So we had the Student Alpha launch night last night… it was great! Loads of people came, the entertainment was awesome and hopefully many people left with the intention of coming back next week for the start of the real thing. Thank you so much to everyone who prayed/invited/helped/well-wished – please continue to do so for the duration of the course, we really need all your support. And just so you know – week 1 kicks of Wednesday 21st October, 7.30pm at Jabez Clegg. Free food and everything!
Another thing that’s really beginning to “take off” (i’m sorry.) are the student treasure hunts that we’ve been doing for the past few weeks. We were out again yesterday afternoon and it’s really exciting to see everyone’s confidence growing a bit more. But it’s not actually about us, it’s about seeing people encounter the love of God, which is why the most encouragement always comes from the people we get to chat and pray with. Once more we uncovered some more of God’s treasure (whether they knew they were or not!) and it was awesome to be able to pray with a number of people – the appointments that God sets up are just mind-blowing sometimes. Right now we’re still fighting with our natural urge to run away from most encounters that start up as soon as we can, but gradually we’re learning to have more faith and stick around a bit longer to see what God’s up to!! I guess the key is recognising that this isn’t just an event we do on Wednesday afternoons, but a lifestyle that we’re trying to develop – one in which we are open to what God is doing and then going and getting involved, whatever the context. So it’s definintely a journey we’re all on… and an exciting one at that!
If you haven’t been out on a Wednesday yet you should come do it… this week in fact. It’s just so exciting to see God stuff happen out in the real world. It’s awesome to pray with our family in the church, but it’s absolutely wicked cool to pray for some random* on the street who might not even heard of Jesus before – that’s the whole living it out part, right? Even if you think it’s all completely nuts and you couldn’t think of anywhere else you’d like to spend your afternoon less, just come and give it a try – God’ll surprise you. (And we’ll walk you through everything, explain all the “american” buzz words etc etc). Just do it!
* random to you, not random to God.
God Goggles
8 10 2009When you look at someone what do you see?
Perhaps you see an age group? Or a social scene? Or a character trait? It could even be as black-and-white as simply liking or disliking a person.
The thing is often how we view a person affects how we relate to them and how we interact with them. For example, you might find yourself thinking “I can’t say that to them, they’re too cool” or maybe “I’d rather not be seen talking to them” or possibly even “Yeah but that’s just X, he’ll always be like that”. You know what I’m saying.
I was challenged by this scripture the other day…
“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.“
1 Corinthians 5:16
The boxes and categories we tend to put people in are man-made. They might be accurate in one sense, but from God’s perspective they are missing the point – we need to view people not as the world does but as He does, namely someone of significance who is loved and who he wants relationship with; someone worth dying for. And not only that, someone who He is working in; someone with bucket loads of God-given potential.
I wonder what it would look like if we got hold of that? Would we act the same towards them? Would we say or not say the same things to them? I wonder just how much more God might move through our lives if we grasped how wide, high, long and deep God’s love is for the people we encounter every day?
Try it this week. In every situation ask yourself “how does God see this person?” See what he says – it might surprise you.
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