Penny Dropping Moment

So this week I'm being a CU Guest at Lancaster University's CU Mission. It's been great, hard work and very tiring but really encouraging. It's now Thursday night and although I've felt entirely out of my depth all week, I am looking back over the week and just seeing what God has taught me about myself and about Himself.

You (I say that assuming someone reads my blog, I don't actually think anyone does...) may be a long term "I've done 25 mission weeks this last year" type but for newbees like me, who have just stumbled through 3 mission weeks while at Uni (one of which I hid away for out of fear that someone might hand me some flyers, one of which I was on placement for so not even around during the day, and one of which I was so stressed out sorting out CUGs and money and logisitics that I didn't do any evangelism...) this week was a very different story and a whole new thing for me.

Of course, I understand the Gospel and I understand evangelism and I have a really massive passion for student evangelism and I love the work of the CU and even of UCCF (oh, how people change...) and I love mission weeks and I know how effective they can be! Of course, I tick all the boxes. But there's always more to it than that. Nothing annoys me more than people who act as if they will never learn anything new. I hope I never get like that! So I got to Lancaster expecting to be pushed out of my comfort zone and expecting to learn new things about my glorious Saviour and about HIS mission strategy. And of course I have.

At the beginning of the week one of the other CUGs talked about loving seeing when CU students who previously haven't understood evangelism suddenly get it - "a penny dropping moment"... well, like I say, we can tick all the boxes and still have penny dropping moments, and I had one last night.

To skip all the boring parts, me and one of the CU members were talking to a Muslim guy about Christianity, he invited us over to his room in order that he could understand more about what we believed, in the hope this would help him to understand Judaism, which from what we can gather we think was related to trying to understand the situation in Gaza. So he basically said... tell me what you believe. I love that question! As we encouraged him to realise how sinful the world is and how we are all so in desperate need for a Saviour, we had the joy of being able to explain how Jesus can rescue us from that sin and make us acceptable in God's sight! It was clear he understood, whether he got passed the "I just want to know what you believe" to it challenging his heart, we don't know; but God's message is powerful and glorious and we can only pray.

But the amazing thing I went away from this conversation with, as well as an encouragement for both me and the guy I was with that we could explain the Gospel (which when you aren't constantly coming into contact with people who ask such blatent questions, doubt can creep in...) was this overwhelming thankfulness and joy that what I said was true and it applied for me! I am such a classic rule setter, and the type that beats myself up every time I fall into the same sinful things I struggle with time and time again... and yet just as I told the guy we spoke to, I am saved from that! I was practically dancing as I walked back, both out of excitement that God could use someone as unwilling and uncooperative and broken and bumbly as me, and also that this amazing message, that seems too good to be true sometimes when you say it out loud, IS true and IS applied to me!

I am a big fan of reminding myself how broken and dirty I am, and using the knowledge and joy of my salvation through Jesus as my encouragement and motivation for evanglism. You can keep your "you should do this and this...." guilt, and your deceptive methods and your "how many missions/gospels/conversations have you been on/handed out/had recently" competitiveness as a motivation. Joy is the only thing that is really going to make people want to tell people about their faith. it's probably the only thing that will make the penny drop!

evangelism of the elderly

this is something i've been thinking a lot about recently... its somewhat my soap box infact.

i've always loved elderly people, and i've always felt like we dont treat our elderly people very well. yeah, we care for them. but we dont give them the respect they're due - most of the christian elderly people in our churches have 40, 50, 60 even years of Christian experience behind them - they've been thru wars, losing their long loved spouse - these people know what it means to trust God through tough times. I find there is a wealth of experience and a massive enthusiasm to share it with us, and yet often we don't bother seeking them out to listen.

but my biggest issue is that of evangelism of the elderly. i went to a seminar at the Northern Evangelists Conference last week called "grey grace" (sounds amazing in a Yorkshire accent) - and i sat there with my heart racing all the way thru! i love it when God puts a burden on my heart for a set of people or a cause, and i really feel this is the area i feel called to, and now i'm in the classic position where i have no idea where to go with it now.

the seminar discussed some of the issues encountered when trying to reach elderly people with the Gospel, by that I mean reaching those elderly people outside of our churches... some being:

• elderly people are massively set in their ways; if you think students have preconcieved ideas, elderly people do too, and with 60 years experience of consolodating them
• many elderly people believe in "God", but have no relationship with Jesus - making them see the importance of Jesus means changing years of what they have considered their religion
• elderly people feel its too late for them to turn to Jesus for forgiveness, as they feel guilty that they can't serve God with their failing bodies and often, failing minds
• many people are housebound, or in residential homes, and have no contact with Christians or way of accessing a church, or any events. this means the classic 'evangelistic luncheon club' idea doesn't reach everyone. door to door knocking is unfair on frail elderly people, in my opinion, it puts them in a position that i never would have wanted my grandma to be in, inviting a total stranger into their home...
• elderly people think church is something they had to do when they were younger, therefore have no regard for choosing to do it now
• elderly people expect the 'vicar' to do everything - if a vicar with a dog collor came to see them, they'd stop and talk. if a random younger person from the church came, they aren't interested

on the final point, this is where the seminar pointed was the biggest problem with evangelism of the elderly. elderly people in our church don't know the importance or effectiveness of relational evangelism. they think the vicar, pastor, elder, whoever... does that kind of thing, they invite their friends to luncheon club, are glad they listen to a Gospel talk, but don't see it as their place to do the follow up. of course i'm vastly generalising here, and know that actually, people in my church here in Liverpool often don't have this attitude. but generally, especially my experience in my church at home, and other churches with a large population of elderly people, older people don't know how to talk to their friends about Jesus.

having spent 3 years very involved in the university Christian Union, i'm slowly realising that its just the same issues as with students. Christian cliques, lack of boldness, not knowing how to share the Gospel with their friends on a one to one level, hoping that bringing friends to events and letting someone else do the work is enough to win people for Christ (obviously sometimes it is, but often it isn't - follow up is always the key)... Maybe the first step to reaching elderly people is training Christian elderly people to see the importance of evangelism and have the tools in which to do it. The seminar leaders called their outreach to elderly people "each one, reach one"... I like. It seems that, as with the CU, training people is the key. You can put on as many events as you like, but unless people are willing to get alongside their peers, evangelism often doesn't work.

so i dont know what this all means practically, but there's my ideas and my thoughts. i guess it's about praying and seeing where God leads me....