What's up in Manchester
Updated: Sep 8, 2020
Like everywhere else we are trying to find a new way of doing church and reaching the lost.
As we were meeting in a community venue, it’s been difficult to resume corporate meetings, but we have felt God give us a strategy to meet in 4 or 5 different homes on a Sunday. We have a leader facilitating / hosting each meeting and have allocated a worship leader to each “hub”, the preach is prerecorded (1 church, 1 diet) so we are all hearing the same message each week. It does allow for more participation, involvement, stretching and growth (1 Cor 14:26). We’ve really had to look at the early church and saw that they were devoted to the word, prayer, fellowship and breaking bread together (Acts 2:42). Once a month we’ve gathered as…[12:17, 8/25/2020] Andrew Crawford: a church in the park for our ‘corporate’ meeting. Where we’ve had 2 or 3 give a short testimony, then 1 or 2 worship songs and then a 10 to 15 short encouraging message, all that last for about 30 min and then, fun, food and fellowship. In the UK we are allowed to gather in the open, we even had 2 police walk past on their patrol and join in.
One last encouraging testimony. We had a young South African lad, Cameron, come to stay with us just before lock down happened. He was on his way to join the Royal Marines. But 2 weeks turned into 4 months. It’s amazing how God works.
He finally enlisted into the Royal Marines and this is his story.
Training is so tough in the Marines and he found himself talking to God during the long hours of marching and training, praying and trying to keep himself going. One Sunday, 3 weeks in, he decided to go to the Chapel on the base to get some peace and quiet as he was so exhausted. He walked in to find 2 other soldiers there, 1 South African and 1 Brit, they were talking about God together so he joined them. The next week they decided to buy some cokes and chips and invite some others. They now have about 15 guys meeting on a Sunday. Shortly after they started meeting Cameron said he really felt he needed to get baptized. During the long hours of training he had had an encounter with God, so they chatted about it together and 2 others also wanted to get baptized so they called the Army Chaplin (Anglican), also a Royal Marine, and asked him for permission. He said no one had ever been baptized on the base before and if they did they would be scrutinized. Nevertheless Cameron insisted. So the Chaplin baptized all 3 of them, many others came down to watch and commented on how amazing it was. Cameron is back with us on a 3 week pass and is a different kid, his whole face is different. God is so amazing ! We think we are doing stuff for Him ... building his church, Yet behind the scenes with no one around Jesus starts a revival on an Military base. Isn’t God SO AMAZING!
Andrew Crawford: Church in the park