hand and very willing to point people in the right direction."

I love being part of a church who are so eager to love the lost and who are becoming more accustomed to putting themselves on the front line. After hearing the bell ring for the first time yesterday, as Ben rang it for his friend, I couldn't help but be excited; not because of a bell, but because we really are on a mission with Jesus to find lost souls and he is starting to use us again as a church to do that!!!

The last piece of the campanology jigsaw...

The church together is the last piece of the bell ringing picture. We will be concentrating on Sunday mornigs and Alpha:

What about Sunday mornings? We want to ensure that a regular Sunday is somewhere that people who don't yet know Jesus will be welcomed warmly and will not be baffled by jargon that Christians in our church will understand but others will not. We will also be putting on Sundays that will lend themselves to us a as a church inviting our friends along: this will include Easter Sunday, a healing meeting (Front Edge) on May 17th and other events like it, but in all that we would love to see those meetings in particular busy with friends and family of those of us in the church.

What about Alpha? We currently plan to hold Alpha at Starbucks in the centre of town. We want to build on the success of using the Glo as a venue and meet in places where people would usually go and would be seen as mainstream. I went in today to speak to someone but the manager was not around, but my efforts shall not be thwarted I shall be going back!!! Pray for that eh!! Anyway, Alpha only works if we invite our friends along.

Alpha starts on Tuesday 28th April. Let's be praying this week, as we join together in prayer and fasting, as to who God would want us to invite and then go out there and do it!!! The worst that can happen is they will say no, but it could still lead to some great conversations. It would be great to have a course of 50 people and as we are not running Alpha this term it gives us a chance to spend times with our friends and get to a point where the next step is to invite.

It is great being in a church where stories are just beginning to fly around about the encounters that we are having as individuals, in workplaces, on campus, with neighbours and with pizza delivery men. Please keep stories coming in of conversations and opportunities that you have had. I have heard of two this morning and will post them when I have a bit more detail.

Let's be a church who are growing in our love and compassion for people who don't yet know Jesus, and let's invite them to be in places where they will hear the good news of Jesus and let the Spirit do his work in their lives!!!

Community projects...

Cell clusters - what a funny old thing they have been up until now. Meeting every now and then to have quizzes, karaokes, even all gathering together to have one cell meeting as a whole group. However this year we are going to do something different with our cell clusters.

In December of 08 the cluster I am involved in decided that we wanted to do something for the local community instead of having some Christmas event. We had a couple of links with the North Whitley Residents Association and agreed that we would support them in putting on a Christmas party for the elderly residents. It cost us time. Kay Watkins did a great job in coordinating the cells and the local council provided funding to the association for food, venue and a singer (a very good crooner who was perfect for the job).

In all there were about 35 people in our cluster and only 7 of them were able to help out as it was during the afternoon. however the buy in was excellent. The people in the cells felt that they were all doing something to be part of the community whether in prayer or in actually being there, the residents association really appreciated the help, particularly the youthfulness and the one on one time that was able to be given to the people that came and lastly, the elderly people loved it, they felt warmly welcomed well served and many of them were full of praise for us as a church.

Why do I tell this story - because I want lots more like it. We are going to see a small restructuring of cell groups in such a manner that means that cells in Earley can cluster together and build bridges into their local community. The Whitley cells will continue to build bridges and work the links that we have already formed as a church in that local community and we will continually look to greet people and start new cells in other parts of town, so that we can be good news to the communities in which we live in this large town of Reading.

Many of these things will hopefully be long haul projects, but my prayer would be that we will start to see fruit as RFC grows in it's engagement with the town in which we live.

Immediate response

After saying I had had no new stories I had one from Rachel, I have put it on here by her kind permission:

'Just before Christmas, a few people from work were meeting to have a few drinks for my manager’s leaving do. I was a bit nervous about going as I could imagine it being an evening of drinking and gossiping; something that I did'nt want to get involved with. In the end I decided to go. To my surprise, I ended up having a really good conversation with one of the managers. We talked at various times throughout the evening about all kinds of things and it turns out that he has a history in church. Since then we have had some brief conversations at work, but I was really encouraged by how easy it was and how interested he was. It reminded me that God can use us in any situation and that it’s never too small a thing to have those conversations with people. Who knows where it will lead...'

I love the closing statement that she makes (in bold), particularly about how easy the conversation was and the fact that it's never a small thing to take the time to have a conversation. I look forward to seeing if Rachel will be ringing the bell this year celebrating the new life of this dear man.

Learning to bell ring together

Well it's been a week now since the last post. I have yet to hear any other stories from individuals, please keep them coming! Over the next three days I want to expand on the last three points that I made at the vision evening. The first of those is cell life.

As a church we have always gathered together as cell midweek. It has been a strength of us growing in community and learning to love one other, by challenging and rebuking, laughing and crying and enjoying worship and prayer with each other. This is the firm foundation which we can build upon in this coming year. Our cell groups should now become a place where stories are regularly told of conversations had with friends who do not yet know Jesus; where we encourage each other to meet people who are not Christians or like us; where we prayer for those contacts we do have; where we practice telling our own story of when we turned to Jesus; where we do socials that our friends will actually come to; where we get behind Alpha and pray hard that our cell will have at least one on the course.

