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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:
Realising that the man only spoke Arabic, plan B kicked into action. I reached for the green Arabic copy of Luke’s gospel. Proudly I held it up the right way. My cultural savviness was paying off; I know that this language reverses the reading direction. This is going well! Simultaneously he began closing the door as he said ‘Islam’. The conversation quickly progressed to plan C.
Yeah-soos?? Yeah-soos?? Yeah???
As the door closed, the smile on Robbo’s face said it all. Yes. I said Jesús in Spanish instead of Arabic.
I could justify my cultural faux pas by explaining to you that my mission team is very Anglo-Christian. It does include 3 Dave’s, 3 Matt’s, 2 Andrew’s and 2 Daniel’s. Or maybe I just need to work harder at understanding people and cultures…
THIS POST ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.
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:
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.
I met my host family tonight. Lovely family. We spent about 4 hours chatting! Around midnight the family of 4 had dwindled down to 1. So it was just the father and me left. I was getting tired. But I didn’t want to be the one to break off the conversation. So in my head I thought I’d play chicken with him. Last one left standing wins.
By 1am I realised that I needed to call it off. But I couldn’t. I had to win. I thought if I just held out for another minute or two, he’d say “good night” first. He didn’t. I did. He wins. I lose. That’s okay.
I miss my family already, but here are 3 reasons why being billeted is gold:
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:
Merrylands already have their MP3s online. Check out this morning’s sermons.
THIS POST ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.
Next week is Moore College mission. We’ve just set up a team blog that will have updates from each of the teams. Get the word out. Let me know if you want to write.
ALSO – if you’re a tweeter, use the hashtag #MooreMission when tweeting about mission. Follow all the MooreMission tweets here.
Check out the site: mooremission.wordpress.com