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!!!

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.