Furrowed…
7 years ago
Last night was my first patrol with the Liskeard and Looe Street Pastors, we were the third ever patrol of Street Pastors in Liskeard (we haven't yet broken into Looe).
It was an excellent night, really very quiet but probably about right for our first patrol to settle us in. None of us had ever done this before (in fact no one within the whole Liskeard and Looe Street Pastor group has ever done this before) so we were just finding our feet.
During the course of the night we had a few good encounters with people, Spikeys turned out to be a really good conversation starter with women. But most of all it seemed that the 4 of us dressed the same was too much for people to ignore.
Two of us had a particularly encouraging conversation with a group of 4 (2 young ladies and a couple of lads) who asked us all sorts of things about who we were and what we were doing. It turned out one of them believed she had been spiked the week before so was particularly keen to make use of a spikey or two. The whole conversation, how we were received as well as the encounter with a recipient of a spiked drink just seemed to reinforce that we were on the right mission.
In the end, though, it was a really quiet night. Every one seemed to be looking after themselves alright (not that there were many left out), and there were only so many times we could walk around in a circle and introduce ourselves to the same people. So our team leader took the decision that we should call it a night and after one last patrol around the town, including the areas that the underage drinkers generally hang around (nobody there), we headed back to base for a debrief and then we headed home to bed.
I doubt very much that every week will be as easy as this week, particularly as the weather warmed up, but it was really encouraging and I can't wait to go out again.
Please pray for the Street Pastors of Liskeard and Looe. Pray for more volunteers particularly, as we don't yet have enough to adequately cover one area, never mind both. We need at least 19 more Street Pastors to be able to do both places on a Saturday night.
I'm sure you'll realise by now (especially if you've read this document) that Lucy and I aren't in the business of Empire Building. We're not here to spread the Salvation Army or to grow Grace Community Church. We're here exclusively to build up the Kingdom of God. We don't care about denominations or different churches (lower case 'c'). We most certainly do not care about inter- or intra-church politics.
Today we met with a couple who lead a local group of Christians called the "Looe Christian Fellowship" - they have been in Looe for over 20 years and have been praying for it all that time, and were not aware of all that God has started here the last 5 years.
It was a privilege to meet with them and tell them of all that God is doing, and to invite them to join with us on a Wednesday for prayer.
We have no intention of absorbing their fellowship into our "group", and especially not to absorb it into the Grace family. Nor do they have any intention of stealing us away. But they may well turn out to be one of many interconnected groups which form the Church (big 'C') in Looe.
Their mission is their mission, our mission is our mission; the battles may be different but it's the same war, and we're on the same team. Gradually our small band of dedicated prayer warriors are starting to reach out and build links with the other Christians in Looe, it's incredible to watch it happening.
Please pray for tomorrows prayer group as we introduce Bob and Hilary to the rest of our rag-tag band of Jesus people, it will be an important step in the building of God's Kingdom here.
Please also pray for wisdom, that as we start to reach beyond our own circle and connect with those of different backgrounds that we express on the one hand love and mercy and on the other die-hard dedication to God's word. Pray that we will become all things to all men without ever watering down the gospel!
Hi all
Been a while since we've updated you all on what's happening here, so thought we'd update you on all the exciting stuff!
Both of us have been involved with the Street Pastor training, I'll be becoming a Street Pastor (Commissioning on the 5th December!) and Lucy will be backing us up with prayer as a Prayer Pastor. Preparations have gone well, with the exception of the key founding member and group coordinator being struck down with cancer and passing away last week.
If you want to help financially towards the Street Pastors in Liskeard and Looe, feel free to add a pledge to http://fundraising.twinklebob.co.uk/index.php?id=2 and I'll chase you up for it later. Anything in excess of the £300 I need to cover my costs will be added to their funds.
Some of our friends have progressed with their plans to have a Christian coffee shop in Looe (I think I mentioned it before) and now have a property. Check out therustybucket.co.uk and therustybucketcoffeeshop.co.uk. These are exciting times, a big Christian presence right in the heart of Looe and a fabulous meeting space.
The church at Morval recently had a meeting where they revealed a plan to invest into Looe big time, so we're looking forward to working with them in that respect. Hopefully this will take the form of a network of small groups, rather than empire building. If they don't go down that road, we certainly will.
So, few quick prayer points:
- For Hugh's family as they prepare for his funeral tomorrow
- Protection for the Street Pastors
- Blessing for the Street Pastors as our formal training draws to a close
- Blessing over the Rusty Bucket initiative and all the various things that includes
- For guidance with building the Kingdom in Looe
So it's finally done! The document I've taken 6 months to write is done! Hoorah!
