Have you ever planned something at church for a specific purpose and found that God has used it for something entirely different? This for me has not been a unique experience.
Not long after arriving at St. John's Wood the church took a bold step - to close the evening service and replace it with an afternoon cafe. The idea of the cafe was that it would be place where we could invite friends to relax with us in the hopes of being able to share the gospel with them. After some time, and very few people except church people coming through the doors, we discovered that God was using the cafe (and subsequently lunch, which grew out of the cafe) in a different way; to grow the church into a community again, to get us loving each other, spending time with each other and knowing each other. We talked together, played together, laughed together, cried together.
Because we were at church in the afternoon, it made sense to stay for lunch. Now we have lunch together every Sunday. The number of conversations that the Lord uses to bless over lunch and during cafe can't be numbered and their effect can't be underestimated. None of this was what we planned for cafe, but this is how God used it.
Between September 2011 and September 2012 we spent our Sunday evenings planning a new evangelistic service to be launched in September 2012. I was delighted that the format we came up with was different from what I had in my mind when we started! As we launched we were committed to a meeting (not a church service) that would be an easy invite for our friends to come to and talk very openly about what we/they believe, our/their doubts and questions. So it proved up to Christmas. The bigger invitational events proving especially well attended. However this last term something different happened. We ran a series called "God on trial," tackling some of the more common objections to Christian faith. One of our members decided (without really thinking it through) to invite an internet group called the "London Humanists". Connected had not been intended as a place to invite "hostile" people to talk about faith. However that is exactly what it has been. Between 5 and 35 atheists and humanists descended upon us (about 15 of us) and argued, shouted, interupted and to be honest often insulted us for 2+ hours every Sunday night for 6 weeks in a row! It was great! I certainly, and I don't think any of us actually, would have planned to invite such a crowd of hostile people to Connected. We would have been too concerned about others who were enquiring and might be put off, and members who would be shaken by having their faith attacked so forcefully week after week. The first concerned proved to still be a concern , the second was blown out of the water.
The response of the church to such an unexpected situation was fantastic. Humble, warm, welcoming, loving, firm in their faith and so encouraged in be able to share their faith with the people who came in. On a table with three or four atheists would be sat perhaps a Bible college student, an aspiring film writer and new Christian! Each had different approaches to tackling the issues raised. Strong apologetics and polemics, testimony of God's grace over troubled times and good or a new and sure conviction of the love of God that comes to all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all had better evenings and worse. One evening I spent talking with one woman who stubbornly refused to talk about the topic under discussion and basically spent 2 hours insulting me. But then another week I had the chance to explain in some detail how the OT sacrificial system points to the Lord Jesus, his cross and God's loving desire to draw us into his family., to an atheist who finally really wanted to understand what was being said rather than just pick holes in it.
This atmosphere and environment was definitely not what we had planned. But God used it to his glory and has given us much food for thought. Certainly we will continue with our bigger events (here's Sam Chaplin warming up for our Feb invitational) and we will want to move Sunday nights back towards inviting friends and interested others, but please do pray for us as we think through how we might continue to share the gospel with those that are more hostile in a way that is spiritually fruitful!
The big lesson I take from all this is, "It is always worth seeking to honour God with bold faith, just as long as you are ready for God to do what he wants, rather than what you want!"
