Buckets of Love

It felt like a victory, getting the Evangelism team and MAKE. team together to do creative evangelism this past March. The goal is for us to come together once a month, due to external circumstances we hadn't been able to get everyone together until March this year. We were able to set up on the seafront down in Brighton with our new outreach tool called Buckets of Love. The hearts you see above are the truths that we handed out to 59 people on the seafront in Brighton, while I was covering Florence and the Machine's "You've Got The Love" in the background.

Some people looked confused as we stood by our giant red wooden heart with tin buckets full of love, free for anyone who would take them. For most people it brought a smile to their face, people in cars, on bicycles, walking past, some stopping and even dancing, enjoying the tunes. They had surprise and delight on their face as they read the heart which they had dared to pull out. One of the things I love about the city of Brighton and Hove is that, being one of the most popular holiday destinations in England, even though we are reaching out to locals, the world comes to the city. In a span of 2 hours we heard Italian, German, Spanish and many other languages being spoken.

I wrote in one of my earlier posts, we believe we are meant to be a bridge to people who would possibly never encounter God. That is how Buckets of Love came about while using our God-given creativity, praying and asking for ideas of how to reach people with the truth that God believes about them, in a  loving and approachable way. I'm really looking forward to our next outreach!

Celebrating Real Love

As Youth With A Mission Holmsted Manor, we hosted this quarter's
Discipleship Training School Gathering back in February. Our theme was Celebrating Real Love, the week had many great speakers, lots of worship and it was encouraging and insightful, revolving around how to share/show the Love of Christ with those around us.

On Valentine's Day, after we had spent the week learning and praying, we went out to 3 locations Crawley, Burgess Hill and Brighton using our creativity to share the love of Christ.

Phil and I lead the team to Brighton. 20 of us went to one of the local parks. Our team had written truths on heart shaped paper that we handed out to people, like you are loved, you are valued, to celebrate what real love is. A few of us were also worshipping using guitar and song while we had others with boards that people could write or talk about Real Love - What is it? What isn't it?

At the moment, as we have prayed, we have felt that we are meant to be a bridge from the local people to God. Not forcing anything on anyone, but showing who God really is, that He loves and cares about each person on this earth.
He's not angry, He is not condemning, He just wants His children to come to Him.

"This is real love -- not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." - 1 John 4:10

Like A Child

This is a post I've been meaning to write since February, hope you enjoy and remember to laugh today:

Hearing a child laugh has to be one of the most beautiful things I've heard today. I was sitting in a café doing some graphic design research for work and around the corner behind me I heard some of the most delightful, deep giggles that only a child can make. It made me smile and reminded me it's the little things in life that are the most precious and life is meant to be utterly enjoyed, like a child.

"Then he said, 'I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.' " - Jesus  (Matthew 18:3)