I realize that we have been in
London almost two weeks and I haven’t really shared anything about our actual
ministry here. I apologize for being such a slacker. Here is a long overdue
update (as much as I am able to share anyway). We are spending this month in
London doing evangelistic ministry and working with ethnic minorities in the
city. For the security of our contacts, I can’t really share more than that.
However, I do want to share some of my own journey this month and the stories
of some of the people I have met…
When I say evangelism, here that
means tracting and setting up literature tables. I’m not going to lie… I really
hate giving out tracts! I always told myself that I would never be one of those
Christians who just stood at the mall handing out tracts. No offense to you
tract-ers out there. It’s not that I don’t think God can work through that
method, but it has just always felt so awkward to me… standing out in the cold,
trying to conjure up relationship out of thin air, sharing Jesus before you
know anything about someone’s life. I love to tell people about my Jesus, but
it is much more natural for me to share with my friends or co-workers as Jesus
just naturally comes up because He really is the center of my life. So for our
first week here I really didn’t enjoy our outreaches. I kept praying and asking
the Lord to change my heart, but every morning I still felt the same way.
Donald Miller, in his book Blue
Like Jazz, talks about watching a jazz musician playing his saxophone.
Miller says that he has never really enjoyed jazz music until he saw this
saxophone player with his eyes closed, completely entranced, loving the music
he is playing. Miller concludes, “Sometimes you have to watch someone love
something before you can really love it yourself.” I had a similar experience last night…
I was sitting and listening to a
street preacher (he wasn’t preaching at this moment, but just sharing his heart
with us). This man has been preaching on the same street corner at least 3 days
a week for the last 25 years. Now I doubt that I will ever be a street
preacher, but as I listened to him talk about his love for Jesus and for the
gospel I realized that I had really lost perspective.
Methods aren’t that important. What
is important is that my God loves me so much that when I rejected Him and
rejected His love for me He sent His only Son, Jesus, to rescue me. Jesus left
the glory of heaven to live among us, to die in my place, and to rise from the
dead that I might be reconciled to God. THIS IS GOOD NEWS!!! We have a God that loves us more than imaginable,
offers us a totally FREE gift of grace, and brings us into the fullness of life
and freedom in Him! How can I keep silent?! It doesn’t matter what method I
use, but out of the overflow of love I have from my beautiful Savior I have to
share His goodness with others.
So today I had the privilege of
going back out to the streets of London with correct perspective. I was able to
get back to the heart of things and just watch Jesus work… stay tuned for Part 2.
