Our World Cup may be over but Jesus is Forever!

Well the dreams of World Cup win for England are over for another 4 years but my World Cup was anything but boring.  As you may know we had planned a big event around the opening England vs. USA game on June the 11th.  Well it was an amazing success!

We were praying for 1000 people to come throughout the day and in fact we had well over 2000 people come along.  We served 1500 servings at our free BBQ and had a team of table talkers ready to meet and greet people as they say down to eat.  Right up until the day we didn't know how many teams we would have for the five-a-side tournament but in the end we had plenty of teams and lots of fun.

It took a lot of crazy planning and fund raising to afford the big screen but it was well worth it in the end.  You could see the screen from the Barking Road and it drew many people in who we have never met before.  For the main event (screening the England vs. USA match) we had around 400 people stay and watch with us.

After the event a local police sergeant came to speak with me and was absolutely amazed that there were no incidents of any kind.  No fights, nothing stolen, no complaints and zero unrulely behaviour!  He couldn't believe it for a football event of this size.  I told him, "We had help from the man upstairs." He laughed.

Numbers are nice but not everything.  The vision of this event was to deepen old relationships and to start new ones and to cast our nets wider and find people God is working in and start introducing them to Jesus.

Through the day over 2000 invites to church were handed out to people who had a really a great time.  My prayer is that those people will now not only know about the Church on their doorstep but will be glad we're around.  Hundreds of people had one to one conversations with our table talkers (who didn't just talk around tables).  My prayer is that they would be brave enough now they've met a real bona-fide Christian - and seen that we don't have three heads - to one day to cross the threshold of a church!


It will take a long time to figure what the total impact from this event will be.  But already little glimpses are starting to come clear.  Here is one example.  Yesterday I was out on Serving Sunday offering to do odd jobs for people on behalf of the church.  One Muslim family seemed very sceptical about me until I mentioned the Fun Day and immediately the door was opened and now I have a gardening job booked there next week!  The door to this home was opened by our Fun Day.  Please pray with us that many more will be opened and Jesus' name will be honoured.

Thanks for all your prayers,


BenAboutLondon

Jesus wins at the World Cup - part 2

England are playing the USA on their opening World Cup game next week and I predict a 2-1 victory to England!  It'll be a tough game but I think we have what it takes (even without Beckham).  But seriously whoever wins our church is hoping to see a victory in building bridges and reaching our local community.  A few months ago I posted a blog about a World Cup Family Funday we were praying to run.    I'm happy to say that all the money, help and almost all the volunteers we needed to run the day have been provided.  God has brought us help though More Than Gold, the Mustard Seed Foundation, Transform Newham, and even Barclay's bank.  Even our promotion of the even has been really blessed.  The other day we had free advertising on BBC News. No one knows how they heard about it but we're glad they did.  

"Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you!" 2Thessalonians 3:1

They think it's all over... Well it isn't yet!  There is still a loads more to do.  Please pray with us:

• Praise God - for all the answers to prayer and miracles so far.
• Leaflet distribution - please pray we get the rest of the leaflets out.
• 1000 people - please pray in faith with us that we can reach 1000 people through the day.
• More teams - pray that we get more teams for the five-a-side tournament.
• Table talkers - For the people who will be sitting round the tables at the BBQ meeting and greeting people and talking about life and faith.
• Volunteers - please pray the final volunteers are found.
• Safety - please pray for our team of security so that the whole day goes without any issues.
• All the rest - All the little things that need to get sorted by the day that are too numerous to mention.
• God's glory - that He would be put first in everything on the day!

Thank you for joining with us!

BenAboutLondon