Here is the run down of the Five-A-Side tournament I took some guys to the other day.  It's early days hoping to take twice as many next time!

City Gate Church Retain the Newham 5s Title

In a competitive Newham Community 5s on Monday December 13^th, City Gate Church won the last match of the tournament to clinch the Cup for a second time. A close 2-1 victory over early favourites Cliff Walk Church brought the trophy home.

The 5-a-side games were very high scoring at the Academy in Loughton with some tremendous goals being scored. The football followed a talk given by local footballer and West Ham Physio Seyi Oni. Seyi shared how his love of football is entwined with his Christian faith and how he had walked away from Church during his teenage years, but is so much happier now he is back with God first and then football in his life.

The Newham Community Sports Team is a branch of World Sport Ministries and stage regular sporting events in Newham, usually played with Christian Spirit and values! For more details please contact newham@worldsportministries.com . Sports quizzes and golf days are other events regularly staged.

Results

1^st. City Gate Church 12 points (scored 19, against 12)

2^nd. Cliff Walk Baptist Church 10 points (scored 19, against 9)

3^rd. Bonny Downs Green 10 points (scored 20, against 16)

4^th. Bonny Downs Orange 3 points (scored 13, against 34)

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

Share Jesus, Kick a football!

Don't let your love for sport stop you telling people about your faith.  Instead you can use sport as a valuable tool to take the gospel to people who are hard to reach.  

Last weekend we held the Crossbar Challenge (quiz) at the Sports Pavilion where we meet for Cafe Church.  About 50 sports loving people (mainly guys turned up) and we had a great time.  The quiz had 6 rounds and was created by Christians In Sport.  Including lots of multimedia (including video clips, sound bites and amazing photographs) the production value of the quiz was outstanding. The highlight for me though was seeing guys who would never think about coming to church sitting next to guys from Cafe Church and having a great time.

At half-time I shared my testimony and you could have heard a pin drop.  I really felt God's help as I spoke and had a few gospel conversations afterwards.  On the response slips at least two people said they would like to talk more about having a relationship with Jesus!   Also, we've already had two people visit us at Cafe Church from the quiz.  All in all a great evening

So, if you love Jesus and enjoy sport let me encourage you, don't see them as opposing forces, instead you can use your passion for sport to bring people to Jesus!  In fact using sport as a tool for evangelism is one of the best ways of reaching young men, who are the people hardest to reach.

If you would like some help in setting up a sports related ministry contact World Sport Ministries.  WSM have been an invaluable support in setting up a Community Sports Team in Newham.  The Crossbar Challenge was the second sports outreach we have run as a CST but we have many more ideas in the pipe-line.  For example we are going to be running a Family Sports Fun-day on Saturday the 12th June.  During the event we're planning a free BBQ, a five-a-side football tournament and showing the England v USA World Cup game on a giant 16m2 LED TV.  But the main event will be testimonies being shared, bibles being handed out and people signing up for Alpha style courses.

Thank you for all your prayers for the Crossbar Challenge.  Please continue to pray for us as we plan future events.

And don't forget share Jesus, kick a football!

Ben 

Christmas Cafe

Merry Christmas everyone! Let me start by thanking everyone that prayed for our Candlelit Cafe this past Sunday, it went really well. We had over 35 people come. Most were cafe regulars but we did have a few visitors amoungst us.
It was a pretty simple format. People arrived and were served Glogg (Swedish mulled wine) and Christmas goodies. We sat around and chatted about what we were doing on Christmas day and other seasonal stuff.

After about 30 minutes we started the main event. No one led it but I did start it off. Basically the format was a video Bible reading (from last years Baptism Union "Bethlehem readings" DVD), followed by a brief testimony from a member of the church that related in some way to the reading, and then we sung a carol. We did this four times and then I did a brief talk.

My main point was to show that if all Christmas was about, celebrating the birth of a poor baby 2000 years ago, then that isn't really worth celebrating. But as the testimonies demonstrated Jesus is still changing lives and relevant today. All the people who shared were very different and were all united through their relationship with Jesus.
My challenge was to ask people to take the time this Christmas to think about whom this baby grew up into and what he came to do. I wanted them to get beyond the prologue of His birth to see His amazing life, death and resurrection.

Afterward, we continued with the refreshments and converstaion.  I was encouraged to see that people wanted to invite their friends to come along to Cafe Church in the New Year. I think the combination of God's word and live testimonies proving it true was a very powerful mix. Please pray for the non Christians who came along.

I'm off on my Christmas Hol's now and looking forward to the break before 2010.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Ben