It’s taken 6 days, but I’ve now recovered from all-you-can-eat at the Merrylands’ Men’s Fight Night last week! It seemed like a good idea at the time, but 10 different types of meat with next to no vegetables really wasn’t a brilliant idea. Excessive food consumption aside, partnering with Merrylands Anglican Church was a joy for our team of Moore College students.

If you missed our posts during mission – they are listed below the jump:

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We’ve sent a number of advance troops out to leaflet commuters at Merrylands Station each morning. If you’ve spent much time catching trains around Sydney City, you’ll realise that commuters are willing to read any trash you put in their hands. MX is the prime example. Trashy journalism at it’s best, or worst. Yet everyone reads it!

Merrylands Anglican Church and/or Moore College don’t have the budget to produce glossy glossy publications every day, but we figure that we can provide some content that’s less trashy and hopefully a little more thought-provoking.

It works. People take it. People read it. Here is tomorrow morning’s edition: Can you really say there’s only one true religion? (PDF)

I think this is an evangelism/engagement strategy that churches could use once a week. If you’re near a busy train station or bus stop, here’s what you do:

1. get someone with basic skills* in design to provide a simple template
2. write a brief article with a thought provoking/provocative title
3. advertise church and/or some upcoming events
4. throw in a puzzle and some pictures
5. print it A5 double sided
6. give it to people thursday (or whenever) morning each week

Hey presto!

Does anyone know of churches/ministries doing this regularly??

*basic skills = knowing that Comic Sans is a bad font!

THIS POST ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.

The street we door-knocked this afternoon had an unusually high number of people offering us to come in for a drink. It may have been the heat, or maybe that’s just how they roll. We thought it would have been rude to reject the kind invitations. So we enjoyed the hospitality in four local Merrylands’ homes.

I don’t normally drink instant coffee. I’m not a coffee snob, but you’re a jerk if you reject an instant coffee when door knocking. Maybe you’re a jerk at any time if you reject instant-coffee-hospitality! So I drank the coffee.

While drinking, I explained Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee & the Tax Collector from Luke 18. She seemed to understand that God doesn’t accept the religious, but those who throw themselves on God for mercy. Yet, when pressed on what gave her confidence before God, she insisted that it was because she was good, moral and obedient. Pray she’d understand the Jesus-bit.

Here are 3 observations on this street:

1. There are many religious people in Merrylands willing to talk about Jesus
2. Their confidence before God is in their religiosity and not the work of Jesus
3. Colin Buchanan’s DVD is pretty much like smuggling Bibles into North Korea

Merrylands already have their MP3s online. Check out this morning’s sermons.

THIS POST ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.