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Newsletters - April 2004 |
Raising the Church? What do you think of when someone says the word ‘community’? Church? Maybe not. The question we should ask ourselves, if we belong to a church especially, is why not? Church is supposed to be a community supporting and caring, being Jesus, both for those within it but also those outside of it. This was spoken of in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 15:1 - 11 and also the New Testament in Acts 2: 45. So what has gone wrong? Someone talking about the teaching of the evangelist Billy Graham was reported to have said his teaching would put the church back fifty years. Billy Graham’s response was that it needed to go back a lot further than that; two thousand years. The church has tried to become modern with a watered down Gospel message and as a result has become ineffective, no longer able to influence its community. Trying to convert people but often failing to nurture them. God has really put church and its importance in a community on my heart in the last few years. One reason why FAITH Christian Group was needed originally was because the church was not fulfilling the command of Jesus. Ministering to the poor. Loving and caring for its community, Matt 25:31 - 46. As a result the church has lost its influence in our society. It is time for the church to claim that back. To return to its roots. It is the heart of the church that needs to be softened not its central message, The Gospel. Supporting the needy individuals across the town, FAITH will always struggle to build deep relationships, nurturing the individuals, because of needing to spread its resources thinly. Maybe there could be a time in the future when FAITH will no longer be needed? We all must work to help the church regain the lost ground. So how can the church get back
into the heart of the community, becoming relevant once again? Some people
in parts of Reading are already doing
it, but this is what I believe God shared with me recently. How can the
Church be raised? When: We have to take the church to the people. Let the people outside meet the Church, the community, before they meet the church. Over Christmas and since, we
have seen the formation and growth of these relationships with the churches
across the town. Is your Church involved
yet? ‘ Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and the needy.’ Proverbs 31: 8 – 9 General News update The work (and need!) continues unabated. We are in a continuing period of consolidation and change. The arrival of our new staff, who introduce themselves below, is giving us the opportunity to overhaul and improve what we do and why we do it. This as you can imagine is rather time consuming but change should be positive and bring better working conditions that many of you will see the improvements in days to come. Over the period we have had a high demand placed on our food stocks. Whilst we do try to ensure that the food is not being abused and as a rule of thumb say that approximately one emergency parcel a month where needed, the stocks have run precariously low. We have increasing demand placed on us by Social Services and Reading Borough Council to name two agencies that we interact with. This is a demand that we cannot always meet, especially late on a Friday afternoon! There is however always somewhere we can at least refer people to, with food for the needy and vulnerable now being available in various drop-ins or outreach teams seven days a week in the town. The Answer groups, Central and Whitley are continuing but we would really like to see these groups used more. Please pray about this. Inevitably as we get to know the people we support more and more, so additional needs are unearthed. Thus we always need more volunteers, though not only in the traditional ways, for soup-runs etcetera but also for general help at home. See below. As the warmer evenings come on us we would like to see the teabar used more. Would you like us to come and do some outreach in your area? See below. During April/May Chris will be in USA for a time of refreshing and envisioning. Please pray for him and those left behind holding the reins. Debt advice update Frontline are a charity based on the Isle of Wight offering debt advice. They first partnered with FAITH from the office at Coley. Some of the FAITH volunteers also are trained by Frontline to offer debt advice. The Reading branch of Frontline continues to operate from the same office as FAITH. In this age of ever-spiralling debt situation we would expect a greater demand to be placed on its services. However, this does not seem to be the case. With personal changes we have an increasing demand for more people who are willing to be trained and offer debt advice themselves - in anticipation for an the expected influx of extra people needing help! Have you been trained by Frontline? Are you now able to offer some time to help out in this way? We have enclosed a leaflet on the work of Frontline. Please use it and contact the office if you need more copies. Staffing We have had three new members join the team over this period. Julian joined but after a very short period of time, owing to a recurring injury, has been forced temporarily to step into the wings. Dave however was able to take his place for the interim period and we hope that in time Julian will return to us stronger than before. Vicky has also now started and is full of enthusiasm and ideas. We asked each of them to write a few lines to introduce themselves. Vicky My name is Victoria Greener and I am one of the new additions to the FAITH team. I started my part time post a few weeks ago, so I am still learning. I am so thankful to God for giving me this job and for the doors that He has opened up for me. I had been working in an office job for a few years and I started to have a real heart to help the homeless and needy people. I left it all in Gods hands and a few months later I found out that FAITH needed a new paid worker. I applied and the rest is history! To be able to work in this kind of job is a real blessing to me. I also find it so challenging at times as well. It has made me so much more dependent on God in ways that I have never known before. I have ventured out of my comfort zone, and I am doing things now, which I never thought I would be able to do or want to do. God has given me a heart and a love for the outcasts in society, for the people that I would naturally walk by and ignore or give money to because I felt I should. I cannot boast in myself for this as only God can have all the glory for it. There seems to be
so many more people on the streets in Reading since I moved here a few
years ago. You cannot go into town without coming
across
a number of people begging. It can be so easy to judge and condemn these
people, and to look down on them, but God loves everyone just the same.
