Chatting with the "ends of the earth"

You might already know but this year is our Year of Breakthrough at Bonny Downs Church.  We are praying into six areas that are specific challenges for our church at the moment to seek God's action and guidance.  One f those areas is building relationships for sharing Jesus across Newham's diverse cultures.

Bonny Downs has a good history of sharing Jesus and seeing lives changed from people within the white East End community.  They can be tough, direct and are generally suspicious of religion (unless they are devout Catholics). None the less Jesus as been drawing them to our church.  However, if we truly want to represent Jesus and His kingdom we need to be reaching out and winning more that just those who are like us! We need to be sharing Jesus with people from every nation, tribe and tongue! And we are in the ideal place for it!

(The Lord) says: "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." Isaiah 49:6

Newham is the most ethnically diverse borough in the UK. A massive 70% is made up of ethnic minorities from all over the world. India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Poland, Lithuania, Nigeria, Guiana, Iran, Egypt and the Congo to name a few. All of these nations and more can be found within a few hundred metres or so from my front door! Regardless of what the government might say about the Multicultural Experiment these different cultures do not easily mix. Although we are not split into ghettos (whole communities of just one ethnic group), building real friendships across cultural boundaries is very difficult. And if you can't build real relationships you can't share Jesus in a personal and relevant way.

So we are praying and God is answering!

Let's Get Chatting

At the start of the year some of the women in our church had the idea of a group to help local people practice conversational English. We don't have the skills to teach ESOL but we do love to chat with people.

As the women we're meeting other mums from different backgrounds small talk would begin. It wouldn't last for long because even if they could speak English their confidence wasn't very high. Especially in general conversation. There is a difference between formal English that you need to know to get by and the type of English you need to actually talk about the weather, or your family or your feelings.

So we started a 6 week course called "Let's Get Chatting". It's a simple format. Come eat lunch together (Halal of course) and chat about a simple set topic with someone who is comfortable with their English. The topics would vary from week to week vary from holidays, family, food to weddings.  The first week we were packed out with 27 people and it has been well attended right thought the course!

One of the highlight was on the topic of "food". Every one brought a dish from their home country and shared traditions and recipes. Not only have we been able to get to know more people from our community, but we've also been able to help them build up their confidence.

"It's was so wonderful to hear them laugh and tell stories about their weddings and families! We are really starting to become friends." A volunteer from our church

Please pray!

Tomorrow is the last of the 6 sessions of Let's Get Chatting. We are hoping to run it again in the future but more than that we are hoping to build on the relationships already made for Jesus sake!

Please pray with us!