Cell groups have such a valuable part to play in us growing in our witness to Jesus and I feel that I have overlooked that in the past. As B and I start a new cell this week, I fully intend to have the witness section of cell as an important part of each week. There is a whole town out there that doesn't yet know Jesus and if our cell group can play a part in seeing at least one of those saved, we will do all we can to do that. Why?

Let's never forget that our motivation is to be the same motivation of Jesus - not to have a great tally of salvation at the end of the year, but because we love people enough to let them know that good news that changed our lives.

There are things that only individuals can do, but as a group you can strengthen and support each other and grow in campanology together!!! I am always available to support cell groups when it comes to thinking about what witness looks like and I would love to hear the stories that are shared in cell.

Campanology for individuals

Yesterday I heard two great stories:

The first was from Tom - after Sunday evening he resolved that he wanted to be a bell ringer this year. With that in mind he went to work with the intention of asking some probing questions with one of his colleagues around evolution theory. He ended up having this conversation with a person who has a PhD in zoology! He wasn't threatening he just listened and posed questions and has left it in such a way that he is able to continue the discussion at a later date. For this woman her training and her world view is a big obstacle to her finding Jesus - Tom asking clear questions and gently getting her to question her own position is an outstanding way to start someone on their journey of faith.

The second was told by Andrew - the pizza man (that is the regular pizza man who now knows the family!) came to the door on Monday evening which started a conversation which both surprised Andrew and left him full of faith. The pizza man asked Andrew what he did for a living, Andrew was able to tell him of his work for the church and the fact that this is a year out for him. The conversation went from there culminating in the pizza man taking a way an RFC leaflet and asking if he could come back and find out more. A relationship built over time opens up to be an opportunity to help someone take the next step in their journey of faith.

These are two guys who are determined to be RFC campanologists this year. They desire to be those who celebrate what God has done in the life of an individual by racing to the church office and ringing the bell when they have the joy of leading someone to Christ. These two stories are replicable, we just need to be thinking this way on a daily basis.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:15:

'Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect...'

We have a great hope, we have a great God and he has given us a great gospel. We don't have to know all the answers to all the hard questions - we can be like Tom and ask questions about why people believe certain things or we can be like Andrew who was willing to tell a bit of his story in response to a question - but we must be those who are willing to tell what we do know. Each person who is a Christian has a story to tell of how they came to know Jesus. That in itself is the story of a miracle and is a story worth practicing and telling.

There are 232,662 people in Reading. There are 120 churches. If 100 people on average are in those churches that adds up to 12,000 people going to church. If there are also 5,000 backsliden or non-church attending Christians in Reading, that amounts to 17, 000 people. In which case there are 215,660 (at least 2 were saved last year through RFC) in Reading who don't yet know Jesus. Among that number there will be people that God had written into the lambs book of life and we are to be like treasure hunters in trying to unearth those jewels. Like treasure hunters we will have many disappointments, but we will hopefully strike gold as we keep trying.

Whether it's a colleague at work, a delivery man, a neighbour, a friend you have made at a club you attend, the person who you often share pleasantries with at the check out, whoever it maybe lets love them enough to see their lives totally transformed by the cross of Christ.

At the outset of this year let's resolve to be individuals who will ring the bell this year as we see people of our town find the hope, love, peace, joy and faith that we enjoy.

Campanology - RFC style

'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' Rev 7:10

Salvation does indeed belong to Jesus, but he has entrusted us with the gospel that we may declare and share it, speak and leak it, talk and walk it; our remit is to emit the love of Christ and the good news that he has given us.

This year we are going to be a church that does just that. On Sunday evening I outlined the vision for the evangelism strategy this year. We basically want to become a church of campanologists or more simply, bell ringers. I mentioned Luke 15 in my last post and the fact that we should be those who rejoice when one person is saved.

Over the coming year, as we see people saved and added to the kingdom, we shall ring a bell and join with the angels of heaven who rejoice. If you have the privilege of seeing someone saved around you then it will be your joy to come and ring the 'salvation bell' to celebrate what God has done.

To see Dorothy's face on Sunday night as she rung the bell was fantastic. It's not about a bell, but it is about acknowledging the miracle of salvation!

What are we going to do then?

It starts with us as individuals, having non-Christian friends, loving them, loving them enough to tell them our story and about Jesus, then actually telling them. Campanology RFC style, starts with us individually.

Cell groups also have a great responsibility: our cell groups need to be a place where we share stories of chance meetings, conversations, acts of service, praying for someone - this encourages, it strengthens and it starts to help us see that reaching out to people with the good news of Jesus is something all Christians can do. Use witness time to it's full potential this year and lets see cell groups taking corporate campanology lessons!

Cell clusters will work slightly different this year. They are to purposefully start building links into the communities where they are based. Whitley cells will work together to work into Whitley, Earley cells to Earley - you get the picture.

Finally we get to the church as one together. As well as supporting the church in doing the above three things, I shall spend a lot of time, with Sean, in making sure that Sunday mornings are meetings to which we can invite our friends. On top of this we will be looking to run Alpha twice this year in a venue like Starbucks, building on the success of Glo. The course will be slightly different in format and in style but I know that we will see people saved through it.

Over the next few posts I shall unpack a bit more on each of these so watch this space but the overriding thing is that: yes-salvation belongs to our God, but let's get onto the part that we play in that and every time we see fruit lets celebrate it and become one of the RFC bell ringers.