Furrowed…
7 years ago
Showing posts with label Street Pastors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Street Pastors. Show all posts
It seems I have been a bit remiss - hard to believe, isn't it?
First of all it's been a couple of months since I last updated you all and secondly, it appears I failed to ever mention that I had been made redundant mid-December!
So first, update on the last couple of months:
The prayer group have continued to grow with another couple being called into Looe meeting two of our existing members by "accident". It appeared that they both moved into the same street within a few weeks of each other. Praise God for His divine "accidents".
We're also continuing to grow spiritually. The last few months we've really been aware of several lessons that God has been and is teaching us:
- It's all about Him (and it doesn't work if it's about us)
- We need to Love (God, each other, our community and ourselves)
- To be patient and learn to wait on God
We're still very much learning, but it's been wonderful to learn together and grow ever closer. God's turned us from a "group" into a family!
The Rusty Bucket (a Christian Coffee Shop & Community project) which was dreamed up by a couple in our group 4 years ago and is now fast approaching opening day. It should be open at the end of the month and, thanks to a little prayer and patience, is so much more than any of us could've imagined it would be a year ago.
Now an update on us and the work situation:
Firstly, Lucy is pregnant. I never mentioned that, either, did I? We found out on Christmas Day and she's now 15 weeks, a mere 25 weeks to go!
My search for work has been largely fruitless. Since finding out I was going to be made redundant I have had 3 interviews, despite apply for countless roles. 2 of those were based in Wales and would involve me travelling up a couple days a week and were before I finished working. Then it all went quiet.
Eventually a job came up in St. Ives. It was a bit far away but I figured I need to keep my options open, so I applied. Lucy and I prayed about it and asked the Lord to be in complete control - should He want us to move I would get the job, should He want us to stay He should intervene and close the door to me.
As time went by I also felt the Lord put Self-Employment before me as an option, so we again prayed and felt that the options were now two: St. Ives (and moving) or Self-Employment (and staying). Both seemed to feel right, but selfishly I wanted Self-Employment. I wanted to stay here, but we had put it before God so we had to wait on Him.
Today I attended a second interview, was offered and joyfully accepted the role in St. Ives. I'll be starting in April and commuting until the probationary period is up, at which point we'll be moving.
Prayer points:
- Street Pastors:
- need more people - both Prayer Pastors and the Street Pastors. At least another 25 people.
- need to move into Looe (see above)
- Rusty Bucket:
- still has tight deadlines to get them open in time for the Easter holidays
- needs to do well over the holiday season to sustain it through it's first year
- Prayer Group needs a new host
- Looe and God's work here
- My new Job
- For us to find a suitable and affordable home
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.
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
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
Hi All
Been a while since we last updated you on what was happening. For us personally, not a lot, we're building up relationships with a few people - at the moment concentrating particularly on just a few of them.
There are lot's of exciting things happening in and around Looe related to the Church, which is exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to release some more details about those things in the coming days and weeks.
Also, we've now made contact with The Salvation Army in Liskeard and are hoping to meet up with the CO (Pastor) there to forge some strong links. Also, it looks liek the CO was already aware of Grace Church here and is keen to create some good links there - perhaps this is another facet to our purpose here... more news as it happens!
Can we ask for particular prayer over 2 initiatives we're not involved in as yet: Street Pastors and Rusty Bucket (a Christian Coffee Shop/Community Centre in Looe) and also for those relationships I mentioned above.
Been a while since we last updated you on what was happening. For us personally, not a lot, we're building up relationships with a few people - at the moment concentrating particularly on just a few of them.
There are lot's of exciting things happening in and around Looe related to the Church, which is exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to release some more details about those things in the coming days and weeks.
Also, we've now made contact with The Salvation Army in Liskeard and are hoping to meet up with the CO (Pastor) there to forge some strong links. Also, it looks liek the CO was already aware of Grace Church here and is keen to create some good links there - perhaps this is another facet to our purpose here... more news as it happens!
Can we ask for particular prayer over 2 initiatives we're not involved in as yet: Street Pastors and Rusty Bucket (a Christian Coffee Shop/Community Centre in Looe) and also for those relationships I mentioned above.
Sorry all for the lack of posts recently. Thankfully it isn't just because nothing has happened!
The van was finally finished a couple of weeks back and Lucy's Dad was kind enough to bring it down to us - to be honest, the amount of stuff that happened to it whilst it was in our possession I'm not sure I'd let me have it again... Anyway, so with transport we went to Grace Family Bible Church yesterday - a Church we had planned to visit but had been unable to.
The Church was lovely, we were made very welcome and the people we spoke to seemed interested in what we were doing, which is great. We'll definitely be going there again, just a shame it's outside of Looe...
Since we're on the main street in East Looe, we have the crowds go by at 2-3am on a Saturday/Sunday morning when the club kicks out and we'd been thinking about how we could engage with this group of people (also, how we could serve them) thinking along the lines of Street Pastors. At Grace yesterday morning, they introduced Street Pastors to the congregation, an initiative they're looking to get set up for next Summer (it'll take some time with planning and training etc.). We both signed up immediately!
On top of that, we're getting our own car, after a few months of sponging off Father-in-Law! It's a green classic-style mini!! Woop!
Now that things are gently plodding along, I'll try and keep y'all updated on what we're doing and how it's working!
The van was finally finished a couple of weeks back and Lucy's Dad was kind enough to bring it down to us - to be honest, the amount of stuff that happened to it whilst it was in our possession I'm not sure I'd let me have it again... Anyway, so with transport we went to Grace Family Bible Church yesterday - a Church we had planned to visit but had been unable to.
The Church was lovely, we were made very welcome and the people we spoke to seemed interested in what we were doing, which is great. We'll definitely be going there again, just a shame it's outside of Looe...
Since we're on the main street in East Looe, we have the crowds go by at 2-3am on a Saturday/Sunday morning when the club kicks out and we'd been thinking about how we could engage with this group of people (also, how we could serve them) thinking along the lines of Street Pastors. At Grace yesterday morning, they introduced Street Pastors to the congregation, an initiative they're looking to get set up for next Summer (it'll take some time with planning and training etc.). We both signed up immediately!
On top of that, we're getting our own car, after a few months of sponging off Father-in-Law! It's a green classic-style mini!! Woop!
Now that things are gently plodding along, I'll try and keep y'all updated on what we're doing and how it's working!