They are people too, just like you and me. They need so much more than
just a few pennies dropped into their laps. To spend a few minutes talking
to someone can make their day. To remember their name can mean so much
to some people. The hurts that they must carry, the hopelessness that
some of them must feel on a daily basis is too much to think about. We can only give so much, because at the end of the day the only thing they really need is God. Without Him the end result is worth nothing. ‘ Faith is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot see.’ Hebrews 11 v 1 ‘ Put your trust in the Lord and not in man’ Psalm 118 v 8 Dave It seems like yesterday I read this, not two years ago when I was on my way out of this world through years of abusing my body chemically. But God had other ideas and after a pretty hair raising but eventful night I learned the truth that Jesus was real and thanks to Jesus I am still here. First God lead me miraculously to CCA as a volunteer, then on to FAITH. I can’t take any credit as it all fell into place. It just seemed to happen without me putting any effort in what so ever. I then was asked by Chris to work at the shelter in Chatham Street. I scarily said ok. It really opened my eyes, and to be in a place surrounded my people with the same problems that I had with drugs was amazing, I couldn’t have planned all of this if I tried. Good job God is in control. I have now been working with FAITH for
a year. I have built up a good number of friendships with people on the
streets and
many others in need. I hope
and pray that God can water the seeds sown in their hearts by Faith and
they too
can come to know the love of Jesus Christ as I have. Julian This is my life walking through darkness into light. When I was a child life was very lonely. I was abandoned by my natural mother and brought up by my grandparents, uncles and aunts, which was very violent with sexual and mental abuse. For a young child to live in that environment it was very frightening. Due to my home life my education was non-existent. I left school at the age of 12 and at that point I had to make probably one of the biggest decisions of my life which was to leave home and live on the streets, because at this point the environment I was in was so violent I decided that the situation could not get any worse and so I decided to live on the streets. By this time I was on drugs. This continued for many years. I lived in and out of squats, and I was stealing to survive between the ages of 14-15 years. I decided to look for work. I was working off and on to the age of 19. By this time my Nan was dying of cancer and I was introduced to my natural mother, whom I haven’t seen for 19 years. To top this all off I had just learned that I was to become a father myself. At this point I was suicidal. I became a father and not long after this I became a father for the second time. I looked after my responsibilities as a father but I found it difficult as I didn’t have any love given, or was never shown how a parent should be. All I was shown was violence and sexual abuse and I knew this was all wrong. I felt I had to break the chain of abuse which took many years of drug taking and being in trouble with the police, but at the same time I was trying to be a loving and caring father as could possibly be. Finally I thought I had made it when I began to run my own business that I did for three to four years. At this time my long-term relationship with my children’s mother was coming to an end. This was due to masses of hurt I still carried with me from my childhood. At the end of 2002 I found my partner was seeing someone else and this was like a volcano erupting inside me. I came very close to taking another mans life which scared me deeply as after all the hurt that I had suffered I still knew that I had a lot of love to give. It was at this point I was offered to go on an Alpha course. I accepted but not because of the Christian counselling, but just to get me away from my situation. On the last day of the Alpha course we went away on a day course and we had a praying time. There was a gentleman called John there and he asked me if I would like to pray. I didn’t understand anything about Christianity and for me to pray just felt stupid. But something inside me said just do it. I asked God to come into my life but felt no different, but I did not know the chain of events that would come from this. At this point I was still on drugs. By