Dear e-News friends and church members,
Friendship Houses
Welcome to July! And welcome to SURGE - this is going to be one amazing month.Even a small house can build a hundred friends.We have just crossed 100 days of lockdown, and although we have faced many challenges, we have never reached so many people.Church Online continues just as strong with lots of people connecting from all over the world. Even today as we get this e-News ready we are seeing people come to know Jesus, get healed and get connected.We now need your house to be a friendship house.I grew up materially poor but relationally rich. My father was one of 6, and my mother was one of 11. Most of these families lived within 10 miles of my home. The outcome being I had many cousins, aunts and uncles.
There was nothing we loved more than getting together, visiting one another, and enjoying stories, memories. The comment from aunts and uncles to us as children was always, “look how you’ve grown”.Amazingly, many of my extended family became Christians, mostly due to a godly grandmother who was so sweet, but also so cunning when it came to the gospel.Aside from praying for all of us, which I know she did by name and often, she would also pay me sixpence to read her the Bible, often going through selective scriptures which told me the gospel. I guess she also did that with my cousins, she must have had a lot of sixpences and thought the investment worthwhile.Today, families tend to be much smaller, although we personally have tried to keep up the big family tradition. People need relationships more than ever, and not just relationships but life-giving, gospel-sharing, discipleship making friendship houses. If you have learned something - then teach something, that’s called ‘discipleship’, and this is our BIG theme this month.We heard last week as I shared on
"Beautiful Feet" that our world has changed for ever, but that includes the church too. Small groups are more important than ever, and when we read the New Testament, we find that the main church was nearly always located in houses.Today, you can make your house a friendship house with people from the other side of the earth, or even without walking outside your front door. Are you up for it?
- Did you know that we have now got a growing church of people in Romania, and we haven’t even left the country, we have remained here! But our Romanian family members have been broadcasting every Sunday in their own language, and sometimes more than 30,000 people have looked in.
- Did you know that we have been running an Alpha group in Mexico in Spanish?
- Did you know that our new church in Ghana has already started new growth groups?
- Did you know that Ivan has been preaching/broadcasting in Italian and already many of his family have got saved?
What has God got in store for you?This is to be your best and most fruitful season ever! Regardless of your age. If you're still here - then you’re here for a purpose, and a very important one.So don’t miss any of the Surge conference material coming out over the whole month, you can get the schedule here:
Also, we thank God for our community action teams who have now well crossed over 10,000 hot meals given out over 10,000 meals within food bags. Pray for these people, for the food and resource to keep coming and for the upgrade of our Gorbals building into which we have just installed £30,000 worth of fridges and freezers, thankfully supplied at trade cost.We read this in the lovely Passion translation:
"Love obligates me to preach to everyone,To those who are among the eliteAnd those among the outcastsTo those who are wise and educatedAs well as to those who are foolish and unlearned."- Romans 1:14
We are obligated - so let’s go and get this job done!Please pray for James and Jess Trower who lead Destiny Hong Kong, where today a new law came into force from mainland China that will have very serious implications on their work and ministry, and on every church in Hong Kong.ALSO JOIN WITH US IN THIS NEW APPEAL:
BLACK CHILDREN'S LIVES MATTERWe have had the joy of partnering with
JAM for over 20 years, where they (amongst other things) feed over 1 million black children every day, working through schools making sure they not only get food but an education and a future.We want to raise £10K during this month of Surge to support their valiant and amazing work. Hunger is still killing more black children than any other reason and food is even harder to find under Covid-19. Let’s turn these present challenges into something beautiful and positive.You can give here:
Soon we will be able to meet again, but probably in small numbers and in a restrictive fashion, so church online will be here for some time yet.Look forward to seeing you on the weekend.Make your house a friendship house and invite others with you to church.We love you all,Andrew & Sue
