March 2019

Go forth and tell!

 

Some years ago (before I was a church minister) I used to work amongst university students. At the time I heard a story about a student from overseas who had got to know another student. After a time, this international student became a Christian and said to her fellow student; “You built a bridge of friendship between your heart and my heart, and Jesus walked over!”

That has always stayed with me as an illustration of the significance all Christians can have in pointing others to the truth of the good news of Jesus appropriately and naturally.

The New Testament letter to the Colossians chapter 4, encourages believers to share in God’s work in this kind of way. It involves prayer, living in a way that is wise and winsome, and when the opportunity arises, letting “speech…be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” (Col 4:6)

The Christian Medical Fellowship – the organisation that encourages Christian Doctors – has a programme called the “saline solution” which picks up on these words. It involves what they call “Faith Flags” – natural opportunities to “flag up” the implications of faith to illustrate that we are Christians and give others the chance to pick up on something and ask us a question, if they wish to. So, when someone asks us about our weekend we can say not just “I took my daughter to her dance class”, or “I saw my grandson”, but “we had a lunch at Church,” or “I heard an interesting sermon about what’s wrong with our world.”  This helps us to be more natural about our faith and encourages others to know they can speak to us about Christianity– as the recent “Talking Jesus” research, shows many would like to.

This Lent at All Saints’ we are offering a series of sessions, “Go forth and tell”, on Tuesday mornings or Thursday evenings, to encourage one another in our calling as witnesses to Jesus. We begin on Thurs 7th March at 8pm or Tues 12th March at 10am, both in the parish Hall. Why not come along?

Matthew Brailsford

All Saints – Serving our community