A freezing cold January morning in a sleepy Norfolk market town seems like an unlikely setting for a Formula One Grand Prix, and yet, one engine would be pushed to the limit that day.
I was with my fellow church ministry interns, and as part of our Friday off-site activities, we had been dispatched to a nearby town to engage in some on-street mission.
We were approaching individuals and asking them if they had five minutes to stop and have a discussion about Jesus. If that sounds scary to you now, it absolutely petrified me as a fresh-faced university graduate.
Towards the end of the morning, I decided to have one last go. A gentleman was coming up the pavement in an electric chair, and I felt it my duty to stop him and ask him if he wanted to talk about Jesus.
“Sir!? Have you got five minutes, Sir?”
The gentleman brought his electric chair to a stop. I began to launch into the routine I had seemingly fallen into, and as soon as I said the word “Jesus”, the lights went out, and away he went, down the pavement.
It was a start that Lewis Hamilton himself would have been proud of, and as I saw this fella disappearing down the pavement I was forced to ask myself the question, “What am I actually doing here?”.
However, as I went home that day, I ended up realising that urgency in evangelism was something that I hadn’t really thought about before.
We carry, as Christians, a truth that has changed all of our lives. It can change the lives of others too, and that made all those interactions on that frigid morning worth it. If just one person comes to know Jesus as a result of the efforts of a mission team, it makes literally all the difference in the world to that individual.
YWAM are hosting 12-day UK “Wild HOPE” mission trips this summer for those aged 18 to 25. If you’re rueing the lack of escape abroad this year, could you find a different adventure closer to home?
Teams of young adults will be trained by YWAM, sent out to churches in locations across the country, then return to YWAM HQ to debrief and share stories.
I am confident that you will be more successful than me, especially when considering the array of responsibilities on a mission team. According to YWAM themselves, they need:
Prayer warriors, worshippers, evangelists, social media experts and digital creatives, organisers and administrators, those who pastor others, those who are great with children and those with a heart for the poor.
One essential specification – a heart for those who don’t yet know JESUS.
Could you make some memories YWAM this summer?
Sign up now at https://www.wildhopeuk.com/