"Becoming a Body - Rethinking Church" is a quick introduction to my current thoughts on Church, on being Church and doing Church. It's an introduction to the way that I'm going to do my future thinking about Church. Finally, it's an invitation to others to also think differently about Church.
The content of this document is going to seriously impact what we're looking to do here in Looe.
There really isn't much to show for it, but it's been difficult to get the content and tone right. Please understand that this isn't an attack on the way things are for the sake of it, but after incendiary thoughts were planted in our lives we had no choice but to investigate and we liked what we found.
To take a look for yourself, please visit it online here: https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AShn8L9WHtTlZGM2azMydjZfNjdjdmR6NzlnNA&hl=en_GB&authkey=CLq8qr4B
Please feel free to make constructive criticism or to comment on the content - but if you don't agree, let's be grown ups and talk about it, rather than hurling insults at each other ;-)
God bless and happy reading!
Hi folks
Friday just gone marked a year of us being here in Looe. I have to be honest it's been nothing that I expected! My problem is, I'm impatient - I wanted everyone to be saved in the first week...
When we came here, we had very new and developing ideas about simple (or organic) church that we felt would impact the church we felt we were sent here to plant. The existence of a strong (and large) bible-based, Jesus-centred church on the outskirts of Looe really through us (as did the fact that God had seemingly sent so many people here over the last 3-5 years).
It turns out, God really wants to start a simple church network here and He wants Grace Community Church (and all the people He called here) to be involved. It's exciting, but it raises some challenges.
We came here with no ties to a specific church to cause political issues, but we're now engaged in helping the Christians from Grace break out of their church without politically breaking away. It's not exactly fun, but we're making progress. God is good!
In the meantime, as an introduction to the concepts of simple church, I have been writing a document since March (on and off) which is finally nearly ready. I've just got a few people kindly proof-reading it for me and should be able to publish it soon.
One thing the document highlights is that as Christians, we should be careful not to set too many limits as these often limit the growth of the body - one such important limit is the uncrossable border of denominations, so in light of that I'm going to start looking at networking with as many local Christians as I can get my hands on!
On a different subject, Street Pastor training has finally started! The Liskeard and Looe Street Pastors should hit the streets shortly before Christmas!
A couple of prayer requests, if you wouldn't mind:
- Please pray for the Street Pastor training
- Pray for progress to continue with regards the simple church network in Looe
- Pray for results in our networking
It's been a few months since our last post, and I'm really sorry about that. Does that mean nothing's been happening? Thankfully no, but not necessarily the things we were expecting to happen.
So what's been keeping us busy?
We've been doing a lot for Grace, the church that we have partnered with. We've been involved in some outdoor ministry, helping to set up a community website, learning a little about different forms of evangelism and discussing growth and development of a distinct part of the Church in Looe.
However, it has to be said that we have been distracted by those things - in the next few weeks and months hopefully we'll be able to get our focus back on our mission:
To push back the darkness and claim the land for GodTo Save Souls, Grow Saints, Train Warriors and serve suffering humanity.
Every day over the next week or so I'm going to try and focus for a few moments each day to think how can I fulfil just one of those mission claims today? I hope to share something positive with you out of that!
On a similar note, there's currently a lot of talking going on with the Christians in Looe (particularly amongst the ones we know). Please pray with/for us that we'll have the courage to put our words into action!
It's been a little while since I last wrote on here. Since I last wrote a lot has been going on. God's doing something very exciting in the Church here in Looe, but He's only slowly revealing that to us. What's clear, though, is that God has definitely sent Lucy and I here to be a part of that and we feel incredibly privileged!
All over the Country, in fact all over the world, God is changing the shape of His Church. The scholars can give plenty of evidence of the fact that institutional church is dying and part of me can't help but say "good riddance". For too long the system has got in the way, but God is mobilising an army.
I'm currently working on a document outlining my current understanding of what Church should be. If you've already read anything on this subject it probably won't have too much new in it, but I'm just trying to get all my thoughts and study in one place so that I can share it easily with other people.
Ultimately, I think our mission here is not to "plant" a church, but to help The Church grow. Our mission is not only:
To push back the darkness and claim the land for GodTo Save Souls, Grow Saints, Train Warriors and serve suffering humanity.
Our mission is also to plant vision and mission in others, to move them beyond being recipient Sunday Christians to being participatory soldiers. I guess that expands the "Grow Saints, Train Warriors" bit in a way I had never thought about before!
May God bless His Church across the World and especially here in Looe!