A note from Cheryl, Community Development Co-Ordinator
I recently attended an on-line Conference hosted by New Horizons, New and Renewing Churches ‘Bridging Cultures with the Gospel’. God’s glorious vision for the church is to reconcile people of every ‘nation, tribe, people and language’ in the one body of Christ.
The on-line conference was intended to help catch a vision of God’s plan for the church, take steps in becoming more welcoming, and receive inspiration and ideas from local churches that are unfolding God’s glorious vision in practical ways.
I found this conference to be very informative, inspirational and powerful. One of the speakers, Craig Heidenreich, shared his paper on ‘An effective witness to Unbelievers’. He talked about the importance of walking alongside people, listening to them and also listening to God and his promptings. Craig also shared two points which he felt were from God and they were – ‘I will give you the people you are willing to love’ and ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to love them in your own strength – if you are willing, I will love them through you’.
So this became my prayer for us here at Good Shepherd – Lord please bring the people you want us to love. Now over the years I have learnt that when we pray we need to be prepared for how God might answer. So on the Tuesday morning following the Conference we had a homeless couple come to our church to seek assistance. Without going into all the details Pastor Paul and I, and a couple of others were able to help them out, not only with food and clothing from our Pantry but somewhere warm and safe to stay in our Community Shed. More importantly though we were able to listen, offer support, pray and share God’s love with them.
God certainly answered this prayer, probably quicker than I thought but what a blessing it was for us to be able to minister and care for this lovely couple. Who is God bringing to you to love?