Monday morning for the first time in my life I felt a massive amount of peace and reassurance. It was at the time I realised I had no urge for drugs and I know that something was going on. I decided to give my house to my ex- partner and children. I stayed with a man called Chris Evans; this was the beginning of a massive journey into the light. We had a meeting with the Gosbrook Road Methodist church and we decided to call in FAITH to ask for their help in redecorating the house I’d given to my ex- partner. This was a mammoth task as my ex- was also on drugs. I knew from my Christianity and my brothers and sisters in Christ that this would prove to be a big testament not only to me but also for a lot of Christians around Reading. There were unbelievable amounts of hidden difficulties, this I do not have the time to go into detail now. To cut a very long story short, I was baptised in the middle of 2003. Since then my Christianity has become stronger and stronger. At the beginning of 2004 I began working for FAITH. I found this absolutely amazing considering where I had come from. I am so overwhelmed that God chose to save me from that pit of darkness. Whilst writing this I had tears but not tears of sadness they were tears of Joy. Have you been inspired and blessed by those
testimonies? Do you feel the call to join our team of volunteers? They
do not do it
for the pay,
but
the rewards
are mainly out of this world! These are just some of the openings we
have, contact the office if you want more details: Infinite Forgiveness O Thou who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, canst Thou bear to look on us conscious of our great transgressions? Yet hide not Thy face from us, for in Thy light alone shall we see light. Forgive us for the sins which crowd into the mind as we realise Thy presence: our ungovernable tempers, our shuffling insincerities, the craven fear of our hearts, the pettiness of our spirits, the foul lusts and fatal learning of our souls. Not for pardon only but for cleansing Lord, we pray. Forgive us, we beseech Thee, our unconscious sins: things which must be awful to Thy sight, of which we yet know nothing. Forgive by giving us in fuller measure the awakening of Thy presence, that we may know ourselves, and lose all love of sin in the knowledge of what Thou art. Forgive us for the things for which we can never forgive ourselves; those sad turned pages of our life which some chance wind of memory blows back, again with shame; for the moment of cruel passion, the hour beyond recall, the word that went forth to poison and defame, the carelessness that lost our opportunity the unheeded fading of bright ideas. Forgive us for the things that others can never forgive the idle tale, the cruel wrong, the uncharitable condemnation, the unfair judgment, the careless criticism, the irresponsible conduct. Forgive us for the sins of our holy things, that we have turned the sacred page without a sigh, read the confessions of holy men and women and never joined therein, lived in Thy light and never prayed to be forgiven or rendered Thee thanksgiving, professed to believe in Thee and love Thee, yet dared to injure and hate. Naught save being born again, nothing but a miracle of grace, can ever be to us forgiveness. Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from us. Amen W.E Orchard Van update After much thought and prayer we shall be purchasing a multi purpose vehicle very soon. Photo in next edition. Prayer meeting We must never underestimate the power or importance of our prayers. We continue to meet regularly in Southcote at the home of Olive, who you are welcome to contact on (0118) 957 3575, should you wish to join us. Stepping Stone Project We would really appreciate your prayer over this work. The original FAITH vision was for a 24-hour church. Does that mean a Stepping Stone type shelter? Please pray for the Trustees and Chris for wisdom and clarity over this and that we will know God’s will in this. If you have any specific direction or word from God please do share them with us. After exploring several possible options. There is nothing new in the pipeline. Please pray. For your prayers Thank God.... Remember to pray for... ‘
So be careful to do what The Lord has commanded you; do not turn aside to the
right or to the left. Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded
you, so that you may live long and prosper and prolong your days in the land
that you will possess.’ |
