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.